Perfectionism. The imperfect chapter of My Beautiful Mess that didn’t make the cut.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
As the field commander of the marching band, the metronome set the pace. My fingers obeyed. Marching rather than dancing across the ebony & ivory keys in the sequence they knew so well. Three, then four, then three, then four. And onward they would march two octaves at a time. My hands perfectly synchronised.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Sequentially, I would work my way up the musical alphabet, one regimented drill at a time. The major scales following by the minors. I love the menacing tone of a minor scale. It’s like a suspenseful, haunting thread that weaves itself through a composer’s story. Anticipation rising in the mind of the listener who quizzically awaits the crescendos final reveal.
Then I fumble. My 3rd & 4th left fingers, always a little weaker, entangled somewhere amongst the sharps & flats.
Damn. Back to the beginning. The set had to be perfect before Mum could sign it off.
The shrill screech of the oven timer interrupted my thought. 20 minutes done. It was 6.30am & time to get ready for school. I could only hope my fingers would be obedient for my piano teacher that afternoon.
Her wooden ruler hurt.
My earliest memory of feeling fearful of disappointing someone was at the age of 9 in my piano teacher’s front room. It was a musty room. A frosted glass ceiling light illuminating the space with a warm, dim glow. Mulberry carpet blanketed the floor while shelves overstuffed with reams of music lined the textured wall-papered walls. Some days it felt like those walls were closing in on you.
In the hours leading up to my lessons the knots in my stomach would start. Tying it into a pretzel by the time I arrived. Nervously I’d wait on the front stairs, fidgeting incessantly. I’d pick at my nails and chew off any white bits that risked being heard as clicks on the keys.
The moment I’d hear the wooden floor boards of her Queenslander home creak under her weight, I’d snap to attention. It was time. As she appeared, I would quickly scan the expression on her face. A smile meant a good mood. Pursed lips meant I’d be walking on egg shells while wishing the next 30 minutes away. A flawless performance the only way to avoid flicking her mood into a volcanic eruption at any given moment.
Obediently I would follow her trailing alchemised scent of menthol moth balls and cheap talcum powder into her den. Her two baby grand pianos ready and waiting for me to take my place. Back straight. Shoulders back. Wrists up. Always wrists up.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Off it would start as I’d warm up my fingers praying not to hit a hurdle that would disappoint.
Music was her life. Her dedication to her pupils fierce. Her expectations, mountainous. If she detected a whiff of talent or a disciplined mind, she wouldn’t only push, she would demand effort. It was a combination that would deliver her music school a perfect, effortless performance in the eyes of examiners and on the stage of public eisteddfods.
For that 30 minutes I was driven by fear. Fear of disappointing someone whose opinion I made matter. The more distinctions I achieved, the worse it became. Expectations climbing a little higher each time. The more they rose, the further there was to fall.
In the end, after 8 years of piano practise governed by the oven timer, beautifully composed sonatas and arias filled me with resentment rather than joy. I couldn’t face my teacher to quit. I literally ghosted her, decades before I knew what the word even meant. Mum and Dad had the pleasure of mopping up the mess.
Discretely & unwittingly, I was setting myself up for an adulthood of people pleasing. Not realising, people pleasers rarely please anyone, least of all themselves. (1)
Naively, I was designing life like a stage worthy performance under glaring Hollywood lights. The audience, an ominous dark sea of eyes beyond the stage edge. Their watchful gaze adjudicating my every move.
Each carefully choreographed live performance had to be flawless, offering the illusion of Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow”. Someone who could deliver the appearance of total immersion and happiness in life.
Success meant keeping up appearances. Yet behind the optics of effortless grace, was an actress far from enjoying the moment.
Here I was, a girl and later a woman, petrified of her missteps. Of disappointing the audience of my life, fearful they would discover I was full of flaws and not special at all. I was merely someone who worked my butt off for the reassuring nod of their approval.
It was a vicious, self-deprecating cycle and the birth of my perfectionism. Like a drug, I needed it to avoid feeling like a failure.
That would be too shameful to bear.
That is what perfectionism is. A self-destructive, addictive belief system, fuelling the thought, “If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimise the painful feelings of shame, judgement and blame.” (2)
A perfectionist’s life, or parts of their life becomes an illusion. Your priority, maintaining the meticulous highlight reel you have created for your audience. All the while, setting unrealistic and unsustainable standards for yourself.
Each perfect performance after another, you coat yourself in a thin, molten layer of armour. A force field protecting you from the judgement you assume is there. Facts don’t matter. Your default stance is assumption because life has conditioned you to know no different. It becomes the narrative you have created for yourself.
If you assume the worse, you will always be prepared. Your armour shoving your vulnerability far below the surface keeping it safe from foreign threats that feed off its exposure.
There lies the irony. The armour that protects a perfectionist’s vulnerable soul, is the same armour that stops them being able to escape their mind and debunk their misperceptions.
It is not a one-way shield.
By denying themselves access to the world, an armoured perfectionist becomes trapped in the confines of their own mind. Unable to experience connection and understand the true power of vulnerability. The very antidote to the loneliness endemic sweeping today’s world. (3)
They simply cannot win.
Healing only occurs when they decide to crack their armour and let the light of the world shine in and finally, warm their soul.
I remember feeling a little lost in early adulthood as I left the structure of the academic world behind. The cerebral appetite my childhood behaviour had created needed to be fed. It knew no different. Who was judging my performance now?
The methodical, repetitive world of the operating room courtesy of my career in medical device sales, offered the perfect habitat.
With every surgery came a skeleton of sureties. Logistical processes to be followed. Anatomy that governed a masked spinal surgeon’s direction. Repetitive instrument sequences carefully prepared by an obedient nurse’s hand.
The surgical team showed up for the sureties. Performing these flawlessly, an expectation of the person they all worked for. The patient.
When all went swimmingly, the operating room was a playground for the perfectionist because hierarchy silenced the voice of judgment. While the patient was bleeding on the table, there was no room for blame. Particularly when things went wrong, and the playbook changed.
The masked spinal surgeon didn’t want to hear excuses as to why something was missing, broken or dirty. They just wanted to complete the surgery with minimal risk to the patient. And the longer the patient was under a general anaesthetic, the higher the risk.
It took courage in those moments to own a mistake. Responsibility relieving you of the burden caused by blame.
But not everyone reacts the same way.
At times, an operating room could become battle of two perfectionists.
Anterior cervical discectomy and fusions (ACDF) are generally, straight forward operations. A common procedure in most masked spinal surgeon’s armamentarium. They are a surgeon’s solution to a patient’s searing arm pain caused by a bulging or ruptured intervertebral disc. The disc removed and replaced by a small interbody cage to maintain disc space height.
In the early days, when I hadn’t yet earnt my stripes to deserve the complex surgeries, ACDFs were thrown my way. For the medical device representative, they are a terrific training ground for the consciously incompetent, as you grapple with your ascent up the steep learning curve of the medical device world.
The dozens of surgical instruments, each with their own strange name. The restrictive rules governing a sterile environment. Understanding the what, why and how of the surgical technique. And navigating the unpredictable, complex personality of said masked spinal surgeon. Each component needing to be understood comprehensively before you are on your open license.
As I became comfortable with the ACDF selling conversation, slowly surgery bookings started trickling through. One then two per week quickly became one then two per day. Soon, I was rushing around Melbourne juggling these short sharp cases. Always challenging myself to execute each perfectly. Down to the words I chose and the timing within which I spoke. It became my own little game. Each win growing my confidence a little more.
That is, until the day the world turned upside down. Literally.
This particular masked spinal surgeon had performed hundreds of ACDFs with my companies implants. His instruments sequence as predictable as night and day. A straight forward surgery taking him less than 60 minutes skin to skin. Once the implant was delicately tapped into the patient’s empty disc space and the implant holder removed, the next patient was called. We were on our way out.
This day was different. As I went to jot down the size of the implanted device I heard my name, “Peta?”
“Yes doctor,” I replied, wondering what the heck he wanted now.
“There is something wrong with this implant.” he said. Slightly annoyed.
“What do you mean?” I asked with trepidation. Bracing myself for what this short fused masked spinal surgeon might unleash.
“The writing that is usually the right way up when I remove the implant holder, is upside down.”
“Could you have implanted it upside down?” I asked while my eyes met those of the scrub nurse. Both of us confident she loaded the implant on the holder correctly.
“Remover!” he said with force. I guess he wasn’t going to answer my question.
Out the implant came, its orientation checked, and it was reloaded by the masked spinal surgeon on the holder.
Again, the implant was gently tapped into the patient’s neck. I held my breath as the holder was removed.
“It’s the bloody implant! It’s faulty!” he yelled.
“Here we go,” I thought, preparing myself for the inevitable rant. While the printing might have been upside down, he knew the implant wasn’t faulty. The printing not designed as an indicator of orientation. That was the job of the notch to the right of the insertion hole.
“This was the perfect operation! I’ve implanted hundreds of these and the writing on the implant is my indicator it is orientated correctly. You need to report this.”
“If we knew it was loaded correctly, did the print orientation really matter?” I thought. Not daring to speak the words out loud. I knew full well this seemingly slight imperfection, mattered to my technical perfectionist masked spinal surgeon. It could have significant ramifications.
We had just given him what I always did my darndest to avoid. A reason to change suppliers.
The blame game began and didn’t stop until he stopped using my implants a few short weeks later. All because somewhere along the line in the manufacturing process, the numbers printed on the implant had changed orientation. A fact we learned after completing our due diligence. The integrity of the implant unaffected.
His show had to go on. Perfectly.
Peta x
Sales Coach | Consultant | Mental Health Speaker with Beyond Blue
Author of My Beautiful Mess - Living through burnout & rediscovering me
Founder Momentum Mindset™
(1) Nekpavil, K. (2022) Power. Penguin Life Australia. p189.
(2) Brown, B.(2012) Daring Greatly. Penguin Random House.
(3) Murthy, V. (2021) Together. Harper Collins Publishing.