Is it good or bad to be a perfectionist? This article will answer that question and help you find out if you are a perfectionist.
Psykolog, specialiseret i pædagogisk psykologi og formidling.
Psychologist, specialized in educational psychology and communication.
Do you often make an effort not to do or say something stupid when you are with your friends or your colleagues? And if you do, do you spend too much time thinking about it and feel guilty?
How do you feel about making a mistake? Can you shrug it off, or do you feel like beating yourself up about it? Are you able to let it go when you make a mistake, or does it rumble in your head even long after it's happened?
If you can see yourself in any of these examples, it suggests that there's a perfectionist hiding inside you.
But is it bad to be a perfectionist, you may ask yourself? Not always. No doubt it's good to have high ambitions. And no doubt it's good to make an effort to treat other people well. But at what cost? <hl>If your perfectionism means you're always dissatisfied with yourself and beating yourself up when you don't live up to your expectations, it can lead to unhealthy outcomes<hl>.
In fact, several studies show that perfectionism can increase the likelihood of developing depression. But does that mean being a perfectionist is always bad? No. Being a perfectionist can be healthy too -it's just a question of which kind of perfectionist you are.
According to Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar, there are two ways to be a perfectionist.
There is <hl>the classic perfectionist<hl>, and then there is the <hl>optimalist<hl>, who is similar to the perfectionist - but with some important and fundamental differences.
The difference between the two - and the reason why optimalists are often happier and have a higher quality of life than perfectionists - is that perfectionists reject mistakes, while optimists accept making mistakes.
This does not mean that optimalists are fond of or want to make "mistakes". It just means that <hl>when things don't go as they expect, they don't get knocked down<hl> - as the perfectionist often does.
For example, when they discover that they have done a task wrong, or when they have not lost the 5 kilos they set out to, they do not see it as a fundamental fault in themselves. They see it as an expected bump in the road to succeeding at what they are doing.
“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
This quote comes from Thomas Edison, who is perhaps the best example of an optimalist. On his long and winding road to inventing the light bulb, he is said to have "failed" 10,000 times.
But instead of seeing each failure as "mistakes", he saw them as <hl>necessary steps on the way to his goal<hl>.
The optimalist accepts that the road to the goal often has bumps and turns - this is true for both the career path to the dream job and the path to solving the task you're stuck with at work right now.
Perfectionists, on the other hand, expect the shortest and most direct path. If they encounter obstacles along the way, they find them difficult to deal with and accept because it means they are not living up to their own expectation of flawlessness.
Optimalists do not have an expectation of flawlessness. They are prepared to probably not hit the mark the first time or even the fifth time. <hl>Optimalists expect bumps in the road, and so optimalists don't beat themselves up when the bumps come<hl>. They use the bumps to become better prepared for the next contingency on their way to the goal.
The fundamental difference between perfectionists and optimalists is thus both their attitude to making mistakes and their handling of the mistake after they have made it. But how can you, as a perfectionist, get better at accepting and dealing with it when things don't go your way?
You can by changing your attitude toward failure. Continue reading to learn how.
If you are a perfectionist like me, then you will know the disappointment and the feeling of defeat when you don't live up to your expectations.
In this article, you'll discover three exercises to help you deal with the unpleasant feelings that can arise when you don't live up to your expectations.
The first exercise is called the PRP process.
P is for permission. You must allow yourself to accept the disappointment of not living up to your expectations.
R is for reconstruction. You must try to reconstruct the way you interpret a challenging situation.
P is for perspective. Seeing the challenging situation from a wider perspective will help you to look at the situation more realistically.
Step 1
The first thing to do is to think of a situation where you got emotionally upset about something you were going to do or say.
For example, it could be at a dinner party where you made a joke that offended one of your friends. Or it could be when your presentation in front of your team didn't go as well as you had hoped.
Step 2
Once you have found a situation, review it using the three-letter PRP process.
Start by <hl>acknowledging what happened in the situation and allow yourself to have the feeling and thoughts you had<hl>. If it was guilt over making a misunderstood joke, accept the guilt. Don't try to remove it or suppress it. Just try to accept that the feeling is there.
Step 3
The next thing to do is to <hl>be curious about what you can learn from the situation<hl>. This doesn't mean you have to be pleased with the experience or the feeling. It just means that you should be open to what you can learn. If the situation was a presentation that didn't go as you had hoped, ask yourself how you can improve it for next time.
Maybe it didn't go as expected because you spent too long on the points at the beginning and didn't get all the way through the points. Or maybe you underestimated the preparation time and weren't as sharp as you would have liked. Whatever you choose to take away from it, practice seeing it as an opportunity to learn and get better, rather than beating yourself up about it.
Step 4
The last part of the exercise is about seeing the individual situation <hl>from a larger perspective<hl>. So, ask yourself: Is there a larger pattern to this situation? Is this something I have experienced before?
If it's about a joke that was delivered in an unfortunate way to a friend, try to consider if it's something you often encounter or if it was just this one time. Did the situation mean anything to your relationship? Have you talked about it, and do you know in general if it meant anything to your friend?
<hl>When a situation gives you unpleasant feelings and thoughts, it is often related to the way you interpret the situation<hl>. And if you're a perfectionist, you'll often interpret unwanted situations as failures and blame yourself for that.
Here are three steps to help you interpret difficult situations in a more appropriate way.
The first thing to do is to make a table with three columns.
Step 1
In the first column, describe an incident that provoked an unpleasant emotional reaction. This could be when you came home from holiday and stepped on the scale for the first time in a while and saw that you had put on 4 kilos.
Step 2
In the next column, write the perfectionist interpretation of the reaction and in brackets the feeling it gave you. This could be: "I am fat and have no willpower" ("giving up").
Step 3
In the third column, write an alternative and more suitable interpretation. Think about what you would say to a friend who had just come back from holiday and had put on a few kilos. It could be something like: "As a human being, my weight will go up and down. I've enjoyed being on holiday and completely relaxed. It's normal to put on a little weight after a holiday. My weight will adjust when I get back into the routine of everyday life".
It is important to remember that this exercise is not a quick fix. To get the most out of the exercise, do it regularly - preferably a couple of times a week. It's also good to do immediately after a situation that gave you an unpleasant thought or feeling.
The exercise helps you accept that difficult emotions are part of life. It also helps you to respond more appropriately to those difficult feelings, so you don't beat yourself up when you have a bad experience.
<hl>It helps you with self-care, which is something all perfectionists struggle with<hl>. Being hard on yourself is a core element of perfectionism, so don't blame yourself for it. Therefore, when doing the exercise, you should also be kind to yourself. Give yourself time to learn that the perfectionist interpretation you may have gotten used to is not always good for you and that even though it is hard to get rid of, it can be done.
The third exercise is about setting aside your critical sense. So when you do this exercise, try to put your critical thinking aside and write whatever comes to mind. Even if the sentences you write don't really make sense or if they are contradictory.
Step 1
Start by taking out a piece of paper or your mobile phone and write down the following three sentences:
Step 2
Once you have written down the three sentences, write at least three different endings for each sentence. For example:
If I accept to fail...
Step 3
Once you have completed the sentences in different ways, look at what you have written and ask yourself: Do I agree with what I have written? If there are sentences that are contradictory, do I trust one of them more than the other?
Once you have found some endings to the sentences that make sense to you, consider whether you are brave enough to try them out.
If you have completed the sentence, "If I accept to fail", try to see what happens if you actually commit to trying to accept it when you fail. Do you make more mistakes? Do you dare to take more chances? Do you become more self-indulgent and stop beating yourself up?
Doing one or more of the exercises in this article regularly will help you cope when you make mistakes. They help you accept that you are NOT a superhuman. That you, like everyone else, make mistakes. And that it's ok. <hl>It's all about how you deal with it when it happens<hl>.
