What are we depriving ourselves of? Perfectionists fight back against perfectionism!

November 15, 2023

What kind of perfectionist are you?

Today I’m taking us on a time travel that might send all of us perfectionists into a tailspin that ends in ulcers. Keep Breathing! We will make it back, and I promise we will learn what is underneath debilitating perfectionism and what we can do differently.

We are going back to our college days. On the first day of the semester, our professor assigns us a massive research paper, and it is due on the last day of the semester. Still breathing?

There are so many ways we perfectionists can approach our college assignment. How many times do you see yourself in the ways these college friends react to our research paper?

Prepper Parker spends the whole semester prepping for the perfect paper. His anxiety grows into panic on the last day of the semester when he realizes he spent the whole semester prepping and doesn’t have anything written. He ends up writing late into the night and turns in a mediocre paper. Parker could have got the same mediocre grade if he had spent most of the semester goofing off! Or he could have had a really good grade if he had spent a fraction of the time that he spent preparing for the paper on actually writing the paper. But Parker wouldn’t accept less than perfect preparation. His perfectionism costed him a good grade in the class.

Every time Avoidance Amalia sits down to work on her paper, she plans to make it amazing, but she isn't aware of anxiety creeping in. All she notices is that she keeps wandering away from her desk to organize or clean something unimportant. Sometimes she finds herself in the pantry and doesn’t even know how all those Oreos got in her hand. At the end of the semester, Amalia ends up turning her paper in slightly late, but her closet is perfectly organized, her car is detailed, and her computer files are all cleaned up. The problem is that all that seemingly good work came at the cost of stomach aches, headaches, and poor sleep because of the constant anxiety she was suppressing.

Saving Sebastian hears all his friends worrying and complaining about how hard this paper is for them. Any time he hears a friend’s distress, he always drops what he is doing and offers help. He helps friends find articles for their topics, he talks them through how they will organize their papers, and he proofreads their papers. Sebastian wants to be known as the perfect friend, but he spent so much time helping friends with their papers that he barely got his own not-so-good paper done in the nick of time. Trying to save everyone else costed him his own grade.

Chasing Chandler immediately gets an idea for the perfect topic. He starts researching that topic early in the semester. He is half-way through the paper when he thinks of an even better topic, so he changes to the new topic. Throughout the semester he researches more topics, hoping to find the perfect one. After chasing "better" ideas all semester, Chandler has no time left. He panicked, randomly picked one of his half-baked topics, and wrote a half-baked paper. Chandler's perfectionism looked like mediocrity. His perfectionism costed him good grades.

Goddess Gloria knows she will get the highest grade in the class. Everyone knows Gloria will get the highest grade in the class. Gloria meets with her professor to make sure she understands the paper perfectly. She meets up with a librarian to make sure she knows the very best ways to research. She watches YouTube videos on how to write a great paper, and after she writes it, she sends it to the college writing lab three times until she is sure there are no mistakes. At the end of the semester, Gloria got a perfect grade on her perfect paper, but that paper was all that she had time for. Her success came at the expense of a social life, fun, and hobbies.

Angry Avery wants to write a showstopping paper. The thought of grades that aren't perfect fills her with anxiety. She ignores the anxious aching in the pit of her stomach and buckles down, dedicating her time to researching, writing, and proofreading. When she takes a reluctant break to be with family or friends, she is constantly irritated and annoyed with them. Avery takes all of her anxiety out on the people around her. Frankly, they are glad when she is off working on her paper. Her perfectionism’s cost was her relationships.

Critical Carlee's perfectionism not only drives her to write an unbelievable paper, but it also shows up in her expectations for others. All semester she points out flaws in her friends’ research methods and writing (and hairdos and apartments). Carlee was trying to make everyone around her perfect. The cost of this kind of perfectionism was that her relationships stayed at surface level because no one dared to get close enough for her to see their flaws.

Needy Nora is very worried about the paper. She is deathly afraid of doing something wrong on the paper. She wants to please everyone perfectly and never do anything wrong. All semester, she constantly looks for someone to validate her research and writing because she has never learned to turn inward for validation. At the end of the semester, Nora turned in a paper that everyone else said is good, but she had no idea whether she likes it. Remolding herself for every situation and opinion so she could please everyone else deprived her of self-knowledge and self-respect.

Neat Naomi doesn’t care much about the paper, but she is obsessed about looking perfectly put together at all times! She puts pressure on herself to make every day of the semester a perfect day for her outfit, accessories, nails, tan, handwriting, and dorm room decor. In fact, she can't care much about the assignment because she is too busy doing the things that maintain her image. Other students were all intimidated by her. Her type of perfection made her unapproachable and costed her friendship opportunities.

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Perfection or mistakes: Will the perfectionist's real enemy please raise your hand?

Now that we have time traveled back home, let’s look at these perfectionists from the vantage point of our adult selves. Some of the signs of perfectionism that we saw were:

• Perfect preparation for a project that never gets done

• Constantly doing and redoing something that is good enough

• Insisting on everybody else being perfect

• Needing to be the perfect friend and ignoring personal needs

• Pressure to always be seen by everyone as perfect

• Looking for validation from everyone else

Every one of our college friends had the same goal: NO MISTAKES!

Perfectionists avoid mistakes at all costs, but like we see in our college friends, the cost is high! If the trade-off is losing our relationships, self-knowledge, self-respect, respect for others, hobbies, health, and free time, then we can't afford the cost.

Even though it feels safer, the cost of perfectionism is way higher than the cost of mistakes. Mistakes are uncomfortable and sometimes downright miserable, but mistakes hide a precious gift: growth.

A baby who tries to walk will never learn to walk unless she falls several times first. We all made mistakes the first time we tried to walk, write, catch a ball, or have sex. Those mistakes were part of our growth experience. And they were worth it! When we refuse to make mistakes, we refuse to grow, and we refuse to live an abundant life because let’s face it, imperfections are what make us relatable.

lurking beneath the surface of perfectionism

underneath the perfectionist's iceberg

So, if we said perfectionism is the part of an iceberg that is above the water, what would be the part that is lurking beneath the surface? What is underneath those self-sabotaging behaviors like procrastination, avoidance, over preparing, and over analyzing? Fear!

We don’t usually talk about perfectionism in terms of fear. In fact, sometimes we wear the perfectionist label like some kind of badge of honor. When a job interviewer asks, “What would you say is your greatest weakness?” It seems safe to answer that our biggest weakness is perfectionism, hoping the interviewer will interpret perfectionism as “hard working” or “high performing." If the interviewer is smart, she will instead interpret the answer as “high anxiety.”

If we can process through the fear underneath our perfectionism, we will be able to see clearly who we are and who we want to become. We will see our true values and know how much effort a task is really worth, not to other people, but to our own selves. We will be able to be seen as we truly are and to accept others as they are.

Try this instead

So, how do we acknowledge our fears without being ruled by our fears?

Curiosity

Our first line of defense can be curiosity. Taking a time-out to curiously (and nonjudgmentally) examine our fear (and shame) from every angle can shed light on what we are reacting to, how it makes us behave, and what it deprives us of. Chances are that this kind of curiosity can lead us to realize that what we are afraid of isn’t nearly as bad as what we are experiencing by avoiding it. The trade-off is often things like rest, fun and friendships in exchange for things like addictions and burn out.

Excitement

We can also invest some curiosity into how we can replace our fear with excitement. Excitement and fear are cousins. They are related closely enough that it is sometimes easier to switch between them than it is to switch between other emotions. When we realize what we could do more of or differently without our perfectionism, and when we realize who we could become, that's exciting!

Breathing and Mindfulness

Stepping into new ways of being can awaken the old perfectionist fears. After all, our fears want to protect us. They think that we need them to “drive our bus” or we will get lost. But when fear shows up, we can use strategies like breathing exercises and mindfulness to put it in its proper place in the back seat.

Values

The thing that keeps us grounded and intentionally moving in the direction we want to go without being driven by fear is our values. So, we have to take another curiosity time-out, asking questions like, “What things are most important to me?” “Who is most important to me?” “What is most important for me to accomplish?” These can lead to new discoveries about what an abundant life looks like for you.

A team

I once had a professor who used to say, “Why do you let everyone have rental space in your head?” In other words, we get to choose whose opinion counts or who gets “rental space in our head.” Not every opinion has to count!

We all need a team. These are the people who get rental space. They know what we are really like and cheer us on as we stumble towards who we want to be.

Be patient with yourself. Teams don’t just materialize out of thin air. They are based in close relationships, and remember, perfectionists are still learning how to have close, trusting relationships. The closer we move toward getting out there, owning our mistakes, and accepting others’ mistakes, the closer we get to finding the person or persons who will be our cheerleaders.

Sometimes perfectionists are so used to hiding behind perfection that they need to practice being seen. We can try things that we may not be good at and take baby steps toward eventually letting other people see us make mistakes.

Tell your fear that you are likeable just as you are, and that when the world discovers you, it will be a better place!

Intentionality

If we know who we are and where we want to go, each day can be intentional instead of a frantic search for perfection. We can ask ourselves every morning, “How would the person I want to become use their time today?” Values-based time management can be very powerful. Instead of coming up with a to-do list that pleases everyone else or that soothes our inner perfectionist, we can ask ourselves questions like, “How much is this activity worth to me?” We get to let that guide us on how much of our day we'll dedicate to an activity or task. We might be surprised to find out how much time our perfectionist self wants to spend on something that our true self doesn't really care about.

Gratitude

Perfectionism at its core can be a symptom of ingratitude. What is ingratitude? It is failing to acknowledge the good things that are happening in us and around us. Since perfectionism is a relentless pursuit of making things better, our perfectionist glasses filter out everything that isn't perfect yet. When we can't see that some things are good enough, we can't feel grateful for those things. A really great antidote for debilitating perfectionism is gratitude. It is being intentional about taking time to notice the decent qualities in ourselves, the people around us, our jobs, homes, projects, etc. It is taking time to be grateful for progress and for growth.

When we come to the end of our lives, will our biggest regrets be the mistakes we made? Or will we feel more regret for the things we let slip past us? Sunsets, children's laughter, and lucky opportunities don't last, so let's hold on to them while we can.