Sometimes, the reason that it is hard to get along with others, is that we believe things should be done a certain way. We give almost moral weight to doing things the way that we think are the “right” or “wrong” way, when they are not “wrong” and “right” ways, but different ways. Getting along with others requires a willingness to give up our personal preferences and desires. There is nothing wrong with sharing a personal preference. We can have opinions and even ask for what we want. The problem is when we let our desires become demands. If we are getting angry, then we know our desire has become a demand. Also, when we want things our way too often, we become difficult to get along with. We need to be able to hold our preferences with an open hand. This requires the ability to accept and respect the way other people do things, even if they are not our way.
A perfectionist is someone who becomes obsessed with relatively trivial matters. They declare these matters to be moral (right or wrong), when they are not. They make trivial matters of utmost importance. They allow these things to become more important than the relationship, and cause division between people. They give criticism and withhold praise when things are not perfect. They are willing to get angry and argue about small issues.
A perfectionist also holds themselves to an impossibly high moral standard, and judges themselves harshly for not achieving perfection. They also sometimes see themselves as less flawed than they actually are, because it is too scary to admit to themselves that they are not perfect. Perfectionism gives a false sense of value, and false sense of pride.
The root cause of perfectionism is a belief that your worth is determined by the opinion of others, and by what you accomplish, and fail to accomplish. They believe that they gain or lose value based on their behavior. A perfectionist has too low of an opinion of himself because he has normal human limitations and fails to be perfect. But he is also prideful in his ability to maintain stricter criteria than other humans.
The cure for perfectionism is to accept yourself as a human being with human limits and human vulnerabilities to mistakes and criticisms.
The way you see yourself affects the way you treat others, because we evaluate others using the same criteria we use for ourselves. Your value does not come from being perfect. Remember that when you make a mistake, it does not need to threaten your value. Learn to be comfortable with mistakes and imperfection. Have compassion for yourself instead of getting angry with yourself. This will lead to having more patience and compassion for others.
Strive to be perfectly human (dependent on God) instead of being perfect. In other words, know your identity.
Most people look to their skills, accomplishments, status, and or appearance for their identity. Identity is very tied to self-acceptance, self-worth, self-image, and self-esteem. It is all “how I view myself”. People use these things as a source of being “ok” with yourself, feeling like you are “enough”, feeling confident and secure, liking yourself. When we get our identity from things about us, it leads to either pride or self-hatred/low self-esteem. We need to discover our God given identity and gain our self-acceptance from the only true source of our worth.
Who are you? What is your Identity? You are God’s prized creation. You possess dignity. You are worthy of respect. You are worthy of high esteem. You are God’s chosen and adopted child. You are a loved son or a loved daughter. You are a citizen of heaven. You are God’s heir. You are worth dying for. You are worth saving. You are worth loving every day of eternity.
3 Biblical Truths:
1.We are only valuable because of God’s love. We are not valuable because of looks, talents, or anything that we do. God’s love is the only thing that makes us valuable. This truth leads us to humility as we realize our need for dependence on God rather than ourselves. We are incapable of earning our own value.
2.We are completely valuable because of God’s love. God’s love actually makes us worthy of respect and high esteem. This truth leads us to a very positive self-image, but not in a prideful way, because it is based on what God has done not what we have done. We receive our value as a gift, not something we can earn. This gift is unconditional; it can’t be earned or lost by our behavior. We can be confident and secure in our value as a person at all times because of God’s love.
3.We can never be more or less valuable than anyone else. There is no room for comparison. God decides who is valuable, not us, and not the world. And God said everyone has value, so everyone does. God says that every single one of us is important, valuable and needed, and no one is any more or less valuable than anyone else. God gave us value and we should not let anyone take it away. We need to decide to be secure in His love for us. And we should never treat someone else like they are less valuable than us, because that would be like stealing away from them the value that God gave them.
