When you hear someone say ‘She is such a perfectionist’ or ‘He just has to do things perfectly’, it can be said with either a degree of envy or a degree of exasperation. On the one hand, we admire people who strive for high standards and a high-quality product. On the other hand, we are frustrated by people who persist in perfecting tasks and attending to detail in a way that makes a task take longer without adding substantially to the final outcome. Typically people who fall into this latter group are also causing distress to themselves, as they agonize over the detail of what they are doing and worry about how it might be received. Sometimes they lose confidence in their ability to deliver a worthwhile outcome, whether in work, social situations, leisure pursuits, sport, study or appearance. This type of perfectionism can result in self-criticism, lowered self-esteem and impaired performance. If perfectionism is having any of these consequences in your life, then this book is for you.
This book may be useful not only for anyone who identifies perfectionism as being a problem for them, but also for those with family or friends who have unhelpful perfectionism. It might be that perfectionism is causing problems in itself, or that it is associated with other problems like anxiety, depression or eating difficulties. We emphasize throughout this book that perfectionism is not simply having high standards but relates to one’s self-esteem being too dependent on striving and achievement, and that this brings with it a range of difficulties. The good news is that this sort of unhelpful perfectionism can be changed without you necessarily achieving less.
The aim of this book is first to help you to understand perfectionism, and then to suggest ways to overcome it. It is divided into two parts. Part One is about understanding perfectionism. In this section you will learn about what perfectionism is, what problems it can cause and keep going, and why it develops and persists. Part Two is about learning how to change your perfectionism. This section will help you to understand how it is that your perfectionism persists, to consider the costs and benefits, and to learn how to monitor your perfectionism. The strategies we describe for learning to overcome perfectionism include challenging unhelpful behaviors and thoughts related to perfectionism, tackling self-criticism, and broadening and strengthening your self-worth so that it is not based just on achievement. This is not about lowering your standards; it is about helping you stand back to consider what you want from your life, and whether your existing strategy (striving for achievement) is helping you or hindering you from reaching your goals.
Throughout the book we use examples based on cases we have seen and treated for perfectionism over the years. Although of course the names and some other details have been changed for reasons of confidentiality, these are all based on real individuals; we hope that you will see your own difficulties reflected in their circumstances, and also that their stories of recovery will help inspire you to begin to make changes to your own life.
We strongly recommend that you not only read this book, but also do some of the tasks we suggest in Part Two, as it takes some practice in doing things differently to change habits and ultimately overcome a problem. It is useful to read Part One first before going on to practice the tasks in Part Two, so that you have a better understanding of how perfectionism can be a problem and why. This book is a self-help approach to overcoming perfectionism; however, if you are having particularly strong difficulties, or experience trouble implementing some of the changes suggested in Part Two, it may be worth finding a therapist who can give you personal help in overcoming your perfectionism. Alternatively, if you are trying the techniques but they are not helping you as much as you would hope, then again we suggest you look for a therapist to help guide you through the book or to give you a different form of therapy.
One word of warning! People with perfectionism can try to approach all tasks in their life in a ‘perfect’ manner. For some readers, that will include the exercises in this book. We have worked with perfectionists who spend hours on their ‘homework’ between therapy sessions, trying to get it ‘right’. We have also worked with perfectionists who keep putting off doing the homework because they feel they can’t do it perfectly, and therefore they avoid committing pen to paper. In the same way, as you work through this book you might feel that you have not done your ‘homework’ – the various exercises and worksheets – ‘right’, ‘properly’ or ‘well enough’. So we would like to emphasize at the outset: there is no particular right or wrong way of doing the tasks (Section 7.5 on ‘all or nothing thinking’ is relevant here immediately!). We advise you to aim for a middle way, because that is what we think will yield you most benefit from this book. We suggest, as a guideline, that you work through the book according to a flexible plan, perhaps aiming to cover a chapter a week, setting aside time to read each chapter and absorb its content, complete the exercises, and set yourself some realistic goals that arise from the chapter for the week ahead. You are most likely to remember to do this if you plan to set aside the same piece of time each week for this, for example a Wednesday evening. Just as importantly, set yourself an approximate limit for how long you will spend reading the chapter and doing the exercises. As you work through the book, keep in mind some important principles:
We welcome you to the beginning of change.