What Does Perfectionism Mean To Me

Throughout my whole life and all of the activities that I am involved in, perfectionism always comes into play. Whether it’s my schoolwork or volleyball, I struggle with this on a daily basis. It’s a blessing because it makes me work harder for what I want but also a curse because it can be very stressful and hurt my confidence. I am beginning to find a way to let it benefit me more than hurt me and I am so glad that I have finally been able to do that.
Working hard, spending hours on homework making sure everything is done to its best. My dark circles accentuate and my face becomes lifeless after I lose more and more sleep and become sleep deprived. The house is dark and silent, everyone's asleep as I am still half awake doing anything I can
But I still had the mentality that no matter how hard I had to work or how long it took, that I was going to get it done and have it done at the standard I wanted it to. My freshman year I specifically remember in my English class that when I was writing papers that I would go and have them checked a million times and I still did not feel confident about them. I would always ask what I could do to bring my grade up because that was the class that I struggled the most with and had the lowest grade in. I spent long gruesome nights fighting to stay awake finishing homework late at night or after games and I remember it being so stressful. The best feeling is when you put so much time and effort into something and having a good result come out of it. That is what kept me from not giving up and not straying away from my studies and
Back then it was all just for fun and games and we had no worries. I started playing club when I was twelve but didn’t start having issues with my confidence until I was about fifteen. As I grew up and it became more competitive to me, the more critical I was on myself. Club got more intense and I started to hold myself to a higher standard. I am a setter for volleyball which means that I set up the hitters to be able to attack the ball, so if I mess up it messes the whole play up. I was super hard on myself and expected to set every ball perfect and when I did not I got so frustrated that I got down on myself. When I get down on myself I tend to play even worse so I was setting myself up for failure. Being so hard on myself took a huge tole on my confidence and even my playing at