Pursuing perfection

Renee Singh

Are you having fun in life — is one of my favourite questions for most of my clients and friends. Isn’t that our ultimate purpose, to be feeling joyous and fulfilled? Something we needn’t necessarily focus on consciously yet it’s something that is there and taken for granted.

Feel good

Feeling good is a state we take for granted. We even have a concept that anything called “recreation” should naturally lead us to a “feeling good”. We need to realise that feeling good requires a conscious effort on our part too. It is not just an insular feeling. It is a combination of three things

• Mood
• Events
• Attitude

We can take a vacation or indulge in any kind of recreational activity but we cannot say that we are having fun just because we are doing the right kind of fun activity. A whole lot of people actually carry an underlying anxiety about having fun. If they have spent money on any recreational activity they actually stress over getting their money’s worth in terms of fun.

Pleasure fence

Many extra special occasions can sometimes make us feel anxious as we start expecting too much from them. Pleasure itself becomes an overrated term. Media in a way could be blamed for this. We see successful people shown as constantly positive, cheerful and highly stimulated. This gives us an almost false notion of life. Learning to embrace life in its naturalness is very important. We need to be centred, balanced and in a comfortable space. We feel we need to put a fence around good feelings so that they stay within us. We normally want to hold on to this feel and start to get anxious about it. This becomes a great cause of stress.

Imposter stress

Do you ever feel that you need to feel more enthusiastic about your own victories? Many times even with immense successful achievements people still feel dissatisfied. They are not sure they deserve the success. Psychologist Pauline Clance wrote about the “Imposter Syndrome”. She says that some people never felt happy about their success as they felt they had fooled people. May talented people feel that they had faked it. Werner Erhard says that exhilaration from a long awaited triumph lasts about two weeks. We soon start to take our victory for granted once it’s accomplished.

Attitude shift

Everything depends on our own attitude and how we handle things. To enjoy a victory we need to let go of a struggle to deserve our success. We need to release our tensions to sense the satisfaction.

Be spontaneous

People don’t allow spontaneity to reign in their lives. All actions are carefully thought and implemented, nothing natural and spontaneous rules. This can be very stressful in a way. They need once in a while allow the child within to take over and enjoy the simpler things. Abandon the struggle to control by:

• Wearing your own kind of clothes
• Telling whimsical jokes
• Playing children’s games
• Enjoying junk food

Redesign habits

In order to change our behaviour, we need to step away from our old groove and send ourselves on a different pathway. Try to make self directed growth an integral part of life. Gently and gradually reshape your thinking patterns — thought, feeling, action — let these happen in that order.

(Singh is a Chandigarh-based psychotherapist)