Perfectionism

Join Emotion & Positive Psychology Coach & Mentor Andrea Urquhart for a tour of some of the current debates about perfectionism. Do you feel a buzz from striving for high standards, or enchained in negative thought and emotional spirals caused by the darker side of perfectionism?

Is perfectionism always toxic, or can perfectionistic traits help some people flourish?

And what about procrastination? That intensely frustrating experience that many people who suffer with perfectionistic traits have such a complicated relationship with.

Listen and make up your own mind - and perhaps even have an "Aha!" moment or two of your own.

Further reading links are included in the transcript.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Strengthen Live Podcast! I'm your host, Andrea Urquhart. This is the place for trailblazing, empathetic leaders who are also recovering people pleasers! If you have a big heart and your passion is supporting others to change their lives for the better, find home and belonging here.

We’re in episode 5 of season 1 of Strengthen Live and last week, my guest Kate O’Leary said something beautiful that’s caused a ripple of appreciation from listeners: “You don’t have to be perfect to be valuable.” 

Kate shared her experiences of overcoming imposter syndrome and mentioned that a tendency to feel you have to be perfect can be associated with ADHD, which she is also diagnosed with.

Now I know that many of my clients also have a neurodivergent diagnosis or traits, and that perfectionism is a common topic of conversation in our coaching & mentoring sessions. 

We don’t talk about it all the time, or for the whole session, but as it comes up, we begin to work with changing each person’s relationship with that trait and tendency. Perfectionism is a really fascinating topic – and one where there are some myths flying around about as well as some disagreement between experts about it!

Firstly, beware! If you hear anyone out there in this wild and beautiful world telling you or anyone you love that they’ve just got to do this one thing or that one thing to deal with perfectionism, I strongly suggest that you politely exit the conversation and seek someone who truly understands the nuances of perfectionism, and sees and hears you as the unique individual you are!

Here's why: There’s more to perfectionism than meets the eye. And anyone who’s struggled with it will tell you that. Although we love, as humans, to seek the one thing that will solve a challenge, perfectionism is one of those things that is truly a cocktail of traits, learned and protective behaviours – and even, dare I say it, can be seen as a positive trait. That’s not me being toxic with positivity, this is what some of the experts out there believe and share on perfectionism tell us.

Of course, we also know that when perfectionism is controlling and constrains us then it leads to negative wellbeing, isolation, depression and extremes of “hyper”  behaviour and relating with others. Things like hyper vigilance or being hyper controlling, relating in a hyper critical way to others and being obsessed with extreme risk avoidance. Although some people see some parts of perfectionism as positive, toxic perfectionism can lead to isolation, depression and burnout.

“But surely all perfectionism is toxic?” I hear some people say. Hmm, let’s unwrap that a bit more. Did you know that some experts say there are 3 types of perfectionism?

Top of the list is Self-oriented perfectionism – a trait that demands perfection from ourselves. We can link this to something psychologists call “perfectionistic strivings” which motivate the individual to do better. In this context, striving isn’t seen as a toxic activity, but instead, something a person sets their heart and mind on. It describes something they really want to do or be because they see value in it. 

You’ll see this in high-capacity individuals. That inner spurring yourself on. For these people, there’s often a strong link to the character strengths of appreciation of excellence and beauty. 

It seems that when this striving has an open and creative dynamic, then self-orientated perfectionism can release us into really enjoying working towards excellence. Thriving even. 

Of course, there are also times and professions in which absolute perfection is needed for certain tasks, so a person motivated by self-orientated perfectionism might be well suited to precise tasks and careers that demand precision.

However, we're not talking about a character strength that's in all of us. It's just a trait that some people have. It's how they tick.

So why does perfectionism get a bad reputation, and when does it get a bit mucky?

Well, the second type of perfectionism some experts define is Other-oriented perfectionism – This is a demanding tendency where the person expects perfection from other people. Yes, you’ve guessed it, we're talking bossy, toxic, maybe even narcissitic traits here that like to control other people. We all know people who expect more of others than they do of themselves, or who are tied up with living life a certain way and insist that others do too. This is other-orientated perfectionism. 

It usually makes that person unpopular because of the pressure they put on others and their tendency to criticise. For children who experience this from parents or the culture they live in, it can create a trauma response that in turn sows the seeds of a negative and constraining performance-related perfectionism in those children, and tragically, this develops on into adulthood. That critical “voice in your head” that you hear people talking about. Things they've been told as a child constantly remembered from childhood or those perfectionists habits a person has been raised with are all fruit of other-orientated perfectionism.

For many, perfectionistic behaviours and a negative inner story about personal perfectionism and failure is a trauma response from being raised in or exposed to a culture of other-orientated perfectionism. This is really important for us to remember as leaders and professionals not only for ourselves but the people that we work with – especially when someone is giving that “You just need to do this one thing!” advice. Please take care and be aware that that unravelling the effects of this type of trauma takes time as behaviours and attitudes have built up over years. There's all sorts of layers going on.

Thirdly, we have something experts called Socially prescribed perfectionism – like those children raised into perfectionistic demands, people with socially prescribed perfectionism believe that others demand perfection of them. So they are living in this story and this belief that others want them, need them, demand of them to be perfect. Which is also the slippery slope to demanding perfection of yourself, obviously, because of that. This is very different to that more productive self-orientated perfectionism that we mentioned first. This is felt as an external weight or pressure.

So, what one person thinks of when they hear the word perfectionism, can be very different than another. And one person’s experience  of perfectionism can be very different form others’ too. 

I find Barbara Hefferman’s explanation about the difference between perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns very helpful. Researchers make this distinction when they are trying to discover if, and if yes then when, perfectionistic traits are ever constructive.

Perfectionistic strivings describes a motivating inner drive to do better. This is linked with that self-orientated perfectionism. It might seem odd that the word striving is associated with something positive. But if we think about it, there are many good things in our world and in the development of mankind that are a result of people setting their mind to something and doing that well. In this context, striving is used to mean a positive and motivated desire to take action.

Researchers also describe “perfectionistic concerns” – these are when perfectionistic thoughts and habits lead to desperate unhappiness. Simply think of this as when perfecitonism “concerning”. Typically, this concerning behaviour includes lots of rumination– that means they are continually thinking about and being concerned about things like whether they are good enough or perfect enough, or whether what they are doing is hitting the mark. Perfectionistic concerns may also include a lot of self-criticism and repeated cycles of negative self-talk. 

Despite some experts defining these constructive types of perfectionism, there’s still plenty of hot debate about perfectionism – and some things that may actually be myths that many people believe about perfectionism. 

So let's keep exploring, and you can decide what you think.

There are those who say that it never leads to anything good – they call it pathological and recommend intervention to prevent burnout, depression and isolation as well as preventing its cycle being passed on to the next generation in families or indoctrinating people in work or society cultures with it. They use the word pathological because they see it as being a maladaptation – something that shouldn’t have developed in an ideal scenario – and also as something that creates toxicity. And there’s no denying that two of those three types of perfectionism we mentioned earlier, certainly don’t breed wellbeing in others.

Perfectionism is a big topic in leadership coaching and in thought leadership around setting organisational culture. That’s really easy to understand, isn't it? Excellence is something that most organisations see as something of value, and there are those who feel that rigid routes to perfection is the way to build excellence. They like to be very controlling about their company culture and how their employees are working. They look for the single best way to do something.

Think about it. Have you ever wanted to be perfect at what you do? Have you ever spoken with someone who is uncomfortable with failures or imperfection and non-conformity because they feel that they are validated only by achieving perfection? We see this in all areas of culture, from trying to fit into expectations of body types to aiming to be a perfect parent or being hyper-focused on appearing and behaving like some idea of the perfect professional or leader.

Unsurprisingly, lots of people disagree with perfectionism as a value and say it’s a toxic way to build an organisation.

What do you think? Does your organisation or business approach insist that perfectionism is a route to excellence? Or do you give yourself permission to fail, to be creative, to explore different ways of doing things and different potential outcomes? Could you cope with being a hot mess at times – or admitting to that? 

And how about this: What kind of cultures breed this idea that there is shame if you are not a certain way or don’t reach very precise standards? Certainly ones that judge. I personally find it intriguing that of all the words mentioned around toxic perfectionism, the word judgement is rarely used. Yet that’s at the heart of the critical nature of toxic perfectionism; fear of judgement. Fear of being judged and found wanting. Or judging oneself and deciding that we are not enough.

Compassion and mercy are the big antidotes to judgement. And it’s compassion that is one of the key drivers in taking toxic perfectionism apart. Just as judgement taints every part of toxic perfectionism, so compassion flavours every part of healing from it.

Healing from toxic perfectionism includes changing our relationship with failure and other people’s perceptions and affirmation of us. I think that’s why Kate’s statement last week that we don’t have to be perfect to be of value resonated with us all so much.

But let’s skip back to the belief that some types of perfectionism do lead to positive outcomes. How do you feel about that? Some psychologists will even use the word flourishing alongside an embracing of the positive aspects of perfectionism– Flourishing is a big word in positive psychology! Flourishing is a bit of a holy grail fruit that optimum human functioning and living should produce.

Yet if you’re someone caught up in the desperately enchaining feelings of perfectionism as something that restrains you and makes you feel a failure much of the time or frustrated at living an imperfect life or you’re continually self-imploding with hyper self-criticism when experiencing challenges, the idea that perfectionism can be seen as a positive trait can feel a bit alarming. There are plenty of professionals who would also feel alarmed at that too.

It seems that those three different types of perfectionism – the self-motivating kind, the demanding of others kind, and the living under a belief that others demand perfection of us are actually quite key distinctions. They help us unravel how a person arrived at their current relationship with perfectionism. And for those who genuinely have that self-motivating trait but also got caught in the cross hairs of the other two toxic types, it can be really permission giving to work on unravelling the negative build up and unleashing a positive relationship with striving for excellence.

If it turns out that someone’s perfectionist behaviours are a reactive, trauma induced trait, then we’re likely to see them caught up in more of those concerning and negative perfectionistic and patterns. Those behaviours have built up over time as a protective feature, helping the person navigate life so that they are least likely to fall short, fail or displease.

Here’s an important question though: Just because excelling and pursuing perfection genuinely lights a person up positively, does that mean that it’s always good for them or do they still need to learn how to temper that so it doesn’t skew off into toxicity?

Burnout is real – especially for high-capacity people and especially when they’re striving to better not only themselves but also the lives of others. So yes, high potential, high-capacity individuals may thrive on the buzz of working towards excellence, but they also have to beware of burnout. This might not always be so much about adjusting their high goals, but rather simply learning to take care of their own wellbeing and to pace themselves as they strive for excellence.

As empathetic, trailblazing leaders, striving for excellence can be an invigorating thing, but defending our wellbeing and learning to care for ourselves and our people as we do is a key part of this. And sometimes, yes, that does mean we choose not to complete something, or we choose to not put our all into it, we learn to say no and we might even give ourselves permission to be a hot mess about something and not do it perfectly. But sometimes, it simply means taking a day, a week or a month off, resting, rebooting and then it’s time to rise again and get back to it with renewed strength and focus.

The VIA Character Strengths classification doesn’t include perfectionism as a strength. So it’s not listed there as something we can overuse or underuse. Nor as a capacity that we all innately have within us. This is really important to note.

Some people do say that perfectionism is the overplaying or overuse of the strength of appreciation of excellence and beauty. You might have been expecting me to say that here too. And although that makes some sense and I am continually talking about over and under use of strengths, I can’t get on board with simply saying perfectionism is the overplaying of the appreciation of excellence and beauty. And honestly, from the different research out there, I’d say that the professional jury is still out on this one too!

Something makes me hold back on popping perfectionism on that sliding scale of overdoing excellence.. And I think it’s because perfectionism is complex and influenced by many different factors and the build-up of habits that have been influenced by external and internal things. As we’ve heard today, some types of perfectionism are pathological, simply toxic. 

For so many people, perfectionism is not an over-used strength of any kind, it’s a trauma response.

Actually, while we’re on the subject, sometimes the underplaying or overplaying of some other character strengths can be a protective or trauma response in us too. Like withholding love in some situations although we feel it deeply, because sharing it would make us vulnerable in a situation we don’t feel safe in. When we’re talking about the ebb and flow of our character strengths within us, our inner stories and past experiences do influence that in certain situations too.

But with perfectionism, there is such a strong link to adverse childhood or cultural experiences in how perfectionism actually comes to be part of behaviour, and its build up is so complex within us, I really struggle to just chalk it up as overplaying appreciation of excellence and beauty. And it seems I’m not alone in this.

That said, appreciating excellence and beauty is a key strength to leverage when we’re working on lifting the restraints that perfectionistic tendencies have been holding us back with. 

I love having that conversation with clients and seeing what happens when they embrace excellence for themselves and as a value in their business instead of perfectionism. When they are able to reject perfectionism and embrace their self-compassion, creativity and perspective, they find the courage to give themselves permission to excel or fail, to try new things yet to also hold high standards. It’s a journey of discovery that yields rewards. So yes, there is a really strong link to appreciation of excellence and beauty, but perfectionism is not necessarily one end of a spectrum of excellence.

Originally, Positive Psychology was very yes and no about things. We used to categorise things as positive or negative. But Positive Psychology 2.0 has long embraced the nuances of our experience, and researched the darker and lighter sides of our emotions -where the same emotion or trait can have a positive wellbeing effect and a negative one, and anything in between. It’s also embraced this overplaying and underplaying of our values in action and character strengths.

Now there are voices, particularly when talking about perfectionism, that are saying let’s not just think of things on these continuums between over and under using strengths or positive or negative. In some behavioural traits, they say that the positive aspects may not have any connection with the negative ones – that is, they’re not part of a sliding scale. If that’s the case, some experiences of perfectionism would agree with that. 

If you’re someone who is naturally inclined to that perfectionistic inner trait, then embracing perfectionism as a positive internal motivator for betterment should lead to flourishing – so long as there are wellbeing practices in place. 

It also means that the negative aspects of perfectionistic tendencies are not necessarily overuses and under uses of it, they’re simply negatives to work on and to mitigate.

This is actually really liberating news!  Where we spot that perfectionism has a negative impact on us or others around us, we can take action. And thankfully, there is not just one thing, but many things that we can use to tackle the many different aspects that perfectionism throws up – all anchored in compassion.

Things like:

-        Self-compassion and extending compassion to others. You’ll hear me talking about that in every episode!

-        Watching our self-talk and the words of others – again, a big topic with me and of course I have the Rebel Affirmation Creation online course walks you through this.

-        Noticing any tendencies to negative thought spirals and having strategies to deal with them.

-        Doing the therapy and inner work if we know that our perfectionism is a trauma response that is trying to appease or protect us from criticism and fear of punishment or failure.

-        Ensuring that our focus is not on a restrictive type of perfectionism but that expansive and creative, empowering betterment of excellence and creating beauty rather than perfection.

-        And most of all, watching how we label our identity. Perhaps even ditching the perfectionist title and clearly defining what it is that we’re striving for. Saying something like “They love excellence” or “I’m wired to improve things if there’s a better way”.

-        Not forgetting that awareness of how a person’s pursuit of excellence is affecting others. So if you’re someone who flourishes when compassionately striving for excellence, you don’t criticise, judge or negatively impact others like that category of people would who pass a corrupt relationship with excellence down to their children and so burden them with that dark side of perfectionism.

Researching perfectionism for today’s podcast has been fascinating – including a theory that the self-orientated type of perfectionism has a spiritual aspect that brings fulfilment with it.

But there’s one final topic that always comes up in the coaching space alongside perfectionism, and I can’t do an episode on perfectionism without mentioning it!

I guarantee that the first time a client talks to me about perfectionism, it will be because they are already talking about procrastination. Procrastination is the avoidance of getting something done. It may be a decision or an action, but either way, we’re stalling on it.

Many people link procrastination with perfectionism but there is intriguing research that tells us that procrastination is actually a protective measure because we are afraid of facing or dealing with a challenging emotion. 

Now yes, it may be that the challenge is simply an administrative thing we just don’t like doing - and this is where the confusion about dealing with procrastination comes in, because yes, sometimes that emotion we’re avoiding is linked to a simple habit. So, all those strategies you hear out there that create habits to deal with procrastination do sometimes work. But they don’t always, and that’s usually, in my observation, and as some academics claim, when the procrastination is about a deeper issue. We’re avoiding maybe not just one emotion but a chain of emotions that we know could be put into play when we make that decision. It can also be about avoiding the unknown or avoiding something that we assume is going to happen but might not.

So what does all this have to do with perfectionism? Precisely my question! Experts on procrastination are increasingly making this distinction that it’s a protective measure. This means that it’s not experienced by most people with perfectionistic tendencies because they want to make something perfect, it’s because they are afraid of whatever emotion doing that will bring up. Sometimes that is fear of failure, and sometimes, it’s the string of emotions and self-criticism that echo back to them if something doesn’t go well. This is not about progress, it’s about protection. 

Experts in volitional psychology (literally experts in procrastination) such as Dr Joseph R Ferrari also say that very few people are actually “procrastinators”  - that’s people who Drs would say have a clinical problem with procrastination. Instead, procrastination is actually something every human does. 

If there’s a link between procrastination and perfectionism, it’s fear of failure and judgement. Could it be that not every procrastination that a person with perfectionism struggles with has anything to do with perfectionistic traits? What if it’s simply a normal part of being a human, and they’ve learnt to despise procrastination rather than work with it – because, of course, procrastination slows down the achievement of whatever perfect result negative perfectionism is pushing for? I say this fully understanding that some people do get caught up in a cycle of procrastination. But maybe, just maybe, how we think about procrastination could benefit with some tweaking?

What if we all change our relationship with procrastination and simply ask: What emotion am I avoiding here? That’s a great place to start!

So that was a whistle stop tour through some of the current thinking and discussions you’ll find out there in our wild and beautiful world that professionals are having around perfectionism. 

But what do you think? What’s your experience of perfectionism?

As always, if today’s episode has stirred up an “Aha!” moment for you or you know that talking with a professional or therapist would be a good thing, then please know that there is no shame in that. A reminder too, to walk away from those people who say “There’s just one solution and get on with it!”. Instead, make sure you’re seeking support from people who understand perfectionism, and see and hear you and your uniqueness.

If you’d like to work one to one with me, especially if you are a neuro-divergent professional, leader or trainer looking to grow your leadership or business and you know you need gentle accountability and some empathetic inner story support, then please go to strengthenlive.com to apply or message me via LinkedIn. I’m also launching a mastermind that empowers you to create three evergreen pieces of content, work on your inner confidence story and your brand strategy and voice. Again, the link is in the comments to find out more & sign up to my email list for a 10% welcome discount!

Thank you so much for joining me today! Do hit that subscribe button on the app you’re listening on. You can also message me via the text host now button or use the fanmail option on Buzzsprout– I can’t reply directly but I’m very interested to know what future topics you’d like to hear about here at Strengthen Live.

Have a great week, and I invite you to be gentle with yourself or others around you who may struggle with perfectionism, to try to reframe how you talk and think about it. Especially that label of “perfectionist”. And if today’s a hot mess day for you, I say embrace it with compassion!