How to Stop Nitpicking and Rest in Acceptance (Enneagram 1s)

Dear Perfectionist,

Let’s begin with permission to pause–your hands, yes, but also your mind. You’ve got an uncanny ability to pinpoint what’s incomplete, what was sacrificed to haste, what falls short of its full potential.

Most who know you would say you’re constantly fixing what’s wrong, using your keen attention to details to better the world–and other people. What they don’t know is that you see the imperfection in yourself far more easily than you do in anyone else.

In fact, within the quietness of your own mind, you’re ruthlessly brutal towards yourself. You spend way more time nitpicking yourself than anything–or anyone–else.

You negate the compliments, dismiss the encouragement, sabotage yourself, pity your smallness. Beneath your unrest is a nagging fear that you’ll never measure up. Never get it right. Never be good enough.

Even when you nail it, you can’t enjoy the win. You pick apart your consistency or efficiency, point out your mistakes, propose an even stricter standard for yourself–all inside your head.

Time for a Trade

To you, exhausted from trying so hard to be perfect, weighed down by feeling worthless, worrying about what others think of you–let’s take a big exhale together.

It’s time for a trade: The intrusive anxiety, the dreaded insufficiency, and the battle in your mind–for acceptance that doesn’t hinge on your perfection.

As you take a slow, steady breath, let your shoulders relax and your hands rest–palms-up and open. 

Here’s for your heart:

It’s okay if you miss a step. God says loving you is never a mistake.

It’s all right if you fall behind. God is behind you and before you and within you.

It’s fine if you flounder. God gives you more grace than you give yourself.

Now, between just you and God, what is your inner critic saying? And what is God saying?

Close your eyes and converse with God, or jot down a list on paper or your phone as you sit with these questions. 

Next, imagine yourself tossing your list of untruths your inner critic says about you in a river. Watch the paper float away as the words blur and erase and the paper disintegrates.

Perhaps your second list contains some of these truths about the way God sees and accepts you:

• You don’t have to be good enough. Jesus is. And His righteousness covers you. As we’re assured in Hebrews 10:14, “With one perfect offering, Jesus has perfected forever those who are being made holy . . .” (The Voice).

• God’s grace is never dependent on you. According to 2 Corinthians 2:8-9, “For it’s by God’s grace that you have been saved. You receive it through faith. It was not our plan or our effort. It is God’s gift, pure and simple. You didn’t earn it, not one of us did, so don’t go around bragging that you must have done something amazing” (The Voice).

• You are God’s carefully, lovingly designed masterpiece, and He’s proud of you. Hold tight to Ephesians 2:10: “For we are the product of His hand, heaven’s poetry etched on lives, created in the Anointed, Jesus, to accomplish the good works God arranged long ago” (The Voice).

Hang tight to this list. God’s acceptance of you trumps the things you tend to nitpick about yourself.

How To Stop Nitpicking

In order to stop nitpicking, we’ve got to direct our eyes away from all we can find wrong within and around us, and set them on Jesus, the ultimate perfection, instead. 

Whatever we zero in on begins to overwhelm us. What if we were overwhelmed by the glory of our beautiful Lord rather than by the things that make us feel stressed or defeated?

Here are three ways to give this a try:

• Take a walk outside. Listen to worship music and talk with God as you walk. (Need song recommendations? Get my favorites HERE.)

• Spend some time reading Psalms. King David was often overwhelmed by the grace, goodness, and presence of God. Let his words stir your hunger.

• Write a verse that reminds you of how God sees, accepts, and cherishes you on your mirror.

Keep your eyes on Jesus when you start to feel stuck in perfectionism. He alone can heal your heart so you overflow with His goodness and acceptance as you interact with the people in your life.

Friend, you get to rest in the wide open arms of God, who says He chose you on purpose. 

You don’t have to prove anything to Him, to yourself, to others. You have permission to thrive, using the innate strengths and lens common to Enneagram 1s for God’s glory. You don’t need to be someone else to be a great neighbor, to be a close friend, or to let your sincere faith leave a lasting effect on the people right in front of you.

Neighboring Tips for Enneagram 1s

The way God designed it, we each reflect Him in unique and needed ways. You’re an irreplaceable part of the puzzle in the neighborhood where you’re planted. 

Who you believe you are—who you let define you—affects the way you live, the way you love, and the way you neighbor.

You don’t have to be perfect to be perfectly loved. Nor do you have to be good enough. God is good-hearted enough to invite you into His embrace, into His family, into His mission to make disciple-making-disciples all across the earth—not because of what you can do, but because there’s nothing you can do. It’s all Him, and He’s all about you.

To learn more about Enneagram 1s–including what we appreciate most about you, how you can use your strengths to mirror God’s grace to your neighbors, and (for the rest of us) how we can best missionally love the Enneagram 1s we know–grab the Enneagram Neighboring Lists. Each list is available both as phone wallpaper and as a printable pdf.

I’ll leave you with one neighboring tip for now:

Encourage others. You see their potential. Love them by speaking words of blessing.

May I pray for you?

On the days you feel judged or misunderstood, may God’s heartfelt acceptance be balm for your heart.

On the days you’re extra hard on yourself, may you know that as God’s daughter, you bring Him more heart-bursting joy than you can comprehend.

And on the days you ask God why He made you the way you are, may you hold fast to this: You reflect God in ways that literally no one else can. He handpicked your features, your height, your personality, and the way you see the world. Also, He planted you where you are so that you could point the people near you to Him.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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