Our inner critic is always trying help us to avoid discomfort or difficulty. It’s the part of us that learns to criticise from the inside before anyone can do it on the outside. Our inner critic loves to walk hand in hand with the perfectionist mindset by imposing relentless standards in the hope that we will avoid experiencing criticism, judgement or rejection. Sometimes our inner critic wants to control our every thought and action, because letting up would risk the unthinkable…. failure. We like to think of our inner critic as negative but in reality, it’s trying to protect us. In a weird way of course but it is, it’s like an overly protective parent.
There’s no controlling “perfect”
Research tells us that somewhere along the line we adopted this belief system: I am what I achieve, in other words, my achievements are what makes me worthy. We know rationally that perfection isn’t possible, partly because it’s so subjective, it a very personal thing, a perception of perfect. Who gets to decide what perfect is? There’s no way to control perfection no matter how much energy we spend trying. Perfectionism is also addictive because when we do experience shame, judgement or blame, we often go straight to “I’m not good enough” We then become even more focussed on doing everything perfect because it will avoid feeling those negative emotions.
Putting it off ’til tomorrow
Perfectionists can typically believe that nothing they do is worthwhile unless it’s perfect. So, they procrastinate…. a lot. They put things off for fear of not doing it well enough. Fearing failure is really front and centre of the perfectionists’ mind, they will sometimes worry so much about doing something wrong that they become immobilised and fail to do anything at all. There’s no grey area, this is all or nothing thinking, it either has to be perfect or not at all. That one element in itself can lead to an inability to perhaps see alternatives, or others’ views in a situation or others’ solutions to a problem. Perfectionists also spot mistakes, more so than recognising progress or successes. They have trouble seeing anything other than imperfections.
Motivation matters
When it comes to objectives, perfectionists tend to be forced toward their goals from a fear of not reaching them rather than being motivated toward goals by a desire to achieve; they often set unattainable goals and see anything less than a perfectly met goal as a failure.
Results dissatisfaction
Sometimes even when someone with perfectionist traits get the desired results, they might still be unsatisfied. They might feel that if they were truly perfect, they wouldn’t have had to work as hard as they did to achieve the goal. So even if the goal is achieved, the inner critic is saying, no, still not good enough, you should’ve been able to do that quicker/better/easier. You can start to see how this can be a destructive or damaging mindset and one that is entirely unhelpful at work.
Predisposition to mental health decline
So, to recap here; the biggest trouble with striving for perfection is it will usually end in disappointment and some type of self-criticism. The lows will be massive due to that predisposition to see failure. When we are constantly experiencing lows that link to our feelings of worth, it’s a difficult road to be on and can lead to low self-esteem and even depression. In short this leaves perfectionists at high risk of mental health decline.
Striving for excellence
An alternative to perfectionism is striving for excellence. Striving for excellence is about setting high standards but it’s also about acknowledging and learning from mistakes, being realistic and being motivated to continuously improve.
Recogise excellence for you – Having a healthy description of excellence in your own mind and checking in with others on their perceptions of excellence to reset or maintain your barometer will help you to know what is achievable rather than unattainable.
Consider judgements – We are all mostly doing the best we can, and 99 times out of 100 that’s good enough. Really thinking about how you judge yourself first of all. If it’s all negative self-talk you really need to work on that. It’s also about how you judge others’ When you set such high standards for yourself, it’s likely you are judging others by the same.
Set realistic expectations – Do you know what your limits are? Unfortunately, we tend to find our limit when we break. If you don’t know your limits, how will you know what is reasonable, stretching, or unattainable? Understand your limits and become aware of how you can stretch yourself without setting unrealistic targets or expectations. Until we challenge this concept of unattainable or unachievable, nothing will change.
Accepting failure – The biggest of all is to allow yourself permission to fail. It’s time to accept the fact, you are not perfect, we are not perfect, we never will be. It’s too much pressure. Excellence should be good enough. Try using the word learning instead of failure, it’s much more palatable as you move away from the perfectionist traits. “I didn’t meet that deadline, I’m a failure” that’s negative language at its worst. How about “I didn’t meet that deadline, what did I learn?”. Sounds much more positive and not burying yourself in criticism or shame for not achieving. Showing that you aren’t perfect is one way to connect with and deepen relationships with others also.
Being good enough
When we stretch ourselves realistically, we grow and hopefully improve, but growth only ever happens outside of our comfort zone. You cannot innovate and create “new” when you are too scared to fail. Innovation and creativity require risk and therefore failure is absolutely assured if you have the courage to take risks often enough. Imagine an environment where we don’t fear blame or shame and therefore allow ourselves to be….. good enough?
References:
Brown, Brene (2018). Dare to Lead
