How Minimalism Allowed Me to Let Go of Perfectionism
My perfectionism started around third grade when the public school I went to separated out the “gifted kids” based on a test. My scores were high, but there were a lot of gifted kids in my grade and I didn’t make the cut. This disappointment triggered my obsession with perfection, which I later realized was a way to compensate for feeling not good enough.
I remember a cool evening outdoors on the deck with my family. My brothers and I were in the yard while my parents relaxed. I shouted up to my mom, “Starting today, I will be perfect!” At the time, I truly believed perfection was possible.
Over three decades later, I playfully refer to myself as a “recovering perfectionist”.
I don’t recall the exact moment I learned about minimalism, but I think it was sometime in college while I was studying Architecture at Virginia Tech. We read Walden and studied famous minimalist architects like Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Richard Meier, and Mies van der Rohe, who coined the phrase, “Less is more”.
I understood minimalism as a design concept, but I didn’t see it as a self-care philosophy at the time.
After college, I felt overwhelmed by the expectations of “being an adult” (see: HSP). I quickly realized I didn’t want the same kind of life many of my peers were pursuing: a 9 to 5 job and a big house filled with lots of stuff. I felt the freedom and joy of living a simple life in my humble apartment.
A few years later in 2008, I lost my architecture job during the recession and was under-employed until I founded Minima in 2010. During this time, I lived on an average annual income of $10 to $15K. Through necessary minimalism, I stayed out of debt, kept my savings afloat, and learned that freedom was better than anything money could buy. (You can read a more in-depth version of this story here: “My Minimalism Journey”.)
I also learned that by committing to less, I was able to apply my high standards to my day to day life without getting overwhelmed. By keeping things rigorously simple, I had enough breathing room to find joy and beauty in even the mundane parts of life: folding my clothing, cleaning the house, or sending out emails. Daily tasks became a form of meditation. Minimalism made space for presence and reflection. It allowed me to achieve my precise standards without the burnout and self-deprecation of perfectionism.
If I ever feel my neurosis flaring up in a way that is counterproductive, I apply the 80/20 rule to perfectionism. I tell myself: “Do it 80% perfect. You can refine the last 20% if it still bothers you later.” (Spoiler alert: it almost never bothers me later.) I realize the ridiculous nature of a statement such as “80% perfect”—how can something that’s not real be measured? Nonetheless, it works for me.