July 2, 2020

Perfectionism: Is it Helping You or Hurting You?

Are you a perfectionist? Is being a perfectionist helping you, or hurting you?

I recently started the podcast Real, Brave & Unstoppable. This week’s episode, which dropped on Tuesday, is about this very same topic.

In my past, perfectionist life, it wouldn’t have been acceptable for me to double up on my content. But thankfully, I’ve ditched many of my perfectionist ways, and this week, you have the choice to listen to the podcast episode or read the blog post – Perfectionism: Is it Helping You or Hurting You!

I have been a certified life coach for about a year, and while I build my dream business so I can do work that makes an impact for people who want better, happier lives, I also work a day job. That means sometimes I have to let go of some of my expectations. I have to accept that I’m doing my best!

So what does this have to do with perfectionism? I’m going to give you 10 signs you are a perfectionist, give you some reasons why perfectionism might not be helpful, and then, I’m going to give you some strategies for taming the perfectionism beast.

10 Signs you are a Perfectionist

All-or-Nothing Thinking

In reality, life is made up of millions of colors. Even within one color, there are more shades than the eye can perceive. If you liken your thinking to being able to think in different shades along a continuum, perfectionists don’t typically do well with that. Perfectionists don’t typically have “gray areas”. Everything is black or white, good or bad, success or failure. They have a hard time accepting “average” or “good enough”.

Unrealistic Expectations

If you’re a perfectionist, you set extremely high standards for yourself. When you don’t meet those unrealistic expectations, you beat yourself up.

Been there, done that. Do you recognize any of these words: I’m a failure. I can’t ever do anything without making a mistake. I suck at that. Everyone is going to think I’m stupid.

Your Self-Confidence Depends on Being Perfect

It’s impossible to be perfect. But if you’re a perfectionist, you feel the need to be perfect to feel good about yourself. Your self-worth depends on meeting your unrealistic expectations. You constantly compare yourself to others through a distorted lens and never feel good enough.

You Obsess Over Previous Mistakes

If you make a mistake, you immediately assume ALL eyes are on you. Have you ever felt the “wave of shame” wash over you? Your heart races, your face feels hot, you might even feel sweaty or clammy? You can’t stop thinking about what you did “wrong” and assume that everyone else is criticizing you. It might even haunt you for days, and every time, that feeling of shame revisits you. You worry that you didn’t do enough or looked stupid.

You Put Up a “Perfect” Front

You’re intensely afraid of being judged for not having it all together – for not being smart enough, organized enough, not doing enough, etc – so you put on your armor and pretend and insist everything is totally perfect, even when it’s not.

You Never Feel Perfect

You’d think that if you’re on such a fervent quest to be perfect, you’d feel that way, even once in a while! Yet, despite your search for perfection, you never feel perfect – far from it. You criticize everything you do and have a hard time accepting praise and compliments.

You Have a Really Hard Time Accepting Second-Best

Perfectionists can be highly competitive and have a really hard time accepting when someone else has outperformed them.

Okay, so high achievers may have a hard time accepting defeat too. How is that different from perfectionists?

Perfectionists make it mean something about their character – about their worth and value as a person. A perfectionist is likely to obsess over their performance if they don’t win. They are also notoriously unrealistic evaluators of their own performance. They may have performed just fine, but if it didn’t’ meet the standards they set up-front, it’s a failure.

You Feel Relieved When Someone Else Fails

You know you shouldn’t, but seeing someone else screw up secretly makes you feel relieved that you are still “the best”.

You Use the Word “Should” a Lot

Since perfectionists are always doing things for the favorable opinions of others, they have a lot of things they think they “should” do. They may not even care that much about the things they feel they should be doing, but they do them for the approval and validation that they aren’t giving themselves.

You Spend Excessive Time on Projects

If you’re a perfectionist, you set high expectations for your projects. You’re also worried about how your work will be perceived to others, so you spend more time on them than others might because you are always trying to perfect one more thing. In your eyes, no matter how long you work at something, it’s never good enough, so you could go on perfecting forever and still not feel done.

One of my (many) stories of perfectionism

Perfectionists are super hard on themselves, and I was once that way too.

I’m going to tell you a story that illustrates a few of these points.

When I was a junior in college, I was working on my private pilot’s license. It was a dream of mine, and even as a poor college student, I somehow found the money to pursue this dream.

I worked on building my flight hours over the course of that year, and in June, was getting ready to take my written and practical tests.

Also at that time, I was preparing a presentation for my senior aerospace design course that I was to give as part of my design team at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. I was also studying for finals. I was also headed to Seattle for the summer for an internship at Boeing, so I had to pack up my apartment and get stuff moved out.

Quite honestly, I have zero idea how I functioned then. There was a lot going on. Too much.

One day, one of my flight instructors, Paul, was helping me prep for my FAA practical test. He was drilling me on mechanical failures and emergency procedures, and I was struggling with some of the memorization stuff.

I still remember how stupid I felt. I can still feel the wave of heat wash over my face and how I just wanted to hide. I was SO stressed from all of the things on my plate, and yet, I still expected myself to know this material without hesitation. To be struggling with remembering some of it, even amidst the stress I was dealing with, was just unacceptable to me.

I reached a breaking point in that office.

I literally broke down.

Paul looked at me, shook his head and I will never forget what he said.

Kortney, do you see what you’re doing to yourself? You are expecting way too much out of yourself. You have way too much going on. Cut yourself a little bit of slack.

To this day, I don’t remember how I felt when he said that. Knowing my personality back then, I am guessing that I felt even stupider that he witnessed the huge crevasse in my 20-ton armor.

Perfectionism was a badge of honor for me for many years. It told the world that I was a striver and that I was smart. By showing that I was appalled to not know something or be able to handle everything, I was telling the world that I was exceptional. That I was one of the greats.

But yet, I failed to realize that I was already one of the greats without having to look exceptional. I was already exceptional.

If you’re a perfectionist, and it gets in the way of feeling good about yourself, I want to tell you that you can feel exceptional without the perfectionism. That’s one fear perfectionists have – who am I without striving for perfectionism?

So how do you overcome this demon perfection-seeking beast?

Easy.

Just kidding. It’s not easy. But it is doable.

First, Acknowledge You Are a Perfectionist

Practice some self-awareness. Start to notice your thoughts around your high expectations. Why do you believe you must be perfect? Where did that story come from and how might you change it? What triggers bring out your behavior most strongly?

How is Perfectionism Serving You?

The brain is a complex thing, and your perfectionism developed to serve you or protect you in some way. The problem is that when the brain develops ways to protect you from something you’re afraid of, it’s pretty common that those defense mechanisms aren’t actually helpful.

Take an honest look at your perfectionist standards. Why do you challenge yourself with ultra-high standards? How is that serving you?

Look at the internal beliefs you hold about achievement. What does being less-than-perfect say about you? Was there an incident, or incidents, when you were a child that caused you to believe you were unworthy for making mistakes?

I write about this a lot, but you are allowed to choose the beliefs you’d like to hold and feed. So instead of holding on to the belief that you must be perfect to be worthy, work on choosing a different, more helpful belief, and feed that.

What’s the Worst Case?

If you’re in perfectionism mode, ask yourself what is the worst-case scenario here? What if you screw up? What if a catastrophe happens?

How likely is your worst-case to occur? Even in that remote situation, what could you do?

It can be helpful to list out all of the worst things that can happen vs. the most likely scenario. Get the non-helpful thoughts out of your brain. When they are “swirling” around, they tend to hold more power. Get them out and then you can take control over addressing them one by one. Rationally.

Take a Good Hard Look at Your Standards

When you’re working on something you feel compelled to be perfect at, take a step back and challenge your assumption of “perfect” as the standard. Where is this coming from? What is actually needed for the job at hand? Will a quick-and-dirty stab at it do? Does it really need to be client-ready by tomorrow? Is your boss looking for a final copy, or will a draft do for now?

Now, I want you to adjust your standards. Why do you feel the need to go above and beyond?

Try saying the following to yourself:

“Good enough is good enough.”

“Done is better than perfect.”

How does that feel?

Ok, I get it. If you’re a perfectionist, those are hard words to hear. So practice them.

Watch Your Self-Talk

I always say “talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love”.

Perfectionists aren’t great about this!

So, start to observe your self-talk. How does it support perfectionism? Catch yourself in that spiral and choose to replace it with more helpful and kind words and thoughts.

Side note: perfectionism can be sneaky. Sometimes, we’re crafty and can use positive self-talk to actually fuel our perfectionism. For example: My article was just accepted to Tiny Buddha. It is definitely because I spent eight hours a day for two weeks perfecting it.

Tiny Buddha is a wonderful publication with high-quality articles. But I guarantee spending eight hours a day for two weeks straight, nit-picking your writing is not the magic bullet that got it accepted.

Give Yourself a Reason To Move On

When you’re stuck in the rabbit hole of perfection, and you can’t seem to let go of your project to turn it in or call it done for fear it’s not perfect, you need some metrics, or something concrete to signal to you that it’s done.

Maybe you need a checklist. Or to set a timer. Stop multitasking so you can 100% focus on what you’re trying to finish. Learn to recognize that, as a perfectionist, you aren’t always going to be a reliable judge of “done”.

Strategically Half-Ass It

Perfectionism is a habit. You’ve developed it over many years where your brain thought it was serving you well.

It wasn’t.

So now, you’re going to build a new, anti-perfectionism habit!

Practice half-assing it in low-risk situations.

Are you a neat freak? Try leaving your house cluttered and messy. Leave the dishes from dinner out one night.

Are you a person who has to compete with all the other soccer moms to bring the most amazing snacks? Try just bringing a cheap off-brand granola bar rather than the ten choices if fruit snacks, fresh fruit, chips, cupcakes, homemade cookies and five different kinds of juice boxes.

Maybe you like to entertain, but it stresses you out because you feel like you have to have everything completely made from scratch and amazing. Have a party and ask everyone else to bring a dish to share.