Effortlessly Perfect

One belief system still very active within me is this: “I have to be perfect to feel safe.” At first glance, that might sound extreme—but for me, it’s a quiet and persistent truth. I don’t say it out loud. I don’t even fully realize I believe it half the time, because it is extreme and I know it’s not true. But that’s the thing with the emotional mind—it’s often deeply irrational. Nonetheless, the belief is still there, and it shapes how I approach tasks, relationships, transitions, and more.

It came from a place of trying to make sense of things I didn’t have the awareness or cognitive ability to understand as a child (because I was a child). And for much of my early life, it worked. But it doesn’t work the way it used to.

Growing up, I was always told I was smart—but also not meeting my full potential. It became part of my identity: I was the “gifted” kid, the one who was effortlessly intelligent but still had some left in the tank. However, underneath that ease was the pressure to maintain the ease. If I struggled, if I had to ask for help—it felt like I was failing at being myself. Not because anyone ever told me I shouldn’t need help—I don’t remember anyone doing that. I just believed that “gifted” or “smart” meant not needing help. I believed that because, again, I was a child. I didn’t have the self-awareness or cognitive capacity to question it—and it didn’t really feel like a problem. I was good at being effortlessly perfect.

Over time, though, I internalized a dangerous message: my value as a human comes from my ability to be exceptional without effort. Not just to do well, but to appear effortless. Not just to succeed, but to never struggle. Throughout my adolescence, my ability to be exceptional without maxing out effort was frequently tested. There were a lot of bumps, but I always landed on my feet—with some gas left in the tank. Every time that happened, it reinforced the belief that no matter what, I needed to handle things effortlessly. Don’t struggle. Don’t let it show.

Of course, I did struggle. But I couldn’t admit that to myself, let alone consider that other people might be willing to help if I asked. I just put my head down and worked hard to look like I wasn’t struggling. This is avoidance at its core, and I was great at it.

I can give a lot of examples from my adolescence and early adulthood that illustrate this pattern. But it wasn’t until my first semester of law school that the belief system got its first major crack. In many ways, I loved law school. The energy in a building full of incredibly intelligent and motivated people was exhilarating. I never doubted that I belonged. But the idea of being effortlessly exceptional? That cracked pretty quickly.

At least in my day, many law schools took a survival-of-the-fittest approach to maintain high standards. That meant an often humiliating version of the Socratic method and a brutal final exam that made up 100% of your grade—on a curve. Most of us grew up being told we were “gifted” and understood the assignment but also silently shared an understanding of the pressure that comes with that title. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone in my identity. I was surrounded by people who got it. We didn’t talk about it much but there was a sense of camaraderie and connection within all the pressure and competition. 

When finals came around, I told myself I’d be fine as long as I got “respectable” grades. I didn’t define that clearly, but internally, I think anything below a B+ felt like failure. When those grades came in, I didn’t fail—but I wasn’t even close to the top. I was in the bottom of the middle. And it hurt like hell. I was shattered. All that camaraderie and connection I felt knowing that my friends and peers were experiencing similar things went right out the window. The pain was so intense I went to my favorite coping mechanism, effortless perfectionism. I had to be effortlessly perfect in handling my pain, so I played it off. Still, that moment exposed how brittle my perfectionism really was. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t problem-solve. I didn’t ask for support. I didn’t regroup and try again. I quit trying. The next semester it was worse.

So, I pivoted away from what I thought I wanted—not because I didn’t want it anymore, but because my belief system told me that if I couldn’t be perfect, I wasn’t allowed to want it. I couldn’t bear to be mediocre, but I also couldn’t bear to admit that’s how I felt.

I told no one what was happening or how I felt. I just changed course and acted like that’s what I wanted all along. I “effortlessly” pivoted from one dream (big law) to another (public service law). I buried the shame and worked to convince myself I never really wanted it anyway.

This was a new dimension to my perfectionism: If you can’t do it effortlessly, then effortlessly act like you never wanted it. To be clear, I have no regrets today. I believe everything unfolded as it needed to. But I feel deep sadness for that young law student who was silently struggling and too ashamed to acknowledge it, let alone ask for the support she needed.

That pattern—effortless perfection or effortless pivoting—really solidified in law school. For example: I effortlessly got a summer internship and was told I was excellent, that they wanted to hire me after graduation, but then they couldn’t offer me a job due to funding. No problem—I’ll pivot. I don’t really want to be a lawyer anyway. Pivot.

I’ve done a lot of pivoting in my life. And in many ways, it is a great skill. But the problem is when the pivoting is driven by fear—fear of struggle, fear of not being enough. That fear can cloud judgment, distort values, and lead to decisions that don’t serve me. This belief system was formed in childhood, fine-tuned in adolescence, and became pervasive in adulthood. It shows up in relationships, in my career, in how I treat myself. I wanted to be someone who had it all together. Who could figure it out alone. Who didn’t need too much. And if I couldn’t be that person? I’d quietly bow out. Change course. Reframe the narrative so I wouldn’t have to confront the pain of not being enough.

Eventually, though, that strategy stopped working. I hit a wall. Years of internal conflict—of misalignment between what I valued and how I lived—caught up to me. I was angry, resentful, and disconnected. And for the first time, I couldn’t rationalize or hustle my way out of it. So I did something bold: I got help. I wish I had gotten help sooner. I could have saved myself from a lot of pain, confusion, and unnecessary isolation. But the truth is, I needed to reach that breaking point to fully submit myself to the help I needed. I had to hit a level of distress that forced me to stop pretending I was fine.

I don’t love that it took that much to get me to let go—but that’s what it took. And the reality is, my breaking point is really, really high. In some ways, that’s an incredible strength. It means I’m resilient, determined, and capable of withstanding a lot. But it also means I can endure things I probably shouldn’t. That I wait too long. That I normalize distress when I could be asking for support.

So yes, I got help—but only after I ran out of ways to avoid it. And as much as I wish that wasn’t the path I had to take, it’s the one that led me here so I choose to appreciate the path because I am deeply grateful for where I am today.

I found a coach that I respected and started working on myself. I also spent three intensive days in a program where I worked on my relationship with my mother - a relationship that informed a lot of the belief systems I was struggling with. I then started doing couples work with my husband. I need a change, dammnit, but this time I asked for people to join me and help me and offered to help them too. I am proud of myself for seeking support and profoundly grateful for the people I love and who love me for being willing to participate in the process with me. We unpacked a lot— beliefs, storylines, roles, etc. It was uncomfortable. It was humbling. And it was life-changing.

I came face-to-face with a truth I had avoided for years: being smart, capable, articulate, and competent wasn’t enough. Not for real connection. Not for real safety. I had to learn to accept myself as I am. Not the polished, always-fine version. The real one. The one who sometimes struggles. Who asks for help. Who doesn’t always have the answer. I am so grateful to not just know it but to believe and feel connected to the fact that I am lovable and safe even when I am struggling. 

Let me be clear: this doesn’t mean I’m “cured.”

The old beliefs still show up. Often. The difference is that now I know how to spot them. I know how to pause, reflect, and respond instead of react. I know what it looks like to lead with curiosity instead of control. I have tools—tools I’ve honed through deep personal work and through helping others do the same.

Today, I have the privilege of being in a different place. Not because I’ve transcended the struggle, but because I’ve built a relationship with myself that allows me to meet the struggle differently. And that difference ripples outward. It supports all of the relationships I have. The relationships I have with my loved ones, clients, the barista at Starbucks. It impacts everything for me and I feel so much more empowered now than I did before I started doing this work. I don’t offer people a version of me who has it all figured out. I offer them a version of me who’s doing the work—and who knows how to help them do it, too.

The beliefs we form to survive are often brilliant. They serve a purpose. But there comes a time for some of us when survival isn’t the goal anymore. I have made it to a place where survival is pretty well established, and it’s a privilege to be in a place where my goals can be about calmness, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, and connectedness. And that doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a zen master. I still have a lot (probably too many) personal and professional goals, but those goals are now more intentionally integrated into a larger and more important goal of being connected and secure within myself. 

That’s the work I do now: helping people who are stuck in the conflict of survival mode rewrite their storylines to reflect the fact that they have reached a place in their life where survival is fairly guaranteed and doesn’t need to be the goal anymore—not by erasing the past, but by honoring it—and choosing something different for the future.