You are listening to the Overthinker's Guide to Joy. I am on vacation this week, so
I decided to share a special bonus replay on perfectionism. As I was getting ready
for my trip, my inner perfectionist was trying to take over. The thing is, I don't
love to travel, and I especially don't love to pack. It's probably rooted in a fear
of forgetting something important, or not having something I might need, or being ill
-prepared for something that might happen. Well, something did happen. I actually got
COVID for the very first time on my vacation. And while everything is fine now, I'm
quite hoarse still, you can hear it in my voice, perfectionism is usually rooted in
issues of control and safety, whether it's physical or emotional. So I always find
myself wrestling my inner perfectionist to the ground, even while doing something
joyful like going on vacation. If perfectionism is something that you struggle with,
I hope you will enjoy this episode, whether it's for the first time or perhaps a
repeat for you too. It's chock full of information, so you may want to grab a pen
and paper and enjoy. Thanks for listening.
This is a podcast for over thinkers, over doers and over achievers who are tired of
feeling over -anxious and just want to 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 a sign 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 until 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 had had 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 want to 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 going to run marathons or she's not going to 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 that 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 are 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 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 perfectionist has their first quote
failure, the straight A student gets their first B or the athletes 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
healthy 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 will 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 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 Deweyck 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 at
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, Cheryl 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 Thank you for listening to this episode of the
overthinkers guide to joy If you're enjoying these episodes, please subscribe or
follow this podcast so you can always be in the know when the next episode drops.
If you would like to learn more about working with me as a coach, you can connect
with me through my website at jackiedecrinis.com. That's J -A -C -K -I -E -D -E -C -R -I
-N -I -S .com.
