Defining Perfectionism
Let’s talk about perfection.
👉 Do you strive for it?
👉 Do you hold others up to that standard?
👉 Do you feel that others expect it from you?
Perfectionism is a widely researched area in Psychology and has links to many diagnoses including: anxiety, depression, OCD and eating disorders. Yet we don’t need to be diagnosed with any of these disorders to feel the pressures of perfectionism. Perfectionism is a personality trait that is identified by the setting of excessively high standards and excessive criticism of self and others. Some of us are even proud of our ‘perfectionist tendencies’. The distinct difference between being thorough and striving for perfection is the distress that comes with the excess.
Perfectionism is a widely researched area and it is stated that there are three general types of perfectionism. ‘Self oriented perfectionism’ is directed at oneself with the hopes of being as perfect as one can be. When we hold others to excessively high standards, this is called ‘other oriented perfectionism’. Lastly, there is socially prescribed perfectionism, which is a pressure that we place on ourselves under the belief that people expect nothing less than perfection from us. Think Paris from Gilmore Girls… We all saw how fun that was!
There are two other definitions that are useful to know and this refers to ‘healthy’ perfectionism or ‘maladaptive’ perfectionism. This is basically a fancy way of saying - how much distress does your perfectionism cause you? If you are able to get through your bumbles relatively okay then it is possible that you may experience healthier perfectionism. Whereas, if said bumbles send you into a tail spin, this may be reason enough to have a closer look.
I share this because I found perfectionism debilitating - I was highly critical of myself and sometimes others but I was rewarded for it. It helped me excel as a university student and early into my career. Society obviously valued my traits of perfectionism, which made it even harder for me to question. It was yielded as this trophy, this badge of honour that you would receive if you chose to forego any personal boundaries and worked yourself into the ground.
There was a little love triangle between my perfection, my fear of failure and procrastination. As a high achiever, it made sense to strive for perfection to continue getting all this praise that was making me feel valued. However, my fear of failure led me to procrastinate because I was terrified that this would be the one. This would be the one where people realised that I was a fraud and wasn’t actually worth all this praise and love (hellllooo imposter syndrome). It has taken me many failures (and existential crises) to realise that this outside of the safety net is where the magic happens.
💫 Failures = Learning. 💫
We don’t get to these conclusions overnight - we may ‘know’ them but we have to feel them in our bones, in the deepest parts of our bellies. It was and continues to be a process for me - I did however, retire my badge of honour a few years ago and have since taken the label ‘recovering perfectionist’ as coined by @Brene Brown.
My relationship with perfection is still evolving and there are elements that I will hold onto but I am glad to be managing the distress that came from the excess. I am forever grateful for my love of learning and my curiosity of the human experience - this is where my magic is.
How about you?
What is your relationship with perfection?
