Perfectionism, spirals, and why ‘good enough’ is still enough.

Perfectionism, spirals, and why “good enough” is still enough.

I have clean socks. Technically. They have been washed. They have been dried. They are folded—or at least living in the general vicinity of the drawer where clean socks belong.

But are they really clean?

There might be a piece of dog hair on one. A little fuzz stuck to another. And if I happen to walk through the kitchen before putting my shoes on, forget it. Now there’s probably something stuck to the bottom.

This is how an anxious brain works sometimes. Something perfectly acceptable suddenly doesn’t feel acceptable anymore.

And before you know it, we’re not talking about socks.

We’re talking about whether you handled that conversation the right way. Whether your house is clean enough. Whether you said too much. Whether you said too little. Whether you’re doing enough at work. Whether you’re a good enough parent, partner, friend, daughter, son, employee—or human being.

You start with one small thought. Then your brain decides to hold a meeting about it.

Perfectionism doesn’t always look perfect.

When people hear the word perfectionist, they sometimes picture someone with an immaculate house, alphabetized spice rack and perfectly organized calendar.

That can certainly be part of it.

But perfectionism can also look like procrastinating because you’re afraid you won’t do something well enough. It can look like rewriting an email six times. It can be replaying a conversation from three days ago and suddenly becoming convinced that your completely normal comment was, in fact, horrifying.

It can be having a hard time making decisions because you’re trying to find the right decision instead of simply making a reasonable one.

And sometimes it looks like accomplishing something you worked really hard for and immediately noticing the one thing you could have done better.

Anxiety is very good at moving the finish line.

Then comes the spiral.

Most of us have thoughts that aren’t particularly useful. The difference is that an anxious brain often wants to investigate them.

Thoroughly.

“Did I sound rude?”
becomes “Maybe she’s upset with me.”
which becomes “I should probably text her.”
which becomes “No, texting will make it weird.”
which becomes “Why do I always make things weird?”

And suddenly you are mentally reviewing your personality as a whole because someone replied “Okay” instead of “Okay!”

This is what I mean when I talk about spiraling.

Your brain is trying to protect you by anticipating every possible outcome. Unfortunately, it usually does this by focusing heavily on the worst ones.

The goal isn’t to never have these thoughts. That would be another impossible standard.

The goal is learning when to stop following them.

Ask yourself: Is this actually a problem?

One of the things I often encourage people to do is separate what feels uncomfortable from what actually needs to be fixed.

Those are not always the same thing.

Maybe someone really is annoyed with you. Maybe the presentation could have been better. Maybe you did make the wrong decision. Maybe there is, in fact, lint on your sock.

Can you tolerate that?

That’s often where the real work is.

Anxiety likes certainty. It wants guarantees. Unfortunately, life does not offer many.

So instead of asking:

“How can I be completely sure?”
try: “Do I know enough to move forward?”

Instead of:

“Was this perfect?”
try: “Was this good enough?”

And perhaps the most difficult one:

“Can I leave this alone now?”

“Good enough” is not giving up.

Accepting “good enough” doesn’t mean you stop caring. It doesn’t mean lowering every standard you have or walking around doing a terrible job and calling it personal growth.

It means recognizing when more effort is no longer improving the outcome—it’s just feeding the anxiety.

There is a point where rereading the email again will not help. There is a point where researching one more option will not make the decision easier. There is a point where thinking about the conversation for another hour is not going to reveal the hidden meaning behind someone saying, “Sounds good.”

Sometimes you have enough information. Sometimes you did enough. Sometimes the thing is finished.

Send the email.
Make the decision.
Leave the house.
Wear the socks.

Your brain may disagree.

Of course it will.

That doesn’t mean you have to obey it.

An anxious thought can be loud without being accurate. You can notice it without solving it. You can feel uncertain without immediately trying to make the uncertainty disappear.

You can even say, “There’s my brain doing that thing again.”

And then continue with your day.

This takes practice. A lot of it.

But over time, you can learn to recognize the difference between a problem that actually needs your attention and a thought that simply wants more of it.

And if you occasionally leave the house wearing socks with a little lint on them?

I think we’re going to be okay.

The biggest change I made is that I combined several of the one- and two-sentence paragraphs from the first version. That should immediately eliminate a lot of what you’re seeing in the screenshot, while still keeping the punchy Keri-style lines where they actually have impact.