Chapter 9
Analyzing Perfectionism
In This Chapter
Looking at the characteristics of perfectionists
Realizing how perfectionism begins
Perfectionists use frequent negative self-talk based on core beliefs to tell themselves that they have to do things in a perfect manner and that they’re not worth anything if things aren’t not done exactly right. In Chapter 8, we describe how negative self-talk tears down your sense of self-worth, and perfectionism is a specialized type of negative self-talk.
Following are some of the statements perfectionists commonly think to themselves:
- “If I don’t set the highest standards for myself, I’ll fail at everything I try.”
- “I can’t make any mistakes at all. Every detail has to be absolutely perfect.”
- “There is only one best way to do things.”
- “People won’t accept me if I do anything wrong.”
- “I always have to be busy because I have to do things flawlessly.”
- “I have to figure out the best way to do this, so I’ll wait until the last minute to start.”
- “I won’t let others help me because they can’t do it as well as I can.”
In this chapter, we encourage you to investigate whether or not you’re a perfectionist. We discuss what the characteristics of a perfectionist are and how perfectionist tendencies begin in the first place. (In Chapter 10, we describe exactly how to deal with perfectionism to become a healthy high-achiever.)
Uncovering the Characteristics of Perfectionism
Here’s how perfectionism works: First, you have low self-esteem to begin with. Then in order to deal with this feeling, you set unrealistic and unattainable goals to prove once and for all to yourself and to others that you do have value and that you are competent and important. But because the goals are impossible, you fail. This failure leads to feelings of anger at yourself. If only you had spent more time, if only you had tried harder, you could have reached these goals. This anger turns into even greater low self-esteem.
So you try again. You set even higher unrealistic goals, fail to meet them, experience even more profound anger at yourself, and your low self-esteem takes a deeper nose-dive. Eventually, you may give up and avoid even trying to reach your goals at all because you consider yourself such a failure. Figure 9-1 shows a visual of this cycle.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Figure 9-1: The cycles of perfectionism.
Perfectionism manifests in many different ways. Take a look at the rest of this section to see which of the traits match up with your own thoughts and actions; then complete the following exercise.
After you read this section, use your notebook to keep track of all the perfectionist tendencies, thoughts, and behaviors you have for a week. Every evening before you go to sleep, review the day and write down each time you felt you hadn’t done something well enough, each time you saw yourself as a failure or not good enough, and the thoughts that went through your mind when these things were happening. After a week, look at your list and note which tendencies, thoughts, and behaviors were the most frequent. Then write about how you and those around you are hurt by what you observed about yourself.
Feeling deeply upset if you make any mistakes
Being a perfectionist means that you believe that perfection definitely can and should be achieved at all times. None of this mamby-pamby “Everyone makes mistakes” for you! Even if the task isn’t something you have much interest in, you think that you should be the best at it because you should be the best in everything you do.
Because all you do has to be top-notch, you’re very disappointed in yourself and feel that your life has no value if you make a mistake. Even if it’s a tiny error, you have a sharp eye and hone in on that one error and then blow it out of proportion. You’re extremely critical of yourself and have trouble seeing anything other than this slip-up.
Mistakes are totally unacceptable, especially because they may show other people that you’re incompetent. You’re anxious about being accepted by others, and as a result, you won’t take any risks, which reduces your ability to be creative or do something new and original. Instead, you concentrate on doing only safer tasks. You stick to projects you trust yourself to do an excellent job on and know you can accomplish in the best way possible.
Unfortunately, this regimentation makes it so you’re not open to learning new information or taking advantage of new opportunities that open up. This attitude holds you back on your job and keeps you from getting promoted.
Even if you do something well, you downplay what you did achieve and wonder whether you could have done it even better. You’re not satisfied with the result, and you’re not happy with yourself because you believe your work will never be good enough.
In this exercise, answer the following questions to see whether this type of perfectionism is part of your personality:
- Do you believe that being perfect is achievable?
- Do you believe you have to be perfect to be liked, accepted, and viewed as smart and capable?
- Do you put yourself down mercilessly for any mistake you make? If so, when has that happened?
- Do you find that you rarely take risks or try something new? If so, how has this affected your career?
- Do you minimize your achievements?
Thinking you’re stupid if you perform imperfectly
If you’re a perfectionist, you believe that something is wrong with you if you do anything that isn’t flawless. You must perform at 100 percent in everything you do or you may be considered “average,” which is a terrible thing to be.
You have standards that are extremely high — in fact, they’re so high that they’re practically unrealistic and unattainable. These are inflexible, personal standards that you must meet. Because your yardstick is so high, you feel you must do a great job and you’re stupid if you don’t. This leads to black-and-white thinking. You have to be a success at everything you do, and if you aren’t, you’re a total failure.
The reason this level of success is so important is because you want to avoid the shame and guilt you feel when something is not done perfectly. You feel that if you do everything perfectly, look extremely beautiful or handsome, have the ideal job that you do exactly right, and live a perfect life, you can somehow prevent those feelings of shame and guilt.
If you live your life with extreme perfectionism, these feelings of shame and guilt can take you directly to anxiety, which can then lead to performing at very low levels because your anxiety over being a failure is so high. And if you don’t reach your goals at all, you can easily fall into depression.
Even when you acknowledge that these unyielding standards cause you stress and may be extreme, you continue to believe that you must have them in order to excel and be productive.
Do you get upset with yourself when your performance is less than what you expected? Find out by answering the following questions:
- Do you belittle yourself if you think you’re just mediocre?
- Do you create standards for yourself that are impossible to achieve? If so, what are those standards?
- Do you feel shame, guilt, anxiety, or depression about your performance? If so, how has that affected your performance?
Rarely letting others help with your projects
Because it’s crucial that everything be done to the highest level of attainment, it’s very difficult for you to let others help you in anything you do. You must see it through to the end, making sure that every little detail is done correctly.
Delegating work to others is out of the question. They may not do it as well as you, so you’ve got to do it yourself to ensure it’s done the right way.
Your eye is totally on the goal of achieving the end product. You don’t care about the process or what happens during the process.
Even though you may believe that striving for excellence is good, you’re so eager to please others that you worry about every little detail in your projects and have to check things over many times to be confident that you’ve done the best you can. You may spend much more time on your projects that anyone else would, but that’s fine because if you let others see your flaws, you feel they’ll disapprove of you and not accept you because they’ll see you as a loser. Your fear of being rejected makes you work harder and longer to do the best job possible.
Unfortunately, because it takes you so long to complete your work, you end up being less productive than other people. You fuss over minute details and ignore other tasks where you could be more useful. You see it’s taking you a long time to accomplish one task and that other tasks are piling up. Then you think even more negative thoughts about yourself and feel worse.
In addition, you can take a long time redoing a task, usually many times over, to make sure there are no faults. This also slows down your performance and effectiveness as a student and as an employee. It can lead to poor grades on tests that have time limits and poor performance at work.
Imagine you’re working on a report for either school or work. You feel that you must make it have a common look, with matching font types, font sizes, and colors. The formatting has to be faultless. The content must flow easily from one part to the next. You work and work on it because it can always be improved upon. And once you’re done, you review it five more times. You have to make sure there are no errors and that it’s perfect.
Working so hard and so long also makes you exhausted. You can never get it perfect, but you keep trying. You put in extra hours, working in the evenings and on the weekends, to make sure you achieve excellence. Of course, you can’t be “almost perfect” because that would be a sign that you’re not a success at all.
Not only that, you may even forfeit your well-being to keep going until it’s perfect. You won’t get the right amount of sleep or take breaks to relax at work. The idea of having fun is out of the question. You have too much work to do! You eat fast food on the run because you have so much to do. And downing those energy drinks and coffee keeps you awake to continue working. Your body may be run down, but that’s insignificant because the only thing that matters is that the tasks are done exactly right.
And your negative emotions don’t help your well-being either. You worry about the outcome of your tasks and every little thing that could go wrong. You’re frequently anxious, skeptical that you’re doing your best, and frustrated that things are not going smoothly. In fact, things go much less smoothly for you than they seem to for other people.
If your project doesn’t come out exactly as you’d like, you set a higher bar for the next project. You figure that as long as you put all your time and effort into reaching perfection, you’ll attain it. If you don’t, it means that you just didn’t work hard enough and you should work even longer and harder.
You may have a constant feeling that you’re not there yet. Even though you’ve accomplished many things, you don’t feel you’ve accomplished everything you need to, and you need to outdo yourself by achieving even more. You’re like a hamster on a wheel, never getting where you want to go, always having more to get done.
You exhibit positive self-esteem when you welcome and respect the opinions and expertise of others. Answer the following questions to discover whether you fall into the perfectionist category of having to protect your work from others:
- Do you turn people down when they offer to help you?
- Do others get upset with you when their help is declined?
- Are you afraid of being rejected by others if you don’t do your work perfectly? If so, who are these other people?
- Do you have to examine your work over and over again before you feel it’s flawless? If so, has this reduced your productivity? How has this affected your grades at school or your advancement at work?
- Do you set even higher expectations for yourself if you don’t do something well enough the first time? If so, have you been able to meet these higher expectations?
Waiting to do things at the last minute — or maybe not at all
If you have perfectionist tendencies, when you fear you’re going to fail, you put off doing what needs to be done. You procrastinate. You’re so immobilized with anxiety and dread that something will go wrong, you can’t find the motivation to get started on what you need to accomplish.
Another thing you may do as a perfectionist is to make sure you’ve found the ideal way to approach the project before you begin. Sure, you might fall behind in your work, which could affect your relationships with your coworkers and your reputation in the workplace, but at least you’ll feel more comfortable starting the project.
The situation can get so bad that you won’t even start a project. Your perfectionism, instead of helping you be successful, can actually be the very thing that prevents you from reaching your goals.
Procrastination and not starting a project can also be switched on because of your anticipation of disapproval from others. If others are going to find fault with what you’re doing, it’s better to put it off as long as possible or not do it at all. You may even go so far as to hide your mistakes from other people so you don’t feel that disapproval.
Perfectionism determines not only how you relate to projects you do yourself, but also how you relate to the work others do. If someone does a task better than you, you feel you’ve fallen short. There must definitely be something wrong with you if your coworker is more proficient.
Most people procrastinate once in a while, but perfectionists do it often. To find out if this is one of your challenges, answer these questions:
- Do you commonly procrastinate and get work done poorly because of it? If so, when was the last time this happened?
- Have you not done something important because you were afraid you couldn’t do it right or couldn’t do it well enough?
- What negative things have happened to you because of your procrastination or because you didn’t do something you should have that you were anxious about?
Being defensive if others criticize you
If perfectionism is something you live with every day, your self-esteem is low and you’re basically an insecure person. You have a sense of inadequacy.
These feelings of incompetence lead you to need to prove yourself through what you do. Your desire to be perfect, to show others that you are very capable, is the longing to make a positive statement about yourself.
When you’re criticized by anyone, you take it personally. You take that criticism as evidence that your deepest fear — that you’re not good enough — is actually true. You’re outraged and disgusted with yourself. Because your self-esteem is low, you do your best to defend yourself and even turn the disapproval around so that you criticize the other person.
By answering the following questions, you’ll have a better understanding of how you relate to your work and how difficult it is for you to accept criticism:
- Do you feel inadequate about your work?
- Do you believe you need to prove yourself to others so they see you as being competent?
- Do you feel personally abused when someone criticizes your work? If so, when has this happened?
Handling relationships poorly
You’re actually scared of people because they can point out that you’re imperfect and incompetent. This doesn’t lead to close relationships. It leads to isolation and loneliness.
You have a difficult time opening up to people. You feel deep down that you must remain strong and in control of your emotions at all times. So you can’t talk with others about your worries, shortcomings, and frustrations.
In fact, you end up pushing people away because you can’t connect with them in a natural way. They feel alienated from you because you keep an emotional wall up that is always there to protect you.
You may even act like a dictator, telling others what they must do to have an ideal relationship with you. You expect your relationships to be perfect too, and when they’re not, you cut off the people in your life — your family, spouse, friends, and coworkers. It’s easier that way because you don’t have to spend your time on relationships. Accomplishing your tasks is much more important.
Just as you’re highly sensitive about others being critical of you, you also carry a lot of judgment of other people and readily criticize them when you believe they are not doing the best they can. You feel that if you ease up on others, you may start easing up on yourself, and both of these are totally unacceptable.
Relationships are an important part of life. People with high-quality relationships and positive interactions tend to be healthy both physically and emotionally. Answer the following questions to determine how well you relate to others:
- Do you commonly feel alone and that no one wants to be with you?
- Do you find it difficult to open up and share your feelings with others, even those people who are closest to you?
- Do you try to control others so they do what you think is right? If so, who have you done this with?
Becoming Aware of How Perfectionism Begins
You weren’t born a perfectionist. When you were a baby, you had to try many times before you could get that spoon into your mouth without spilling food. You had to walk first by holding onto a low table, and sometimes you fell. Then you walked a few steps next to the table without touching it, and you fell down. Finally, after many tries, you were able to walk without holding onto anything or falling. In time, you walked faster without tripping, and at last, you ran.
As a child, you found many things interesting, and you discovered that you could do some things well and others not as well.
While you were doing your best to learn to sit up, crawl, walk, and run as well as sing, hop, study, and all the other things you were involved in during childhood, the adults in your life were reacting to you. The way they talked to you and how they acted in response to what you did had an impact on you.
In this section, you discover the ways that perfectionism may have been instilled in you as a child.
As you read all the following examples, realize that your parents did the best they knew how. They related to you based on their own personalities and the way they were raised by their parents. So don’t blame them, and don’t blame yourself for your perfectionism. The point is just to recognize it for what it is so that you can deal with it.
Hearing criticism often
If you were criticized often by your parents, you grew up thinking you had to go that extra step to please them and make them proud of you. Some parents never give their child high regard for what they do. Instead of saying, “Good job — I’m pleased with you,” these parents say, “Couldn’t you have done better?” Their children grow up believing that what they do isn’t very worthwhile and that they have to strive to be better. Maybe then their parents will look kindly at them and give them a pat on the back for doing a good job.
Some people grow up in homes where other people are criticized too — people at work, neighbors, friends, and family members who live outside the home. Children in these households decide it’s wise to stay on their parents’ good side and not be like all these people who are criticized. If they can only be perfect, their parents won’t condemn them like they do other people.
Having things done for you
Imagine you’re trying to do something for your family, such as putting away the dishes. Your mother comes up to you and says, “Here, let me do it! I can do it faster. You don’t even know where the dishes go.” How do you feel? Of course, you’re going to feel that you did something wrong because your mother can certainly put the dishes away faster and better than you. You feel you might as well not even try. She’s going to push you out of the way and belittle you anyway, so why make an effort?
But then you start to think that working hard to do things perfectly is a good idea. You want to do things well, and if you perform extra well, you can feel that you can accomplish things. In fact, you redouble your effort to learn exactly which dish goes where, so you can jump up out of your seat after the dishes have been washed and start to put them away as quickly as (or even quicker than) your mother. You want to show her that you can put the dishes away in an expert manner.
Being compared to another child
If you heard such things as “Why can’t you be more like your sister? She gets such good grades and never gets in trouble,” you likely had the opinion that you weren’t as good as your sister. In fact, you may have thought you weren’t as good as any of the kids in the neighborhood. They all got good grades too and weren’t in trouble. You wondered what was wrong with you.
These messages from parents can be very damaging, trampling on your sense of self-worth from an early age. You figured it was hard to live up to the love your parents had for your sister, so you’d better try really hard to get those high grades and be very, very good. Only then might your parents think you were as good as your sister.
Getting little attention or affection
You may not have been criticized for what you did. In fact, you may have heard nothing at all about your performance at school or at home. Your parents were so busy with their own lives and perhaps other children that they gave you no notice at all.
So you resolved within yourself that you were going to get straight A’s and be on the basketball team, just to get your parents’ attention. All of your efforts were intensified in that direction. You wanted your parents to notice your accomplishments, and this was the only way you could think of to get them to become aware of you.
Or you may have gotten little affection. You began to notice that the only time your parents gave you any affection at all — when they put their hand on your shoulder or gave you a hug — was when you did a fantastic job in your classes, in sports, or in the play. You worked extremely hard to do that fantastic job, and you got what tiny amount of affection they handed out for doing so. You figured you must be exceptional at everything so they would keep giving you at least a little affection.