You are listening to the Overthinkers Guide to Joy episode 84. This is the one
where I'm going to revisit perfectionism and some very valuable things I've learned
about something that I often struggle with. So let's dive in. This is a podcast for
overthinkers, overdoers, and overachievers who are tired of feeling overanxious and
just want to feel better. I'm your host, Certified Life Coach, Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there and welcome back. So I've been reading a really interesting book and doing
a deep dive on one of my favorite subjects and that is perfectionism. Now, one
might argue as a recovering perfectionist, this is a subject that I cannot learn
enough about, particularly because my clients often tend to be perfectionists as well.
But what's so interesting about my latest discovery about perfectionists is how many
varieties of us there are. I have been reading a fantastic book by Catherine Morgan
Schaffler called The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control. And I will link this book
and her name in the show notes. And I tried to reach out to her because I wanted
to do an interview about her book and about her life as a psychotherapist, author,
and former on -site therapist of Google. But I was unsuccessful in reaching her for
an interview, so I decided I would just kind of review the book myself and not
review the book in a critical way. Review the book so that my audience could hear
what I learned or a summary of what I learned because I thought it was absolutely
fascinating. So I thought I would take the liberty of identifying some of my
favorite takeaways in her book. My first big takeaway is while she and I are both
fans of the renowned author, professor and researcher, Brene Brown, Schaffler rejects
one of my favorite terms of Brene's, which is identifying as a recovering
perfectionist. And to paraphrase her reasoning for this rejection, Schaffler says,
"perfectionism is deeply skewed and highly selective. So what she's saying basically
is that because it's skewed and highly selective, it has a negative connotation.
The assumption being that perfectionists might be unhealthy or need to be fixed.
And this tends to be aimed towards women. Now, like I always say, that's not a
hard line. I know tons of men who are perfectionists, But it's interesting that
women most often identify that way. So apparently men don't use the term recovering
perfectionist. The examples she cites in the book are icons like Steve Jobs, Gordon
Ramsay, James Cameron, who are or were always known for demanding perfection,
but never apologetic about it. So the subtext of that statement is that
Perfectionism, when associated with men, is often equated with power, but for women
in order to be powerful and influential, they also need to be likable. So for many
women, perfectionism can have a way of torturing us in every facet of our life,
professionally, romantically, artistically, physically, even spiritually. And some people,
and this includes myself, thought that Perfectionism was something that needed to be
managed, or harnessed, or apologized for. But Schaffler says,
quote, "It's a power and a gift, "and the more you push it away, the harder it
pushes back." This really resonated with me. But again, as women,
we are constantly being told to be less, to weigh less,
to be less emotional, to spend less, to be less visible, to be less greedy,
to be less needy, and so on, and so on, and so on. So it's not about quote
curing yourself from perfectionism, like a disease or a disorder. It's about
understanding what kind of perfectionist you are and embracing it in a healthy way.
And that's what this book is all about. She basically breaks down perfectionism into
five categories, if you identify as a perfectionist. Here are the five types that
she categorizes as perfectionists, the classic perfectionist, someone who is highly
disciplined, adept at presentation, and is generally very proud of their perfectionist
tendencies. They tend to be reliable and predictable, and they do not like disorder.
So oftentimes, their inflexibility in their goal setting or methodology can lead to
being misunderstood and feeling underappreciated. The second type is the Parisian
perfectionist. This type of perfectionist is someone who wants to be perfectly liked.
They want to connect more than anything. They tend to hide their perfectionism by
making things seem effortless. So apparently the term Parisian perfectionist was named
after French women who exude an aesthetic sense of effortlessness in their beauty.
But this is not about beauty. It's about interpersonal connection, which ultimately is
about validation. So I believe that this type of perfectionist, the Parisian
perfectionist, is the one that is most closely linked to people pleasing because
they're looking for that personal connection with everybody they interact with. Then
there's the procrastinator perfectionist. This is the one who waits for conditions to
be perfect before starting. Even when they get going, they struggle with continuing
or finishing anything without concrete deadlines. And the reason for this is because
starting makes something real and reality risks that it could be imperfect.
In fact, reality guarantees, it's likely to be imperfect. So these kind of
perfectionists, the procrastinator perfectionist, is confident during the ideation phases
of projects, but finishing can often be elusive. Now, here's the thing.
These types are not actually lazy. People like to label themselves when they're a
procrastinator perfectionist as lazy because it's actually just an excuse for their
procrastination. But that's not what's happening. They're actually highly motivated. The
fourth type of perfectionist is the messy perfectionist. These individuals are in love
with the starting. Unlike the procrastinator perfectionist, the messy perfectionist has
the most joy in new beginnings, but then they struggle with momentum. So I've often
heard amongst people with ADD and ADHD, they tend to be so smart, so creative,
so passionate. And they're always starting new projects, new businesses, new hobbies,
even relationships. But then they get distracted by the next shiny new object.
So I don't know if there's a correlation, but that has been my experience in
dealing with this type of perfectionist. Messy perfectionists are often important to
have in your life, though, or on your team because they're the champions of
possibility, as Schaffler says. But they might have trouble getting over the finish
line. So the fifth one is the intense perfectionist. Now,
they're similar to classic perfectionists because they want a perfect outcome also.
But the biggest difference is that classic perfectionists tend to impose their
expectations onto others, but the intense perfectionist will offer suffer in silence
when things don't go exactly as they had planned in their mind. Additionally,
the intense perfectionists doesn't take pride in the parts of the journey that went
well. It's an all or nothing thinking. So, For example, setting a financial goal of
$100 ,000 and only hitting a $99 ,000 goal would result in profound disappointment by
the mistarget. And therefore the whole endeavor would be perceived by this
perfectionist as a total failure, even if it broke other previous records.
So this is where the suffering and silence comes from. This is where that sort of
lack of self compassion comes from. But perfectionism goes way beyond these
archetypes. Perfectionism can manifest in a lot of different ways. It can show up
like in your inability to love your own body or feeling unmoored by an unexpected
bout of malaise or being anxious about being on time or even something as small as
choosing the right paint color for your living room. These are just a few examples.
But when does perfectionism become a disability rather than a power or a gift?
And that's what the whole point of Schaffler's book is about. It's not about denying
perfectionism. It's not about treating it like a disorder or disease or a syndrome.
It's about embracing it. And she says, "When you consciously or unconsciously harness
the power of perfectionism to help or heal you, that's adaptive perfectionism.
But, she cautions, when you consciously or unconsciously harness the power of
perfectionism to limit or hurt yourself, that's maladaptive perfectionism.
That's what we want to avoid. So, how does one embrace this gift or power by
harnessing the adaptive aspect versus the maladaptive version takeover.
The most basic explanation is this. Adaptive perfectionists don't register setbacks as
failures. Instead, setbacks are experienced as opportunities for growth and learning.
Maladaptive perfectionists don't chase success. They run from failure. They are driven
to avoid failure because ultimately they are driven by shame avoidance. And oh my
god, does that resonate with me so deeply. So maladaptive perfectionism is basically
fear -based. It's fear of failure, fear of judgment, fear of embarrassment. But as
Thomas J. Watson, the former CEO of IBM once said, and I'll quote from the book,
"If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate. Now that is
so hard to embrace because for those of us who are very success oriented, the idea
of failure sounds catastrophic, but we kind of have to embrace the failure to get
to the success. That's what she means by looking at everything as an opportunity for
growth and learning. And it goes back to that thing that I always talk out in most
of my podcast, which is staying curious instead of feeling or becoming defensive.
So this is just the tip of the iceberg for us perfectionists and people -pleasers
and overachievers and overthinkers. But the thing is we must change our relationship
with our self -imposed labels. Now if you feel like any of this resonates with you
and that you might be a perfectionist, I want to highly recommend reading this book
and taking the quiz. If you've been apologizing for your perfectionism or if I
misled you in a previous episode about conquering perfectionism, I'm apologizing to
you and to myself because it's not something to conquer as much as it is to
monitor how it's showing up in our life. Is it a burden or is it a gift?
So, my first step to embracing my own perfectionism is to change my multi -hyphenate
Instagram profile and I am deleting the label of "recovering perfectionist" because
according to Schaffler, we are all already perfect. Not perfectly imperfect,
not good enough, just perfect. Because perfect actually means complete,
to be complete or whole and that we already are. All right, my friends,
I hope this resonates with you as much as it did with me and I hope you have a
great week and until next time, go and be awesome. Thank you for listening to this
episode of The Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you're enjoying these episodes, please
subscribe or follow this podcast so you can always be be in the know when the next
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