You're listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy, episode 12. This week,
we're going to talk about perfectionism. Let's dive in. Hey there,
you are listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy. This is a podcast for
overthinkers, overachievers, perfectionists, type A, stressed out,
anxious people who just want to calm down and feel better. I'm your host,
certified life coach, Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there. So one of my goals with this podcast was to talk about common themes
that come up both in my life, but also in all the lives of my clients.
And this is one of those themes where I am just obsessed with this topic because I
want to convey it perfectly, which of course might defeat the whole point of this
episode because today's subject is about perfectionism. Now,
I can think about a dozen different people off the top of my head who are
thinking, "Uh -oh, this episode is about me," but it's not. It's about a lot of us,
including me. And I have often denied my own perfectionism.
I thought perfectionists were other people. Artists who knew how to color in the
lines or artists who knew how to draw the lines and then color in the lines. I
thought they were the scientists, you know, the people who had the patience to
titrate a long organic chemistry experiment correctly in their junior year as a
biology major with the hopes of going to medical school. Oh wait, does that sound
incredibly specific. Yes, that was me, except for the part where I titrated something
incorrectly and made a mistake on the equation early on in the semester. And then
when I got a D in the organic chemistry lab, I thought it was assigned from the
universe that I shouldn't go to medical school. And yes, that's a whole different
podcast. But I thought perfectionists were the girls who matched their handbags to
their shoes and who knew how to put on eye makeup just perfectly. I thought
perfectionists were ballerinas and gymnasts and concert pianists. I didn't know that
regular folks could be perfectionists too. And since I was not particularly artistic
nor musically inclined, nor did I end up going to medical school, I just assumed I
wasn't a perfectionist. But I was so wrong. Perfectionists come in all shapes and
sizes, and perfectionists tend to want to do things that they will excel at.
Ultimately, perfectionists fear disapproval and rejection from those around them, and
they're often their own worst critics. The two ends of the perfectionist spectrum are
the ones who start a million projects but never finish them for fear of imperfection
or being judged. And then they tend to wait till the last minute for deadlines so
that they can fall back on the excuse, well, I pulled an all nighter or I
completed the whole thing in one day. So in the perfectionist's mind, this ability
to do something herculean at the last moment protects them from criticism. Because
they can always say, well, if I only had put more effort into it, if I to have
more time, then it would have been really great. Well, the other end of the
spectrum is to do everything immediately so that you can get credit for always being
the first to complete everything. These type of perfectionists often don't wanna go
back and tinker with their work for fear admitting that they can't do it better. So
by completing every task really quickly and moving on is like an automatic passing
grade. Now, that's the two ends of the spectrum, but there's probably another 50
shades of perfectionism in between. I have one client who describes her perfectionism
as all or nothing. She's either gonna run marathons or she's not gonna do any
exercise at all. I see that same all or nothing mentality with my weight loss
clients. By the time they come to me, they've had a lifetime of yo -yo dieting.
Every Monday, they start a new diet, or at least they say they will. They either
stick to a very restricted, low -calorie, non -sustainable diet plan,
or they binge eat, thus perpetuating their lifetime of yo -yo dieting. I have other
clients whose perfectionism results in insomnia, Ruminating all night long about the
mistakes they made at work or the next day to come fearing that they will make
mistakes again And then that cycle leads to I won't get enough sleep I won't be
sharp enough that will make mistakes. And so it becomes a vicious loop. I Have
other clients who feel overcome with emotion or profound sadness or anxiety as they
are looking for their next job. But they have terrible fear they won't ever find
one or they're incapable of giving a good interview because they'll never be prepared
enough. They were maybe laid off or fired from their last job for some circumstance
and now they've taken that energy into believing that they're not worthy of a next
interview or the next job.
Perfectionism comes from the need to control things. This need may have come from
some childhood trauma or dysfunction in our upbringing. The common denominators I see
are often a result of children of narcissists or alcoholics,
drug addicts, or even bipolar behavior. So when the family home lacked consistency or
then there was volatility, and that might be one parent and not the other. The
child learns to cope by being a people pleaser and or a perfectionist So this
messaging turns into hard -wiring over time We become so afraid of making a mistake
or being judged By the proverbial parent even if we are you know decades away from
being children But we channel it into a form of perfectionism.
So when we're younger, perfectionists tend to look like goal -oriented overachievers.
The success of being a good dancer, athlete, or student pays dividends, whether it's
in the form of awards or money, attention, or some other intangible.
And being goal -oriented or achievement -oriented is fantastic. But when it becomes
dysfunctional, that is, it's at the expense of regular sleep or normal eating or
chronic anxiety, it's simply not sustainable. So the perfectionist turns their
achievements into a weapon because they're constantly trying to either do better or
live up to their former success. So, we're seeing a rise in society for the
perfectionist mentality, and the research on this trend is sort of inconclusive.
Some people believe it is heightened by social media, and the immediacy and curation
of other people accomplishing things at a rapid rate, whether that's money, beauty,
fame, whatever. But the problem is when the
as their first quote failure. The straight A student gets their first B or the
athlete goes to compete on a bigger stage and gets crushed by the opposition or the
beauty queen who doesn't qualify outside their hometown. It becomes the first crack
in the vase. Now, with an achievement -oriented person, they just pick themselves up
and try again. With a perfectionist, they tend to either quit everything they've
worked for, or they find themselves running to the next thing, or they double down
and obsessively try to become the best. And that's okay,
well, not the obsessive part, it's certainly okay to try and do better. It's
certainly okay to accept failure, but oftentimes the perfectionist will manifest
unhealthy coping mechanisms. So they might turn to drugs, alcohol, eating disorders,
gambling, something to sublimate their imperfection while they're trying to attain that
perfection in their goal or their particular field. So it takes a long time to
unwind the perfectionist mentality and habits, and the coping mechanisms that the
perfectionist starts to use become oddly comfortable in their dysfunction,
whether that's addiction or just never getting unstuck from their endless
procrastination or lack of completion. It's kind of like the old saying "the devil
you know." So how do we break the perfectionist cycle? As with any lifetime pattern,
there is no overnight solution. But there are steps you can take towards mitigating
the pattern. And the first step is like any addiction. Admission.
Now, some people proudly admit that they are perfectionists, and they wear it as a
badge of honor. They think the admission of being a perfectionist gives them a hall
pass to not completing things, or not completing things in a timely fashion, or a
license to be perpetually anxious, or the license to be a workaholic. But
perfectionism is not a virtue, nor is it a mental illness, but when it spirals out
of control, it can often collide with mental health issues like depression,
anxiety, and OCD.
So what's step number two after we admit we might be a perfectionist? Try focusing
on the positives.
Perfectionists tend to focus on what's not working instead of what is.
Now this becomes the proverbial lead balloon for many or kryptonite in their
progress. And it's what often leads perfectionists to either give up or overwork
everything. But by focusing on the things you are doing well, we'll give you
buoyancy and keep your momentum going, which is kind of key. Because why
perfectionists quit or why perfectionists procrastinate is because they are overwhelmed
by their focus on what's not working. And so then they don't give any credit to
what is. They lose that buoyancy. They lose the momentum. So what's step three?
Practicing self -compassion. It's okay to make mistakes. Accepting the mistakes as the
thing that makes you better will actually help you. Welcoming the errors as an
opportunity to learn instead of avoiding them at all costs. It's actually kind of
like learning to ski and I don't love skiing, but I know how. And part of what I
don't love about skiing is I'm so afraid of falling. When you learn to ski as a
little kid and you learn to fall as part of learning to ski, you develop an
acceptance to falling. In fact, if you've ever seen like three -year -olds learning to
ski, they don't ski with poles and they love to fall because they think it's fun
and they're very low to the ground and it doesn't hurt. But when you're an adult
and you learn to ski, falling can be very painful, it can be very dangerous, it's
the fear of embarrassing yourself, it's the fear of hurting somebody else, you have
so much going on in your mind. But when you learn to ski as a little kid and you
learn to fall as a little kid, the truth is by avoiding the fear of falling,
you actually fall less, but even when you do fall, it's not as catastrophic because
you're looser, your muscles are looser and you accept it. It's the same thing with
making mistakes. Letting the mistakes come, letting them be your teacher,
then makes you more fluid in your process. You let go of the fear of criticism And
you learn to tune out the garden variety criticism and you learn what is
constructive criticism, whether it's your own or someone else's. And when someone else
is giving you constructive criticism, it's coming from a place of a common goal to
make the work product better. It's not intended to demoralize you and they certainly
don't want you to give up. So, practicing self -compassion can be a softer way of
approaching a big goal or a difficult chore or even just an artistic project.
So what's step four? Well, step four is smart goals. And smart goals are different
than regular goals. A regular goal might be something like, "I want to be rich
someday," or, "I want to be thin," or, "I just want to be happy. Those are
somewhat amorphous and extremely subjective. They can also seem impossible if you've
never achieved any of those things. But smart goals are different. Smart goals are
defined as S is for specific,
M is for measurable, A is for achievable, R is for realistic,
and T is for time limited. So rather than saying something like,
"I want to be thin," you might decide, "I want to lose 20 pounds in the next
three months." This meets all the criteria of a smart goal. Then you can go about
coming up with a strategic plan of how to make this happen, whether that's diet,
exercise, hiring a professional trainer, hiring a coach, and doing it in incremental
ways. You make a plan one day at a time, one week at a time,
one month at a time. That's how we reach our goals. And that's how we stay on
task and avoid that perfectionist tendency of all or nothing. So step five.
Focus on the meaning of the project. Find the joy in it. If it's a creative
project, tap into the reason you started the project in the first place. If it's
something that you have to do, this can feel like a chore. New York Times
bestselling author Charles Dewig says in his new book, Smarter, Faster, Better,
"Reframe Chores as a Choice." Figure out what the end game of completing a chore
does for you or for someone else. When something's a choice, we tend to keep our
motivation higher. He talked about it in terms of like when he was teaching,
he hated grading papers. And then what he realized was that by grading papers and
taking pride in grading, which felt like a chore, he was then helping his students
become better writers, better scientists, better whatever they were doing.
And then eventually those students would go off to becoming scientists.
They would be able to better communicate in their research papers what they wanted
to prove and that maybe one of his future students would ultimately cure cancer.
But That would all be because he took pride in grading their papers and trying to
make them better. So the chore then became a choice. So if you can find that
methodology in your brain of why this thing that you don't really want to do has
some greater benefit for you or for somebody else, it changes your energy around
doing it. So, as I always say, when we're trying to form new healthier habits and
certainly letting go of perfectionism, I would qualify as definitely a healthy habit.
You have to remember, there is no magic bullet. Awareness is the first step to
changing a bad habit into a good habit. And the second step is just practice.
And I know that's hard. It's super hard for the all or nothing people. But
everything we're talking about is just developing a practice a little bit each day.
And it starts with awareness. So if you have a goal or a big project that's due,
the best thing you can do is simply work on it a little bit at a time. schedule
your work, and then track your progress and celebrate each step,
even the mistakes and the failures, because it means we're learning. But if you
don't celebrate the progress, you will lose that motivation, and like everything else,
it's going to get stuck or sidelined. So the last thing I want to do is to invite
our perfectionists to being perfect and not being a perfectionist. That would defeat
the whole point. So let go of that too. And I'm gonna leave you with two of my
favorite quotes on perfectionism. The first is from the COO of Facebook,
Sheryl Sandberg. Done is better than perfect. And the second one is by researcher,
author, Bernay Brown. I am a recovering perfectionist. This is my motto because I am
a recovering perfectionist. So I want to thank you for listening and I look forward
to talking to you again next week. And just remember, practice makes perfect,
but we're not looking for perfection, we are just looking for practice.
Have a great one and take care. If you want to learn more tips about managing your
stress and how to manage your overthinking brain, just go to my website and sign up
for my weekly newsletter at jackiedecrinis .com. That's J -A -C -K -I -E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I
-S dot com. You can also follow me on Instagram at jackiedecrinis.
Bye for now.
