Episode 24: Fallacy Watch: the Perfection Fallacy (Perfection Ain't All That)

Ok, I'm back from running my half-marathon and, as promised, here are the sources I used in this episode:

Some great ideas about how to avoid giving up on your resolutions:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2020/02/11/this-is-the-month-when-new-years-resolutions-fail-heres-how-to-save-them/?sh=d96f742272f0

Here's a great article from psychologist Elizabeth Lombardo:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/better-perfect/201901/the-number-one-mistake-people-make-while-making-resolutions

Another great article about the ways the perfectionist fallacy can hinder our progress:
https://medium.com/syndicate-post/the-perfectionist-fallacy-and-how-to-overcome-it-c8cef7fc6c9

Blogger and self-professed recovering perfectionist Vix Anderton gives some great advice about resolutions:
https://medium.com/the-recovering-perfectionist/a-perfectionists-guide-to-new-year-s-resolutions-8de847986589

Harvard Business Review's analysis of studies on perfectionism:
https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-pros-and-cons-of-perfectionism-according-to-research

If you want to start running, here's a great program called Couch to 5K:
https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/wfhtn/documents/5k_training_program_running.pdf

Transcript

Fallacy Watch: How the Perfectionist Fallacy Works Against Us

Hi everyone and welcome to episode 24. I’m publishing this episode in the first week of 2022, and so many of us are seeing the new year as a new beginning and we’re making some New Year’s resolutions to try and improve ourselves. According to Forbes, over 50% of Americans say they have made some kind of New Year’s resolution, usually something like losing weight, quitting smoking or drinking, working out, saving money, that kind of thing. However, by February, 80% of those people will have abandoned those resolutions. For many of them, they really wanted to make positive changes and even took some steps to implement those changes (like getting a bike or buying a gym membership or signing up for a weight loss program), there is one overriding factor that stops them from realizing their goal, and you might be surprised to find out that thing is--perfectionism.

Now, as a reformed perfectionist, I can totally relate to this. When I was a kid, I was a pretty good student and could usually count on getting A’s in school. On the rare occasion that I got a B or god forbid, a B-, I would be devastated. To me, those grades were the same as getting an F. Little did I know that I was falling victim to a very common fallacy, the perfectionist fallacy. This is a version of the false dilemma fallacy that I talked about in Episode 21. The perfectionist fallacy is also known as the Nirvana fallacy; Nirvana in this sense means an ideal situation or a perfect solution as opposed to an imperfect reality. But the same thing applies in this fallacy as it does in the false dilemma fallacy; it only looks at two possible outcomes, without considering all the other possibilities. So let’s take a closer look at how this fallacy works against us, and what we can do to overcome its impact.

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We like to think of perfection as an obviously good thing, the ideal that we should all be striving for, and what could possibly be wrong with that? Well, in a perfect world, being perfect would be attainable. But, and I’m sure you’re well aware of this, it’s not a perfect world, and we aren’t perfect creatures. And whether or not you think that there’s some perfect afterlife, and you have to become perfect to get there, that’s not where we are right now. And the problem with thinking that perfection is the goal is almost perfectly stated in this quote by Voltaire, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

You might think of a perfectionist as someone who doesn’t stop until everything is exactly right, but in fact, many people with perfectionist tendencies don’t even get started doing something because they think they won’t be able to do it perfectly, and if they can’t be perfect, why bother even trying? Or they do start to do something productive or make some kind of change in their lives, but slip up once or twice and then just give up; you know, since you already ate that one cookie, might as well eat the whole package. According to psychologist Elizabeth Lombardo, perfectionism is “an all or nothing mentality; something is either perfect or a failure; do something perfectly or forget even trying.”

When it comes to jobs and careers, perfectionism might be considered a good quality to have. After all, aren’t companies looking for people who set high standards for themselves and the people around them, who are motivated and conscientious, and who aren’t afraid to work long hours to achieve a goal? Well, the Harvard Business Review conducted a meta-analysis of several decades’ worth of studies on perfectionism, and they concluded that it is, quote “a much bigger weakness than job applicants and interviewers probably assume.” Perfectionists were not necessarily better at their job than non-perfectionists, and they were more likely to face burnout, stress, anxiety and depression. 

This fallacy doesn’t just affect our personal and work lives; it’s everywhere we look when we consider the problems that plague us in society.  It can affect how people make choices that could impact not just them personally, but others as well. Look at Covid vaccines. In many people’s minds, these vaccines should be perfect; that is, if you got a vaccine, you should not get Covid. Obviously that is not the case; people who are vaccinated have gotten Covid, but for most vaccinated people it’s both less likely they will get Covid in the first place, and if they do get it, it’s far more likely it will be a mild case. But someone falling victim to the perfectionist fallacy on this topic might say, “Well, why should I get the vaccine if it’s not going to stop me from getting sick?’ or say to someone who got vaccinated and then got sick, “How stupid are you that you got a vaccine that doesn’t even work?” The perfectionist fallacy says that if something isn’t 100% effective then it might as well be 0% effective. So in this case, perfect is definitely the enemy of good. Getting a Covid vaccine is GOOD, not just for you but the people around you. It’s NOT perfect. This all-or-nothing attitude is potentially dangerous. There’s a whole anti-science , anti intellectual contingent out there arguing that because scientists don’t know absolutely everything about their field of study, that nothing they say is trustworthy and they aren’t worth listening to. Or there are people who think that unless a law is 100% guaranteed to fix some problem, that it’s not worth implementing, or who think voting is useless because all politicians are corrupt anyway so why bother? I could go on and on, but you get the point. The idea that things must be perfect or they are worthless, the whole “Second place is the first loser” attitude, does not lead to progress.

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So, what can you do to overcome perfectionist tendencies? First you need to recognize that you have them; most of us do to some extent. Psychologist Elizabeth Lombardo says we should ditch the perfectionism and become what she calls “better than perfect.” She lays out five ways to help achieve your New Year’s Resolutions:

1.     Take small steps—Instead of saying you’re going to accomplish some big goal, like losing 50 pounds, or exercise every day, or give up alcohol forever, make your goal smaller and more manageable, like committing to exercising three times a week for 20 minutes at a time. That’s totally do-able, you can walk around the block, and once you’ve done it for a few weeks you can maybe up the minutes to 30, and incrementally move up as you become more fit. 

2.     It’s not failure; it’s data—when you don’t meet a goal for some reason, instead of beating yourself up, take a step back and look at the reason why it happened. Did you not eat lunch at work, then came home starving and shoved three brownies in your face? That’s not a failure, that’s some data you can use to fix the problem—make sure you either take a healthy lunch to work, or have a place where you know you can get a decent lunch that will satisfy you so you won’t come home and empty the cookie jar.

3.     Don’t personalize yourself as a failure—you might have messed up, but you’re not a failure. You are not defined by whether you achieve your goals or not.

4.     Focus on your “why”—people who have a clear reason of why they want to accomplish a goal are much more likely to succeed. It’s a lot more productive to focus on the positive aspects of change (like how good you’re going to feel when you lose weight) rather than the negative aspects (like all the cheese and meatballs you’ll be giving up).

5.     Have an accountability partner—if you have someone you have to report to, like a family member, friend, or colleague, it’s more likely you’ll stay on track. 

Vix Anderton, who calls herself “The Recovering Perfectionist,” says it’s critical to be specific when creating your goals. Just saying “I’m going to eat healthier this year” is so vague as to be useless. What does that mean? Write down a specific, measurable action, like “I’m going to add one different vegetable a day to my meals for the next seven days.” The more specific, the more likely you’ll follow through because that’s obviously measurable. 

I’m going to blow my own horn here for a minute or two, because as I said before I’m definitely a reformed perfectionist. I can’t begin to tell you how many things I was interested in but never started because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do them, and how many times I would start something but then just drop it because I wasn’t immediately good at it. I can vouch for breaking big goals down into smaller, specific, measurable increments. I started running (well, ok, more like jogging/walking/stumbling over curbs, but I call it running) about four years ago. Before, I always assumed that I simply wasn’t capable of doing it, but it turns out I can! I’ve run 5ks, 10ks, and half marathons, and I used training programs that start with short runs several times a week and work their way up from there! I’m heading to Orlando this week to participate in Walt Disney World’s Marathon Weekend for my fourth year in a row. If I were still locked into perfectionistic tendencies I would never have even tried to do something like this, and I would have missed out on a lot of fun and a great way to stay in shape. If you want to give running a try for one of your resolutions this year, there are some great programs out there like Couch to 5K. I’ve put the training program pdf in the show notes so you can check it out.

So those are things you can do to help yourself get over perfectionism in your personal life. But what about avoiding falling victim to the perfectionist fallacy when it comes to things that affect our society or our safety? Again while a perfect solution would be nice, it’s rarely possible; if we aim to either completely solve a problem or do nothing at all, chances are high that nothing will get done. So the idea that wearing a mask is useless because it doesn’t completely protect you from viruses, or that people wearing seat belts sometimes die in car crashes so why should we be forced to wear one, or there shouldn’t be gun regulations because people who want a gun will find a way to get one anyway—all of these arguments are perfectionist fallacies. The truth is that wearing a mask does not provide full protection, but it does provide some, and some is better than none, especially when combined with things like vaccines and distancing when necessary. The same thing is true for seatbelt use; the goal is to reduce the likelihood that a person will die in a car crash, not completely prevent it. And the gun regulation argument, that laws can’t keep bad guys from accessing guns so what good are the laws? If we accepted this logic we would have to repeal every single law, because no law is perfect, and all laws can be broken. In that light, any regulation that might reduce the number of gun deaths is certainly preferable to no law at all.

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You can see that the perfectionist fallacy, if not checked, can lead to some potentially bad decisions. Our society tends to put unrealistic expectations on us that can make it easier to fall for this fallacy. But it isn’t logical to do nothing simply because there isn’t a perfect solution to a problem.  Sometimes, perfection is an unrealistic goal and good enough is ACTUALLY good enough.

That’s it for this episode. I hope you start to see how the perfection fallacy can actually impede your progress, and use the information in this episode to help you think it through.