Perfectionism: The Promises and the Costs + 3 Strategies to Reduce the Burden
In case you're new here, my name is Kasey David, LCSW, and I am a therapist. I specialize in the treatment of Anxiety Disorders for women of color at Culture of Therapy Wellness Group. I write these articles for anyone interested in a therapist's take on mental health and wellness.
Hello, Friends.
In the last issue, I promised to write about a few techniques on addressing perfectionism.
The problem, if you noticed, was that I said I would have it to you one week later.
Ahhhhh. Time. My old enemy, but new best friend. Let me tell you why.
It's now two weeks later, and the article comes out.
Why does it matter? One very important reason.
I had promised you something—an idea that was built on perfection and not an actionable practice.
As the week started to elapse (and I had not gotten started), I started to concoct this fable in my mind about how everything you think of me is dependent upon me keeping to that timeline. When last Monday arrived and I had nothing, I started to think the worst.
I imagined somebody waiting for that article feverishly by their inbox on Monday morning 1/30/23 at 6:00am and falling flat on the floor when they realized I hadn't published one. Huffing and puffing. Curious? Annoyed. Disappointed. Waiting for me.
"They must be thinking awful things about me."
"They must have been disappointed in me."
"I must look like a lying fool."
"They were probably looking forward to reading that article before they brushed their teeth!"
"What a public failure, Kasey. Let's not bring it up again. Maybe nobody will notice."
That was my inner dialogue as last Monday came and went—and the article was supposed to be published.
Here's why I tell you this little experience of mine.
Perfectionism is an identity thief and bully, and is a largely unpaid position. It is about giving us one inch of space to live in each day.
It can be important to explore the origins of perfectionism, but we won't do it here. I have a lot to say about perfectionism as a protective strategy, a relational skill, an addiction, and onwards, but that's an article for another time. And this is not to say that perfectionism never works for us. It does, just not when we over-rely on it, at different times in our life. Perfectionism does not always reliably give accolades and accomplishments.
For this article, I am going to assume perfectionism is contributing to burnout and stress, and is in your way in an important area.
I unknowingly held myself to a perfectionistic standard when saying I would share what I knew with you next week. Now, it was true then, and is still true now. I want to share what I know.
Once I started to notice I wasn't getting any work done, I needed to reevaluate my approach to the task. (but I didn't, so nothing happened and here we are).
Because if I know one thing in my old age, it is that when I am not getting things done, it means perfectionism may be the culprit. Compared to when I was in my teens and twenties, perfectionism got everything done. Now, I am not getting results at the same rate I used to.
Perfectionism invites you to survive present day in ways that may have been helpful at one point, because they protected you. They were needed and necessary. But when you no longer benefit from using those same strategies, you may have outgrown them.
Though perfectionism can be well-intended (protective), it does not always convert into an actionable practice. It can be very rigid, black-or white-, and emphasize that doing less is the same as being mediocre, lazy, selfish, or stupid, etc.
Lessening our perfectionistic policies can create more room for rest, excitement, money, and freedom to do what you love. It's a win-win.
In what ways could you benefit if you can lessen perfectionism in one important area?
If you could get rid of all of the 'unpaid positions' in your life, like anxiety and perfectionism, how much more free time would you have? What parts of yourself could be seen authentically? How much shame could you let go of?
Perfectionism can disrupt our ability to connect with others. But the funny thing is, we never have as many enemies as we think. I'll bet that we can be imperfect and still find love, health, and happiness in this life.
If we can't, then I owe you $10.
Three Strategies to Reduce the Burden of Perfectionism
1. Develop more of a gradient for your experiences.
We've all been using these strategies to effectively achieve our goals, but now they might be working against us. We want to look as our goals, and how to achieve them, without taking an all-or-nothing approach. There are other areas of our lives where we don't have a black-and-white approach and we still achieve our goals. What are the fundamental rules in those areas that we can apply to our perfectionistic areas?
2. Diversify how it is that you define your worth.
Perfectionism often has us think that if we achieve the goal, and the goal is in that top 5%, we are perfect. Furthermore, we can avoid the pain of being imperfect. If we land in the other 95%, our effort gets attached to our worth and we are mediocre, terrible, lazy, stupid, ineffective, etc. Define your worth by multiple categories by multiple criterion.
You can still have a code to live by, and that code should allow you the room to behave differently, without utter and disastrous failure as a human being, mother, employee, friend, companion, etc.
3. Develop discrimination strategy to identify which rules are flexible and which are not.
A discrimination strategy allow you to behave in a way different than you are now and pull back the reigns of perfectionism. You may be used to adhering to a rule that says, "I will do my best". That rule might backfire if you are perfectionistic at work and you go to work trying to do your best every day. When your best has lead you to a 60 hour work week, missing out on experiences with your family, and going to work sick, you may realize you will never be able to answer the question "have I done my best" because your best is never ending effort.
Learning is experiential, so I encourage you to practice with real world tasks on this one. Investigate the areas where you can afford to be less perfect (i.e. where the costs are not as great). Remember, feeling uncomfortable is not the same as being mediocre. If you are uncomfortable during the activities, you are doing them correctly.
Learning should also be self-compassionate and the most loving thing you do for yourself. Being sensitively attuned to your needs means recognizing what is possible in the here and now.
Create a way of seeing the world based on who you are now and not who you may have been 10 years ago or who you could be 5 years from now. Who you could have, would have, should have been, used to be, or have the potential to be is not as relevant as who you are right now. Develop practices based on who you are right now.
I hope some of this has been helpful to you.
I'll see you next time.
Kasey
If you're new here, you can look at all of the articles written before that might be referred to above, using the arrows below.
There is more to come on the topics of anxiety & burnout, OCD, relationships, depression, stress, motherhood, self-esteem, goals, fulfillment, and the emotional material that gets in the way.
In therapy, these are the mindsets we dive into to help meet our goals. Therapy helps keep us accountable to our true selves and figure out what is most important to do in this life.
Practice Place
We will create an actionable plan for a goal you have in mind this week. We're going to practice with #3 form the strategies above.
Think of a goal that is mild-moderate in difficulty level.
Identify the first three (3) steps in the sequence.
Create one discrimination strategy to adhere to and measure progress on this goal.
You should be able to assign or delegate this task (in theory) to someone else and they should be successful. If you can't identify what comes first, second, and third, you're going to have a hard time making it actionable. Stay on this step long enough until you have a workable plan. After you have the three steps, create a meaningful discrimination strategy to keep you progressing, not perfecting.
My initial goal unconsciously sounded like this: "I will sit down to write my article when I have time to do it all. And if I don't find time to do it all in one sitting, I'll do it later, when I have more time. And if I don't do it later, I'll just write it at the last minute and hide/ignore/distort any internal feelings, thoughts and sensations of being less than perfect throughout the week (cue binge eating, avoidance of ALL work, rumination, and shame).
Better Goal: "I will write an article this week about perfectionism for those who see it as a burden. I will skim existing material I have on perfectionism, outline 3 talking points, and then write for one hour to begin."
1. Make it actionable, in a series of linear steps, that exist in reality (on a calendar).
"I will skim two existing materials I have relating to Perfectionism for no more than 10 minutes and note three talking points to organize the article, exclusively.
To avoid getting sidetracked, keep what you're doing to the goal at hand. Do not allow this task infiltrate into other needed projects.
"I will create an outline of my article in the system I use to publish the emails on a template for no more than 15 minutes. It will have the beginning, middle talking points, and the conclusion.
"I will spend one hour writing a fuller draft of the article today 2/1/23. I can then move onto adding graphics and proofreading."
2. Create a discrimination strategy for the area you need. For example, how will I measure progress in increments?
"I will set an alarm, so I am not tempted to write 'until I think I did my best' or 'until it is done'.
"I may need to work exclusively by timers, alarms, and break patterns. I may need to define doneness as "the timer went off".
The new goal doesn't rely on "my best" (i.e. a previous standard that used to work), perfect timing (i.e. when I have 3 consecutive hours to write, which forces me to have a very open schedule or put it into my rest and relaxation time), or goodwill/hope (i.e. 'I know I can do it, and if I am smart enough, I will').
This goal does rely on series of actionable and enforceable tasks that keep my ego out of it, shows tangible benefits to me, and my overall commitment to the process.
I hope you found some of this helpful. Feel free to share with anyone who may benefit.
