Help I’m A Perfectionist – Series

Do you regularly find mistakes in everything you do? Do you feel pressure to complete tasks to an extremely high standard – and then never feel satisfied with the outcome? You are not alone. Therefore, in this series I will discuss the subject of perfectionism, share my experience and what I’ve learned from psychology studies so far. Please note that this is for information purposes only.

Transcript

Hey unique learners,

And welcome to this new series.

Help,

I'm a perfectionist on Inside Timer.

My name is Yvette,

And some of you might know me from my Beat Procrastination series,

Or working on your inner critic.

And if you haven't listened to that one,

You can find it on my Inside Timer profile.

So how can I not talk about perfectionism,

If I'm also addressing procrastination and self-criticism?

And yes,

I am assuming you are listening because you suffer from perfectionism.

And guess what?

I can relate.

In this talk I will discuss perfectionism,

Share my experience,

And as always I back everything up with psychology research studies,

And here and there I might make a reference to schema therapy.

So settle down and take a deep breath.

And ask yourself,

Do you regularly find mistakes in everything you do?

Do you feel pressure to complete tasks to an extremely high standard and then never feel satisfied with the outcome?

Do you constantly chase a sense of achievement that never comes because you are looking to achieve more?

Do you feel like you need to operate at your best and give your best at everything you do?

Do you criticize yourself for small mistakes,

Tend to feel anxious or stress most days,

Constantly focus on task and performance and find it difficult to stop and slow down?

If you answered yes to any five of these,

You likely have something known in psychology as unrelenting standard schema.

So let's look at the description of what perfectionism is.

Perfectionism is that you make excessive concerns about making mistakes,

Self-doubt,

Having harsh self-criticism,

Impossibly high standards or expectations,

And a strong and chronic tendency to evaluate one's performance as not measuring up to levels expected by oneself or others.

There are features of maladaptive perfectionism that predict psychological distress.

A study by Rice and Richardson back in 2012 already showed that perfectionism and procrastination are entrenched ways of being,

And there is no quick fix,

And it often leads to increased psychological distress.

The study researched female undergraduates throughout the semester and showed how important it is to intervene far before the end of the semester.

And it did show that stress is so important with procrastination,

And stress is something which I definitely experience with my procrastination and perfectionism,

Especially when I was a student.

So I'm going to share a little bit about me and see if you can relate.

Because my perfectionism really took its toll during my PhD.

I come from a very quote-unquote low education,

And I really had to fight in order to get where I am today.

And during my bachelor's,

My master's,

My perfectionism was growing,

And I just started working more and more and studying harder and harder.

And when I had an 8 or a 9 out of 10,

It wasn't good enough.

And now I actually get annoyed when I have students who really tell me like,

Please miss,

I want to get an 8.

But you know,

These were also my standards,

And it took a stall.

Because to be honest,

In my experience,

My perfectionism really took over other parts of my life besides my study and career.

My mental health was down the drain,

I was isolating,

My body was broken,

And I had many weird symptoms,

And I was often ill,

Tired,

Irritable,

And mostly depressed.

And far too many of us feel the unbearable weight of our perfectionism.

These unrealistic expectations,

Often internalized as the expectations of others,

Are a sickness within us.

And research consistently shows that this maladaptive perfectionism is related to our unhappiness,

Distress,

And our inability to successfully pursue our goals.

So what's the connection with schema therapy?

Schema focused therapy has shown remarkable results in helping people to change negative,

Maladaptive patterns which they have lived with for a long time,

Even when other methods and efforts they have tried before have been largely unsuccessful.

In brief,

Schema therapy is developed by Dr.

Jeff Young,

And yeah,

I misspelled a word there and I'm going to leave it in.

It focuses on this idea that people typically have long-standing patterns and coping mechanisms to work with such patterns or called schemas.

And often,

One of these schemas is unrelenting standards,

Hypercriticalness.

Unrelenting standards is the underlying belief that one must strive to meet very high,

Internalized standards of behavior and performance,

Usually to avoid criticism.

Typically results in feelings of pressure or difficulties flowing down,

And in hypercriticalness towards oneself and others.

Must involve significant impairment in pleasure,

Relaxation,

Health,

Self-esteem,

Sense of accomplishment or satisfying relationships.

Malenting standards typically present as perfectionism,

Inordinate attention to detail or an underestimate of how good one's performance is relative to the norm,

Rigid rules and attributes in many areas of life,

Including unrealistically high moral,

Ethical,

Cultural or religious precepts,

Or preoccupation with time and efficiency so that more can be accomplished.

And how can this schema affect our lives?

Unrelenting standards affects us emotionally in a big way.

We are constantly stressed and pressured.

We feel that there's never enough time and there's always something to be done.

We have high internal standards of how things should be and we are constantly trying to meet them,

Because we rarely achieve the perfection we want.

We have a tendency to feel irritable,

Agitated,

Annoyed and angry.

We can also feel deep feelings of shame and inadequacy when we fail to reach the often impossible standards we set for ourselves.

And because of this constant stress,

We are prone to a range of health issues.

The constant adrenaline from being wrapped up all the time takes a toll on our cardiac system,

Putting us at risk from heart disease and cardiac arrest.

Even if we think we have a healthy lifestyle.

If we have stress hormones constantly surging through our bodies,

No amount of healthy eating and exercise can save us.

When stress hormones are activated,

Our immune system is suppressing and it leaves us more likely to get diseases such as cancer and autoimmune conditions.

So unrelenting standards prevents us meeting the following emotional needs.

Connection and intimacy It's hard to be in a relationship with someone who has unrelenting standards,

Because they are rarely present,

Either physically or emotionally.

And even when they are around,

They are thinking about what they have done and what they still need to do.

It's a schema that leads to work-alism and also often alcohol dependency,

As there is no way the person can switch off unless they use some kind of mind-numbing substance.

And if the unrelenting standard is directed at others,

It's hard to be around as people tend to feel that they are never measuring up.

And with the schema,

We can never really fully relax and be present in the moment.

So we miss out on having fun,

Joy,

Satisfaction,

Contentment and the experience of feeling fully alive and engaged.

Because of this,

We are,

And because of this,

We are more likely to feel empty,

Lonely and depression on the long term.

This schema is very common in people who are very successful in their careers.

They have pushed themselves so hard,

But when they finally achieve success,

It doesn't feel satisfying.

Now,

And I can relate to that because when I achieved like big events in my life,

Big moments,

I just felt empty like,

Oh,

Is that it?

Well,

On to the next one,

On to the next big achievement.

And with the schema,

You often neglect your emotional needs.

So where does it come from?

And that's an interesting point.

I cannot really go into detail,

But I will make a start.

And this schema really tends to develop in families where value as a person was equal to how well we do in certain areas.

Sounds familiar?

Very little importance was placed on emotions,

Having fun,

Connection to others and relaxing.

Instead,

Emphasis was placed on performance and doing well.

If you have the schema,

Then you would have got love and attention when you did well in a certain area of life.

For example,

When you got good grades or you won a medal with sports.

But the schema can also come from a family where there's a lot of criticism.

A very little praise.

So you never felt that you had done well enough.

You grew up feeling that you could have always done better.

So to sum it up,

I briefly discussed perfectionism and shared my experience and backed it up with some studies and made some references to schema therapy.

Hopefully I've provided you with more information about perfectionism than the,

Oh,

You just have high standards talk.

If you really struggle with perfectionism or you could relate to a lot of what I've shared,

I suggest you speak to a counselor or a licensed therapist,

Particularly someone active in schema therapy.

If you really can relate to this talk.

And please let me know what you think about this talk and if I should do more so that I can go more into detail about what we can do about the schema.

What things we can do to reduce our perfectionism.

And I thank you for listening.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thank you so much! I really appreciate your experiences and efforts on dealing with (academic) perefectionism and writing. It's comforting to see that we are unique but still share common ground. ❤

Sensitive overview of this topic; Yvette creates a space of understanding that reflects her research, care & experience

I wonder if perfectionism comes from the false belief that if we are perfect we are protected? Perfectionism can become a kind of armor we don in order to feel safe.