Once upon a time, most women didn’t work outside the home. That meant they had plenty of time to keep the house tidy, cook homemade meals, tend multiple flower beds, and so on. Those days are long gone, yet you may still feel you must attain that level of perfection in your home.
If the pressure of yesteryear wasn’t enough, we modern women also face a steady stream of beautiful images from HGTV, social media, and magazines that make our houses look unsophisticated, uninviting, and hopelessly disorganized in comparison.
How can we compete with these expectations?
We can’t!
And yet, we keep trying. And it’s stressing us out.
“No matter how hard you work, the to-do listen ever ends. The more you chase the unattainable goal of perfection in the home, the more stressed you become.” Alice D. Domar, Ph.D.
Why do we do this?
Most likely because we have accepted unhelpful auto-thoughts about what our homes and lifestyles should look like. Somewhere along the line, we’ve mistakenly accepted the notion that our homes need to look as coordinated, organized, and spotless as the ones in the glossy photos.
News flash! Those photos don’t reflect reality.
More importantly, creating a magazine-cover-worthy house shouldn’t be our goal in the first place.
What do you want your home to be?
Is your home a showpiece to impress others and show off your decorating and housekeeping prowess? Or is your home a safe, comfortable haven for you and your family to relax, recharge, and prepare for tomorrow?
When we focus on creating a home where family can thrive and grow instead of fixating on perfect housekeeping, we find a healthier balance and no longer feel compelled to work ourselves to the bone chasing impossible standards.
You know you have a problem with perfection in your home when…
- You find yourself cleaning the house before the cleaning service arrives.
- You find it impossible to sit down and relax with the family when you know there are unfinished household chores you ought to be doing.
- After a long day at work, you stay up past 11:30 making homemade 100% organic granola so your kids can have a wholesome and healthy breakfast before heading to school.
- You feel compelled to celebrate your child’s upcoming birthday with your usual lavish party that includes a from-scratch cake and hand-crafted decorations, even when you are recovering from surgery.
So, what can you do to overcome the impossible expectation of perfection in your home? Here are some tips to get you started.
Set outdated housekeeping expectations aside.
Scrutinize your expectations for housekeeping, cooking, entertaining, and gardening. Are they realistic? Ask yourself, “What is reasonable for my schedule, my energy level, and my season of life?”
Busy modern women don’t have the bandwidth their mothers or grandmothers did for housekeeping. We need to jettison those outdated standards and embrace a more streamlined or practical ones.
As we age, we may decide that our stamina and knee joints simply aren’t up to maintaining so many flower beds or keeping up with cleaning the way we’d wish. Those standards have become outdated, and It’s time to reevaluate and find a better solution.
What outdated expectations do you need to reevaluate?
Count the cost
When you feel frustrated or stressed as you go about a chore, ask yourself, “What is the cost of living up to this expectation?”
What is chasing perfection costing your family? Your ministry? Your own health and wellbeing?
Is it worth it?
For example, might you be holding other family members to unnecessarily high standards of tidiness or organization? If your drive for perfection is causing frustration on both sides, consider finding a compromise.
Embrace imperfect help
I know it can be painful to allow others to help with household chores when they don’t (or can’t) accomplish the high standards we strive for. But how will kids master these household tasks if we don’t give them a chance to learn? For more on avoiding this trap of overfunctioning, read this post.
Face the fact that doing it all yourself is neither wise nor doable. Instead of getting annoyed when others don’t attain your standards, try gratitude. Be grateful for imperfect but willing helpers instead of finding fault (or worse, redoing it after they finish).
Identify housekeeping essentials vs want-tos.
Getting reasonably nutritious meals on the table is an essential. Making sure every meal is 100% healthy is not. Keeping the bathroom clean and sanitary is essential. Keeping the mirror spotless is not. Tidying the living room regularly is essential. Keeping the books in the bookcase is alphabetical order is not.
Where are you wasting time chasing unnecessary cleaning chores? What non-essential household tasks could you push to the back burner so you could have more time and energy for the relationships and tasks that really matter?
Material for this post was adapted from the book Be Happy without Being Perfect: How to Break Free from the Perfection Deception by Alice D. Domar, Ph.D. with Alice Lesch Kelly
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