In this chapter we will explore:
This chapter is about something I see every single day in clinic – the double-edged sword that is perfectionism and procrastination. We are not 100% born to seek out perfection, it is a drive that develops over our lifetime in response to our environment and Tiny Ts. It really is heart-wrenching how many talented, kind and intuitive people I see who self-sabotage as a result of maladaptive perfectionism, so here we will get to the root of the issue with some practical advice to break this vicious cycle.
One slightly too hot day a cool-looking woman walked into my practice. I was rather shiny of face and feeling a little muggy, but this lady seemed to not have a hair out of place and certainly did not appear ruffled by the heat. Indeed, she seemed so put-together at first, I was intrigued as to why she had come to see me, and here’s what she said:
I can’t seem to get out of a pattern of procrastination. It’s become such a problem that in my latest business venture I feel like I’m losing focus … and the confidence of my investors.
We explored Silvia’s early life and I posed the Tiny T question, and her ever-so-carefully-arranged facial expression morphed in discomfort for a nanosecond.
I was brought up by the strongest dad I know – he did it all on his own and worked two jobs to keep us afloat. He never even dated until I left home. I am forever grateful for my dad and everything he sacrificed for me. I was always well behaved as I knew my dad had enough to deal with at the time, so it’s not that. I was a good kid and never got into any trouble at all. I’d honestly say that growing up just with my dad taught me a great deal in terms of how to be self-sufficient.
Silvia went on to explain that she missed out on some of the fun young adult activities such as boozy late-night parties because she didn’t want to give her father anything more to worry about. She did feel compelled to ‘get things right – the first time’. The thought of doing anything that wasn’t ‘perfect’ filled Silvia with a sense of dread so profound that when she was working on her new project, she found herself leaving fundamental tasks until very late at night, then rushing with an almighty panic to meet deadlines. She was exhausted, low and falling out with her collaborators, not only because the work was only just finished on time, but because she also refused to sign anyone else’s sections off without a million amendments that she somehow always left to the last minute. Silvia’s wicks were burning down at lightning speed, and she was about to lose the faith of her investors, so it was vital that we explored some of her Tiny Ts.
Silvia openly admitted she was a perfectionist – with pride. She felt that this trait helped her reach her goals and was absolutely necessary to her success. When looking at the research, it does seem that perfectionism can be part of a person’s innate personality, with some people having more or less of this trait.31 This is probably in part true – but we know now that all personality types are open to change, through experience, will and, yes, with Tiny Ts.
While some people may be born with a predisposition to unrealistically high personal standards, others have this draining characteristic foisted upon them. It can be quite difficult to disentangle the nature from nurture debate here – but twin studies in which identical twins have been reared apart do show that we often have an innate tendency towards some personality traits, rather than simply learning these patterns through watching those close to us.
In Chapter 1 we explored some of the sources of Tiny Ts, and while Silvia may have been naturally inclined to perfectionism, not wanting to ever worry her father could have added to this tendency. Let’s keep in mind that the way Tiny Ts work is cumulative, so there’s no criticism or blame here, but rather an open-minded curiosity about Silvia’s lived experience. And in this spirit, we started the first step of the AAA Approach – Awareness.
To begin, I wanted to reflect on how Silvia felt about making mistakes, and she stated that she didn’t – ‘I don’t make mistakes.’
But doesn’t everyone make ‘mistakes’ – I denote this word with quotation marks because its definition is an action, decision, or judgement that produces an unwanted or unintentional result, but in reality mistakes are a vital part of the learning process. Think back – is it easier to remember a fact or skill that you got right the first time, or one that you got wrong initially? It’s usually the latter as our neural networks assimilate novel information and make new connections. Indeed, I would say that we cannot learn without making errors, miscalculations or oversights.
While we were digging deeper into this idea, Silvia started to mention an incident online, one that was clearly causing her emotional pain to talk about. As a young adult she’d forwarded a political meme on a social media platform; it wasn’t directed at anyone or malicious, and she barely even thought about what she was doing as it seemed so insignificant, but the volume of abuse that resulted was frightening and shocking, making Silvia withdraw into herself. This, she said, crystallised in her mind how imperative it was not to make mistakes – and, like many Tiny Ts, compounded a behavioural tendency (perfectionism) that may not have otherwise become problematic.
Focus on Tiny T: Trolling and the ‘Dark Triad’
Online trolling is a form of bullying and hence the impact on the individual is much the same – those who have been trolled report heightened anxiety, feelings of depressed mood and isolation, and in the most extreme cases there have been reports of suicide as a consequence of trolling behaviour. Research shows that people who engage in this behaviour are more likely to have what’s known as the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality characteristics, which is a combination of psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism.32 The traits have some features in common; for instance, they share a lack of empathy and callousness. The narcissistic characteristic adds a sense of grandiosity, and Machiavellianism is associated with social engineering, coercion and manipulation. Finally, psychopathy has a strong link with antisocial behaviour – so we can start to see how destructive this Triad can be. Although trolls do tend to target high-profile individuals such as celebrities and influencers, they also seek out their friends and total strangers. Interestingly, trolls can engage in a sort of ‘troll-combat’, where they bully one another online. Indeed, a survey of people in the UK and US between the ages of 16 to 55 found that almost two-thirds of 16- to 24-year-olds (64 per cent) engaged in trolling online.33 However, the rates of Dark Triad personality type are relatively rare, so what’s driving this behaviour in so many people, particularly young adults? Mood and context appear to be important factors here – negative mood states such as anger and frustration in conjunction with an online environment where antisocial behaviour is prevalent (for example, outright swearing, personal attacks, veiled insults, sarcasm and off-topic statements) are even better at explaining why people troll rather than this reflecting innate personality types.34 There is also a disinhibition effect when we’re online, where people detach themselves from their real-life personality and behave out of character – a bit like being very drunk and doing something completely unlike yourself at a party.35 This does give us a challenge, however, when it comes to our online existence, as it suggests that anyone could, in this set of circumstances, troll others.
This experience of trolling and online abuse is something I’m seeing more and more of in my practice. The sense of global humiliation can be profound, coupled with the belief that this digital trace will never be removed. We’ve always had public shaming – just think of stoning, flogging and being locked in a wooden pillory – but people could have left town after this and started a new life somewhere else. Now, in the time of ‘cancel culture’, it can be hard to believe that the sense of shame will ever go away, and that you cannot escape it. Cancel culture is the same mechanism as previous forms of public humiliation as it is used to maintain social norms to some degree, or a form of mob justice. There is no balance here, or discussion of the subtleties of a situation. Therefore, this experience significantly added to Silvia’s existing reluctance to make mistakes, and hyper-charged her Tiny T Theme of Perfectionism.
Unravelling this was a pivotal first step of the AAA Approach (Awareness), in which we could start making tangible and helpful tweaks in Silvia’s life to tackle the pattern of perfectionistic procrastination that she’d developed. Therefore, acknowledging an environment in which a profound fear of putting a foot wrong could leave a mental and behavioural impression started us on our journey.
It can be useful to separate adaptive from maladaptive perfectionism as many people believe that their propensity to get things just right has helped them throughout life – perhaps in securing a job, finding a partner, or simply to feel needed by others. This is a form of adaptive perfectionism, as the behavioural pattern is useful in one’s life and served a purpose. However, maladaptive perfectionism, in which the fear of doing something poorly or incorrectly leads to mental tension and often behavioural delay, is one of the most common themes I see in my practice. This is why perfectionism can be so hard to crack and people often hold on to it, remembering the times it has worked in their favour but minimising the painful process to get to this outcome. Perfectionism’s essential meaning is the belief that mistakes are somehow unacceptable, so great effort is expended to avoid errors at quite a high cost to the individual. An inner perfectionist can make us feel that mistakes mean we are unworthy, unsuccessful and, ultimately, unlovable. So, the stakes are indeed high. And this is why perfectionism is an underlying driver of procrastination for so many people.
It’s almost easier to explain procrastination by saying what it’s not – it’s not being lazy, rubbish, incompetent or uncaring. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite. The procrastinators among us are generally quite conscientious – because we are worried about getting it wrong. Although we may not be aware of it, doing the dishes, sorting out a drawer or scrolling through social media is a way to distract us from the niggling feelings that we may not be good enough – and fear that everyone will soon find this out.
So we leave tasks until our stress threshold is breached and in the last hours of a day hash out something on the edge of our nerves, then convince ourselves that the end project is truly terrible, we’re utterly stupid and shouldn’t even be in the job. Sound familiar?
But before this point, our dear procrastinator would have spent an inordinate amount of mental energy either thinking about the task or using distraction techniques to think about anything but. This consumes such a large amount of our resources – physical, mental, emotional – that burnout can be the only way our bodies manage to get us to take note of this maladaptive pattern.
‘Why can’t I just get on with it!’ ‘I won’t do this next time, I’ll start early and won’t get into this state again.’
Suffice to say, if you are a procrastinator, the chances are you care deeply about what you’re doing, rather than not enough … which means you might be veering into the purgatory that is perfectionism.
What do you think? Can it ever be a good thing to put off today what can be done tomorrow? For some, this would be eye-twitchingly uncomfortable to contemplate but … there are certain circumstances where procrastination is a good thing. ‘Planned procrastination’ or delaying tasks is often a very beneficial strategy – for instance, how many emails or messages do you get a day? Particularly if you’re part of a parent or work group – I bet it’s loads! Have you ever tried not responding to group messages to see what happens? The likelihood is, the vast majority of ‘urgent’ issues sort themselves out without your input. But it can feel hard at first as you might have a form of Tiny Ts that drives you to be the Fix-It-Person of the group. Perhaps as a kid you felt like you needed to take charge, a bit like Mo in Chapter 1 who always jumped in before anyone could tease or give his brother a hard time. You may even get a huge sense of belonging from being the go-to person, and this is fine if it’s not causing you any problems such as burnout and exhaustion (see box).
The reality I see every week in clinic is that this behavioural pattern, triggered by a lifetime’s worth of Tiny Ts, does lead to some pretty unpleasant symptoms. But you can use planned procrastination and flip this, and I would wholeheartedly suggest this for anyone who feels they don’t have enough time in the day. For some tasks, there may be logical a reason to wait awhile before progressing, such as collecting enough information before making a decision, but for many others the task just isn’t as vital as it first seems. I’m talking about emails. And texts. And messages. Mostly. But there are many other micro-tasks that don’t deserve the best part of your day, e.g. laundry, washing-up, countless household chores.
The reason why we busy ourselves with these types of jobs is that we feel good when something is finished, when we’ve actually achieved something, no matter how trivial. There’s a tiny dopamine hit when the piles of laundry are sorted (honestly, how does it multiply like water-sprinkled Mogwai/Gremlins?), put away and out of sight, which is very hard to replicate when you have a crucial 10,000-word report, sales target, KPIs, and so forth to see to. But this achievement hunger is only quelled for a very short time, then very quickly comes back as we’re not really making any progress on the more substantive tasks. An easy way to distinguish whether certain patterns are adaptive, such as planned delay, or maladaptive is to put to yourself these five words:
‘How does this serve you?’
If hesitating to some extent when faced with a task (I am talking about replying to every email when it pings in your inbox the moment it arrives!) means that someone else will most likely reply, then give it room to breathe. We all bang on about how intrusive tech can be for our lives, but by digging deeper it’s possible to see if our instant-reply nature is serving us or simply busying us enough to deflect Tiny Ts and reasons behind these behaviours.
This five-word question can be incredibly helpful to all of us in our goal-driven societies – to accept that perhaps a perfectionism–procrastination pattern was not serving us in the most beneficial way. In fact, this Tiny T Theme can quite easily lead to burnout.
How to spot the signs of burnout
In 2019 the syndrome ‘burnout’ was entered into the World Health Organization’s bible of health and illness known as the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems Handbook for the first time. It may seem odd that burnout has only just been officially recognised, but that’s often the case with invisible illness – medical science and practice is slow to catch up with people’s experience.
Burnout is listed within the category of ‘factors influencing health status’ and this is no joke – I’ve worked with people who take years to recover, have a range of associated health problems, lose their jobs, relationships and life as they knew it. Although the WHO associates burnout with workplace stress, there are countless other contexts that can cause it too, including trying to keep everyone happy, meeting our perceptions of others’ expectations and simply not being a good fit with our environment. So, it’s important to know the signs of this syndrome in order to catch it before serious health problems emerge.
If the following are familiar, you may be on the road to burnout syndrome:
Signs that you might already be experiencing burnout include:
Now that we are developing a good understating of certain patterns such as perfectionism that may not be serving us well, it’s useful to move on to the Acceptance phase of the AAA Approach.
One of the most common mistakes that we humans (particularly in modern societies) make is equating perfection with success: ’If I could only do this thing/that thing just right, then everything will be ok.’ As we explored in Chapter 1, these competitive societal norms set us up to be rats spin-spin-spinning on the never-ending Wheel of Striv(f)e. While there’s been a shift, with many prominent figures, celebs and voices telling us all how, yes indeed, they pushed the door when the sign clearly said pull, we are still programmed to think that flawlessness leads to wholeness. What is missed here, and gives me that nagging Tiny T feeling at the back of my throat, is that these life stories quite neatly follow universal story archetypes (Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy and Rebirth) with the protagonist usually coming out on top. In other words, although we identify keenly with these narratives, we’re hearing them from people who ‘got there in the end’ – and if only we can fail so perfectly, we will, too, be successful.
Whoa, that’s an awful lot of pressure! To even fail perfectly …
So, to work through Acceptance, and overcome this unpleasant consequence of Tiny T Perfectionism, it’s beneficial to do some work around the concept that you are enough. Start by brainstorming some ways you can remind yourself of this each day – I had one client who printed the slogan on a t-shirt, or you can use it as a password, plaster it all over the wallpaper, anything to keep this phrase in sight on a daily basis as our tricksy human brains will keep veering towards the negative.
Because as I’ve seen time and time again, if we don’t try to tame the perfectionist monster within, anxiety, depression, ill health and burnout are genuine risks. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
… on perfectionism. Do you really need to be perfect all the time? Nope, it often doesn’t do us much good and, quite frankly, perfectionism can make life pretty darn miserable a lot of the time.
Also, striving for perfectionism eats up so much cognitive energy, making it nigh-on impossible to learn from mistakes and build psychological immunity. You know that guy in the office, or the cousin/annoying friend/political leader who seems to just dust himself off and not worry when he trips up – yes him, he’s the non-perfectionist. Do his blunders seem to hold him back? No! They appear to make people love him even more! Interesting eh … While the goal isn’t to be a buffoon, it’s to stop all the mental replaying of an event so that (1) you can actually enjoy your time off and (2) you can figure out a lot easier what works (and what doesn’t) for you in your life and be able to move on without completely battering yourself with self-recrimination.
However, people often have some reservations – ‘But if I give up on perfectionism, I will never be successful!’ – so the next exercise is useful within this Acceptance phase.
This is you the Perfectionist (right now) |
This can be you the Success-oriented Non-perfectionist (soon) |
Sets very difficult goals/standards → |
Sets realistic goals/standards → |
Gives very little praise when goal is met → |
Celebrates achievements → |
Sets even higher bar → |
Sets another bite-size realistic goal → |
Just misses the mark (or thinks so) → |
Sees any missteps as opportunities to learn → |
Feels like a failure/berates self |
Feels like a good, if fallible, person |
The difference essentially is that perfectionism is doing the exact thing that’s feared – setting yourself up for failure. However, it is absolutely possible to change this mindset no matter what sort of Tiny T has led to it – but you definitely have to want to summon your inner Elsa, and let that sh*t go.
By now, I truly hope you are energised, empowered and ready to go on to the Action stage of the AAA Approach, and these are some of the strategies you can try to break free from the paradox that is perfectionism/procrastination.
Find what works for you and be as kind to yourself as you would be with a good friend during the process. You can’t be perfect at becoming a former-perfectionist-procrastinator!
This well-known time management and productivity technique (named after pomodoro, the Italian word for ‘tomato’, which was the shape of its developer’s timer!) is a tried-and-tested way to break down large tasks into bite-size chunks. Coaches everywhere will tell you to chunk-and-reward, chunk-and-reward but, if I’m honest, I’ve never personally found this useful and many of my clients reported the same. This is usually because we think about chunking work tasks by output, not time, for example finishing a report. But perfectionists can spend literally hours looking at a single paragraph, so an output-oriented mindset often plays right into the perfectionism–procrastination paradox. The Pomodoro Technique is different as it gives positive constraints based on minutes, which are defined and measured objectively, not milestones that can be subjectively arbitrated, and so are pretty much as long as a piece of string. Here’s how it goes:
For the technique to work, you really do need to use the breaks to do something that shifts your cognitive attention – looking at emails is not this! Use rituals such as making a cup of tea to having a mini-mindfulness moment, or any sort of physical movement is good.
When I first started using this technique, I was amazed at how long 15 minutes felt! Which made me think about how I always seem to get so much done just before I had a meeting/somewhere to go and so forth – these are positive constraints!
‘Precrastination’ is the annoying sibling of procrastination, and it denotes when you complete every small task you can find to avoid doing the thing you really need to do. Washing-up, laundry, clearing your inbox are all examples of precrastination, and I’m sure you can think of a hundred others!36 People often feel that getting all these little jobs out of the way creates headspace, and although there is some merit in this argument, the problem is that prolonged mental effort, even in seemingly easy tasks, leads to fatigue. This means that by the time you get to the important work that keeps the bills paid and family fed, you’re already worn out, leading to that ever-familiar feeling of guilt that you didn’t tackle your work-work first.
Some very interesting research was published that showed, when it comes to exertion, our brain is just like a muscle in the body and, if used without rest, potentially toxic neurotransmitters accumulate in the prefrontal cortex in just the same way that lactic acid builds up in leg muscles after a particularly long and intense run.37 This slows down cognition and causes tiredness, similar to how achy and weary calves will ruin your PB time. One way to combat this and get on top of precrastination tendencies is to literally schedule these tasks in your diary. In the same way that overly restrictive diets lead to blow-outs, trying not to engage in precrastination tasks will lead to frustration and preoccupation with these everyday jobs. Ever heard of the pink elephant phenomenon? What are you thinking about now? Yep, it’s impossible not to see that rose-coloured, adorable mammal in your mind’s eye, which is why overly restricting a behaviour never really works – our brain knows it’s still there. So if you tell yourself you won’t scroll socials at all for the entire time you’re on a project, as soon as you’re a touch tired, irritated, hangry or such like, willpower will snap like a twig. Structured precrastination, on the other hand, is a much more realistic strategy, which keeps the pang of ‘achievement hunger’ at bay.
No, I didn’t have a Scooby snack, as apparently Mark Twain said something along the lines of ‘Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day’ or ‘If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.’ It’s hard to know for sure exactly what he said or even if he really did say this, as it’s been attributed to various others, but the point is no one wants to eat a live frog (frogs’ legs, maybe, for some …), but if they had to they might as well get it out of the way early. When it comes to the psychology behind procrastination this is kinda important as we only have so much cognitive capacity (i.e. headspace) at a given time or on a given day, so if our heads are running worries over a task in the background, there will be less time and space to do other (more fun!) things. But if we just get it out of the way, then our minds will be freer to concentrate on the fulfilling and feel-good tasks that take rather more creativity and lateral thinking. So do ‘do’ the unpleasant things in the morning when energy and short-term motivation is highest after restorative sleep – assuming you’ve slept; if not, have a look at Chapter 9.
When we care greatly about our performance or a particular output, we almost always set our expectations sky-high. We tend to be outcome- rather than process-driven and forget that a great masterpiece probably started as a series of sketches, or some ideas jotted down on the back of an envelope. Usually, whatever you do will be enough to at least move your thinking on, even though on a day-to-day basis it might not feel like you’re accomplishing that much. Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that.
A habit built over a life course does take some time to change, so Silvia and I also used the below exercise based on cognitive behavioural therapeutic techniques to embed a fundamental shift from perfectionism to good enough-ness, allowing for the space that we all need to live our lives.
Perfectionism is basically like a magnifying glass, so big and distorted that once you start peering into it, you’ve already fallen down the rabbit hole. Therefore, perfectionists need regular and honest reality checks to combat this warped perception of the world. Think of the worst thing – the utterly, very worst and intolerable consequence – of not being perfectionistic.
Worst that will happen … |
Chances of this actually happening … |
If I don’t spend every evening on this presentation working until midnight everyone at work will see that I’m actually completely crap at this job and I’ll be sacked. |
Hmmm … well, I’ve never had a bad management review and I do get good feedback, so maybe this is a bit unlikely. And if I think about it, I can’t just be sacked as I have an employment contract, so if my boss thought I wasn’t up to scratch, she’d still have to give me opportunities to improve. |
If I don’t respond to my mates’ messages straight away, they’ll think I don’t care and that I don’t appreciate them – and ultimately, I’ll have no friends at all. |
I guess everyone is busy … most friends don’t respond immediately and I don’t think they’re bad mates, just that they must have a lot on. So, overall, I don’t think I would lose any of my good friends if I took a bit more time for myself. |
If I don’t appear practically perfect in every way no one will like me, let alone love me. |
I love the people in my life and they make f*ck loads of mistakes! And sometimes, seeing someone’s vulnerable, imperfect and messy side has made me feel closer to them so maybe it’s the same the other way round too … |
The secret here is about moving away from a sense of self that’s based on accomplishments, to one of personal worth related to our inner traits. We can aim to be our best without having to be the best. Because no matter how wealthy, physically flawless or successful we are, deep down we’re all fundamentally fallible human beings. Which is great! How boring life would be if we were all perfect.
We can turn the tables on perfectionism by seeing any slip-ups, blunders, gaffes or lapses as vital chances to look at the situation anew, with curious rather than critical eyes. Basically, #bemorecat and get as inquisitive about what happened or is unfolding by asking yourself:
No one – honestly, no one – is perfect. Life would be immensely dull if we were all impeccably faultless and flawless – in fact, the most entertaining and engaging stories are always the ones where skirts are tucked into knickers or something remarkably green is stuck right in your front teeth. If there’s anyone you think in your life who is near perfection, have a chat with them and ask them their embarrassing anecdotes – you might be surprised at the many gaffes they’d made in life! Biographies of respected icons can also do the trick – as long as they’re self-depreciating! The open secret is that everyone has faced challenges and we can use these Tiny Ts to plump up our psychological muscles – just as long as we are as compassionate to ourselves as we would be to others. On that note …
Make a pledge to yourself to be good enough at being good enough!
Dr Meg’s journaling prompts for banishing your inner critic
CHAPTER 5 TAKE-HOME TINY T MESSAGE
Procrastination is often driven by a fear of failure and high levels of perfectionism, frequently triggered by Tiny T. Therefore, by unpicking your Tiny T, you can manage the desire to be perfect all (or even most) of the time, allowing for a greater range of experience in life – including hiccups, mishaps and mistakes as these are usually when we laugh and learn. Perfectionism keeps us chained in expectations and puts a great deal of pressure on the individual. However, with a heavy dose of self-compassion, you can break free from this Tiny T Theme and choose what activities you want to dedicate your time and energy to, rather than feeling you have to do everything ‘just right’.