To be perfectly honest - Written 5 Sept 2018

There’ve been three occasions when I’ve found myself at the crossroads with regard to my professional life. The first was in 1997, after I’d taken a voluntary severance package (‘’the package’’) from the Education Dept, the second was in 2006, when a business venture didn’t work out, and the third was in 2010, when I was retrenched from a language school.

On two of those occasions, I had sessions with life coaches. Each of them (there were two) gave me a lot of insight into myself, including a no-holds-barred look at my strengths and weaknesses. It’s not easy being told that what you consider a virtue is actually a liability, and is holding you back in life, and keeping you from realising your dreams. In my case, it is perfectionism. I often joke that being a perfectionist is time-consuming, but it’s true! And what it effectively does is keep you from moving forward.

Over the years, I’ve learnt, from my life coaches and from things I’ve read or encountered in Ted Talks, that perfectionism is a form of self-sabotage, and is often fear-based. What came as a surprise to me, the first time I was told this, was that I had a fear of success! I’d never even considered that a possibility!

Tonight I decided to think about choices I’d made that were not fear-based, but that were actually made as a complete departure from my default mode of perfectionism.

The best example is my music life. I took piano lessons as a child, and passed Grade 1. I was an okay student, and just loved music. Music made me happy, and was a huge part of my life, because my mom was an opera singer. In my teens, I started playing guitar, and discovered that that was my instrument. I’d always loved singing, and started playing guitar to accompany my singing. Over time, I went from teaching myself to taking lessons with different teachers, each of whom taught me a lot and inspired me to keep pursuing what I loved – making music.  I learnt a mixture of theory and practical, but never went further with my music grades.

Forty years later, I still sing and play my guitar – in fact I do so as a second job. Many people I work with don’t know I’m also a musician. So how does this end up being an example of not being a perfectionist? Basically, I’m working as a musician, but I don’t have the preferred background.  I haven’t studied music at university, I’m so definitely not on the A-list of musicians in Cape Town, and I’m so never going to be asked to perform at certain events in the city. 

But what do I do with my music? I entertain people (usually with covers of well-known songs), I perform my original material (usually at concerts) and I collaborate with other musicians.

Do I earn money from it? Not truckloads, but a bit.  Enough to top up my day-job earnings and make a difference to my household. 

 Does it make me happy? 

More than anyone could ever possibly know.