Perfectionism

​By Rae

I’ve briefly mentioned this word before in my previous article, so I wanted to talk about it in more detail. Perfectionism. Despite first hearing the term in secondary school, I didn’t know what it meant until my second year of university. And from this, I realised that perfectionism is quite a loaded subject for me. It’s linked to many parts of my personality, mental health, or, at least, my motivation. So I wanted to talk about my experience with perfectionism, and how I try to counter invasive self-beliefs that dictate how I act. I know that perfectionism can take many forms - some of which might be relevant to you.

In Good Therapy - a website that provides mental health resources - perfectionism is defined as “the need to be or appear perfect”. However, I don’t feel like this definition does justice to what it is to me. I’m very much aware that perfection doesn’t exist, and my aim isn’t to be perfect. More so, I just want to be good enough. The main problem is that there is no definition for what being “good enough” is, there’s no goal or direction to achieving “enough”. It’s just to accomplish something in hopes that any form of achievement will deem me worthy enough for… well, I don’t know what yet. The perfectionism I’m aware of is self-oriented and means that unrealistically high expectations are directed towards the self - whether that relates to academic and career success, or how you present yourself. This can drive a cycle of anxiety and prove damaging to other aspects of mental and physical health, as well as relationships. 

For example, I mentioned that I had only actually realised what perfectionism meant in my second year of university (during the start of the pandemic). That was because I had experienced severe burnout. I lacked any motivation to get out of bed, eat, sleep, much less actually attend online classes. When assignments came around, I always had this nagging and recurring feeling that maybe if I changed something, did something, added something, or memorised something, I’d do better than if I didn’t. Therefore there was always a feeling that there was something missing. Something I did that wasn’t enough. My anxiety was already at its peak, and perfectionism was making everything worse. While this was happening I was comparing myself to my peers who appeared to be doing substantially better at handling their classes and exams, or even friends who were just living a more fulfilling life. It worsened the nagging feeling toward my assignments, increased my fear of failure, and lowered my self-worth.

It wasn’t until after my third-year uni exams that I finally acknowledged that being chained to the pursuit of “good enough”, was leading to self-isolation, as well as physical and mental breakdowns. So I’m trying to establish some habits to counter these compulsions, which may help you too:

• Rather than comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to your previous self. 

Life is not a race, and our paths will never be the same. We are judging ourselves based on the resources and opportunities that others have, which places us at an unfair disadvantage. So maybe the only thing we can do is achieve our goals with what we have. This doesn’t mean settle, but instead customising your goals to be accessible to you. It means aiming to be better than you are right now, by using the opportunities you have and can find. I think switching our mindset means that life can truly be the journey that it is - rather than a competition.

• Break down your tasks into their tiniest parts, and start from the easiest thing to do.

When you want to get something done, you may be tempted to do everything all at once. But something I learned in my second year of uni is that burnout can be a result of perfectionism. Write a checklist of something you want to achieve, and go backwards from what you think you have to do. 

• Crown your efforts. 

Make a short, daily note of the things you’ve done and read over it at the end of the week. This hopefully gives you an idea of what you’ve achieved, and allows you to see how much work you had to put into something. I find that dismissing your achievements is common in perfectionism, but giving yourself time to just say “wow, I did that” is so important. Even if the thing you achieved is small - what you did is still enough to be acknowledged.

• Intrinsic motivation.

Find something (e.g., a hobby) that you truly want to do. Not something someone says you should, not something to achieve a goal - something you genuinely enjoy doing. Something that makes you lose track of time. I find that it’s a nice break from feeling obligated to be good enough.

Overall, I learned that perfectionism was holding me back from seeing the bigger picture. And the bigger picture was that at some point I might look back and never be able to say that I’ve done something I’m genuinely proud of - even though my body and mental health have paid the price. So it’s important to define what “enough” means to you and give yourself the privilege of seeing and praising your efforts. In order to undo perfectionistic beliefs, you have to challenge the foundation of your perfectionism and what has become so automatic.

In fact, here are some websites that could help you tackle unhealthy perfectionism:

1. https://hbr.org/2019/04/how-to-manage-your-perfectionism 
2. https://www.verywellmind.com/overcoming-perfectionism-how-to-work-past-perfectionism-3144700 

References

• https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/perfectionism#:~:text=Perfectionism%20is%20often%20defined%20as,describe%20or%20justify%20perfectionistic%20behavior. 
• There Are 3 Types of Perfectionism—Do Any Describe You? | Well+Good (wellandgood.com)​​