It's the 100th episode!  How hard is it to be at 100 or be perfect?

 The 100 Emoji indicates a perfect score of 100 . This symbol is displayed as a red number 100 underlined twice.  Essentially it means "keep it a hundred" (%), basically it's another way of saying keep it real, great job or well done.

As caregivers, we put so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect.  Those high expectations you put on yourself.  

Striving for 100% or perfection can be a good thing.   You want to be more organized. You're learning to be a better advocate by asking better questions.  You are committing to self-care each day.  You are meal prepping.  You are committing to a better mindset.  

But how do you feel when you can’t succeed or you can't get there.  

It’s great to strive for perfection.  It's a great thing to look for better ways to do things, pushing yourself to new ways of think, committing to a healthier and happier you and embracing joy and the good in caregiving.  But you can’t expect everything to go as planned and be this perfect beautiful world. Reality is that caregiving and your life will have challenges, struggles and failures no matter how much you try to avoid it. 

The true 100 win in life is taking a step back after each situation, and asking yourself  what can I learn from it.   Why didn’t thing go as planned.  What could I do better?  

Unhealthy perfectionism can lead to caregiver stress, burnout and fatigue including worry, stress, anxiety, and depression, among other potential negative outcomes.  

The problem with perfectionism and the reason you'll want to know if you possess any perfectionistic traits is that perfectionists actually tends to achieve less and stress more than regular high achievers.  You’ll find yourself not enjoying life, not being productive, not wanting to do things and clamming up.  
It can be characterized by an excessive focus on control. People may become extremely picky and preoccupied with making sure that everything is flawless, which can lead to attempts to control situations or people. This can contribute to stress and it takes a toll on interpersonal relationships.

It can lead to fear of failure.  Mistakes seem like the end of the world. You beat yourself up over each slip up.Lack of perfection implies lack of control.

Perfectionists set unreasonable goals, no matter how hard they try and how many goals they  achieve.  You feel your accomplishments are never quite good enough. You're frantic and fearful they won’t get things done.  

Perfectionists are rarely happy, and whatever joy you do experience usually doesn’t last long. You put tremendous, persistent pressure on yourself.  

Where do you fall in the 100 perfectionism trap?   How to avoid the trap of perfectionism:

• Recognize perfection is an unhealthy illusion
• Change self-defeating thoughts and behaviors
• Confront fear of failure

Action Steps:  

• Spend time with yourself:    What do you do when you making a mistake,  how do you treat yourself when you forget something?  Does your actions or a spoken statement keep you up at night and you can’t let it go? Recognizing it and accepting it is key.
• How are you going to handle these going forward.   Journal out lessons learned.
• Download https://www.cathylvan.com/caregiverstress 
• Embrace your mindset and lessons learned.   Share your lessons learned.