I can struggle with perfectionism, certainly did growing up. To the point of just not trying or self sabotaging, any sort of rebellion against the pressure.

I think a lot of problems arise from the culture of testing. Perpetrating this idea that your achievement can only be measured through some small window rather than as a whole body of work over time, with ups and downs and trials and errors and one step back. It is a fluid state of being to grow and learn and try but we present it as this linear progression with everyone racing to the finish line, to 'best'. And somebody else outside of your control is in charge of this timeline. Like say at school your class spends time learning a period of history, you then have to take the test when they deem you should be ready whether you feel ready or not, you only knew half the facts - 50% bam that's your label even if the next day you learn it all and remember that for life, that's irrelevant to them, they don't let you take the test again, they don't go back to help you as you learn it on that personal and different schedule, I mean that's your window and we're onto something new now. And not having learnt it a day earlier could have been through no fault of your own, you could have been putting in your best, it just needed an extra 24hrs to click into place, so what is even our aim here - is it to learn? Because if it is then why make the when so important and final? Makes it kind of seem like the point is just to ace a series of tests rather than the content. I don't think it sets up a very good perspective to live in a culture where you can't get an answer wrong on the way towards getting it right (or you can as long as it fits into a timeline determined by others), come test day if you get it wrong, that's that. Or what if you have someone who can demonstrate their knowledge of a subject verbally, they have no problem applying it to various situations in their life but they just can't seem to get it straight on a written test (and say in this case this person will never have to use it in test form again) but the test is 70% of their grade so that's it, failure. Having a test at an externally determined time suddenly puts this end stamp on your progression.

And I think parents can fall into that trap too with their children. Say a child is pouring milk and spills it, if a parent is going to make it this big deal suddenly this child is thinking well practice is just an opportunity to be negatively judged or yelled at or punished, I need to achieve perfection first time, there is no room for failure on the way to success. So I don't think it is encouraging people to try their best where we do children disservice, it is in grading their tries and chastising their failures that we stigmatize those two states of being even though they are almost always necessary on the road towards competence and success in whatever area. Towards the aim of achieving your best. This can have deep and long lasting effects on a person.

So I really think we need to be shifting focus away from results and onto the process. The most exciting thing I hear from my kids is them saying "oh this wasn't working so I tried it this way instead" or "I made a mistake but I figured out how to fix it", having extra time and steps towards their goals in no way diminishes their achievements. Making mistakes shouldn't be discouraged; the courage to try, the tenacity to keep trying - those should be celebrated. And doing so with our children is extremely healing to ourselves.

With parenting, there are so many places where we can be tempted to test ourselves - whether it is how we respond to our child is running around the shops or what they had for dinner and we can catch ourselves feeling like we have failed especially if we start grading ourselves against the snapshots of others. But we are still raising the child, we are still within the process stage. We are still allowed to be finding our way and so are our children, that's life.

I think finding your standards is all about building out your ideals into priorities. Which is an ongoing thing but the clearer your priorities, the easier it is to make all the big and small choices that make up your life. And to feel comfortable within them.