Breaking Free from Perfectionism: Actionable Tools for Military Couples Facing Infertility & Stress

Perfectionism can be a silent barrier, especially for military families, spouses, and veterans navigating the emotional and physical challenges of infertility and stressful life transitions. In this episode of Mindful Warrior Alliance, host Kerri Bicskei, psychotherapist and Air Force spouse, dives into the complexities of perfectionism, how it manifests, and why it’s particularly prevalent in those facing high-pressure situations like IVF, pregnancy loss, and military life.

You’ll learn:

• The key signs of perfectionism and how it shows up in your day-to-day life
• How perfectionism can negatively impact your mental health, relationships, and fertility journey
• Actionable tools to manage and combat perfectionist tendencies
• Practical strategies for embracing self-compassion and creating a healthier mindset
• How to balance high expectations with the reality of navigating military moves, deployments, and fertility treatments

This episode is for anyone struggling with perfectionism in the midst of military transitions, infertility treatments, and the constant pressure to do it all. It’s time to give yourself permission to be imperfect, and to move forward with more peace and self-acceptance.

👉 Listen now, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who needs to let go of perfectionism. Visit mindfulwarrioralliance.org for more resources and tools to help you on your mental wellness and fertility journey.

Transcript

Hi, I'm Kerri Bicskei, military spouse, licensed therapist, and founder of Mindful Warrior Alliance. Welcome to the Mindful Warrior Alliance Podcast, your go-to space for real conversations around mental health IVF, fertility and military life. Each week we connect with leading experts, service members, male spouses, and thought leaders to bring you tools, insights, and stories to support your journey.

Whether you're navigating deployment, fertility treatments, or just trying to stay grounded, you're in the right place.  

 Today. We're gonna be talking about perfectionism, what that can look like, how it can show up for you in your life. And I'll give you some actionable tips that you can use and take with you so that you can ditch some of the stress and anxiety that comes. Being a perfectionist, having extremely high standards.

 So you can keep all the good stuff and ditch the stress and anxiety. So if you're curious how you can do that, make sure you listen to this episode. So we're gonna first define what perfectionism is. Cuz I think we use a lot of terms sometimes loosely and we call ourselves  perfectionist when, when maybe it's not quite to that level.

So perfectionism by definition is the refusal to accept any standard short of perfection. So Naturally perfectionistic tendencies kind of ingrained into our being into our wiring because we have performed at a high level and it is, it's such a good piece of who we are a lot of the times having high standards for ourselves, but perfectionism really teeters on, when having high standards.

For yourself is a detriment for you. So we're gonna talk a little bit about. What being a perfectionist kind of can look like. So people who have perfectionistic tendencies and who, really struggle with perfectionism, oftentimes they're really critical of themselves. They're super stressed, have low self-esteem there's burnout is definitely on the table.

There's procrastination people pleasing, lack of balance, you know, never feeling enough or good enough. Having shame about that. And so those are some, those are some of the things that kind of come with the perfectionistic tendencies territory, right? So people who avoid. Failure and criticism, right? Cause if you have such a high standard for yourself, that fear of failure's definitely there.

So oftentimes perfectionist will avoid failure. Uh, they don't wanna be criticized, right? They're super high achievers, um, blessing and a curse because performing at such a high level can. Give you so many positive things and give you so much confidence, you know, but with that comes the fear of losing it.

All right.  And so it can be difficult if you're a perfectionist to admit that you have weakness. And you have vulnerabilities. And  that can be really, really challenging as athletes and high performers, because we're constantly striving, for that next level.  So actually admitting that we have, , weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

It's, it's not something that we've been conditioned. Do. And it's not something that's been really okay for us to come to terms with, right? If you are a high performer and you have a weakness and a vulnerability, that's something that, , in our culture, in our society, we kind of keep to ourselves and then we just internally kind of work on those things.

Um, but what happens when  we, are very aware that we have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but we're not really letting anyone else in on that. And just silently working on those things, then we're projecting this false image, so that we're.

 Kind of like hiding behind this mask. Like, Hey, I just want you to see the good parts of me. I know that I have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but that's not cute. That's not attractive. I'm gonna keep that to myself. , And that can be really isolating for,  people. So, , having the weaknesses and vulnerabilities can be really,  isolating if you're not letting anyone else in on what you're working on.

Right. You're just kind of in that alone. , perfectionist also. Feel that it's never okay. To make a mistake. So , when mistakes do inevitably do happen in sport, out of sport, you know, in practices or in relationships, uh, mistake is made, it feels so foreign. It feels, it feels wrong. Um, and so oftentimes perfectionists won't give themselves permission to make mistakes.

Right?   We engage in this, , all or nothing thinking, right? Like this is right, this is wrong. This is black, this is white. This is the clear line. And so that balance and that gray space is really, really hard for perfectionist to accept.  So making mistakes can be , really challenging,  for a perfectionist.

Okay. So I talked about that a little bit earlier, like hiding the imperfect parts of ourselves. And we see that a ton on social media, actually, with all of these filters and these posts and these reels of people projecting what they want you to see, right? Like these images of them and their best lighting, their best selves, their best outfits and the best.

Locations. And we're not seeing the real, like, raw, authentic stuff behind the scenes so that you know that on social media, , we see perfectionism a ton, right? Like there's so much editing and, , filtering that goes into these posts that we see on social media. And that also can be super isolating for,  people 

engaging with social media and thinking like, what's wrong with me? Like, I, I don't look that good. I don't look that strong. I'm not, I'm not that fit. Um, and so we're comparing ourselves to these, , perfectionistic, , posts and, things like that. So that can really,  kick the perfectionism into.

An even higher gear of  anxiety when we go into comparing, , on social media as well. Another aspect of people who suffer from perfectionism,  there's this fear of disappointing others. There's this, , People pleasing tendency that goes with perfectionism.

Those two things go hand in hand. Right. , and it really comes from wanting to prove your worth.  And it's driven by fear, right? The perfectionism and the people pleasing comes from this fear of not being good enough or fear of rejection, and we're wanting and needing that external validation from other people.

Right. So the perfectionism and the people pleasing go hand in hand and both can definitely bring. Severe anxiety, panic attacks, depression. Right. We can really go down a, a deep hole when we start to, , exhibit lots of these perfectionistic tendencies. For sure. Another trait of perfectionists is feeling responsible for the needs of other people.

And putting other people's happiness ahead of your own. So that  goes into the, , lack of self-esteem self-worth when we don't think of ourselves as worthy or valuable or good enough, we are putting ourselves in the back seat.  We're always putting other people ahead. Ourselves, so their needs, what they want.

people pleasing tendencies or perfectionistic tendencies can out of that fear of rejection. And, and lack of self-worth and self-esteem can consistently be putting themselves in the back seat, , in many different situations, 

so,  yeah, really, important to just. Build awareness of, , where you are having some of these perfectionistic tendencies,  show up, , in your life and people pleasing is definitely  a big one for athletes and high performers, because we're constantly wanting to.

Appease  we have such high standards and  this fear of letting people down, ,  it's, it's so strong for sure. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with having high standards, , having,  ambitious goals and.

Having those bars be super high for yourself. Like absolutely nothing wrong with that. You know, where, when it becomes a detriment, , and you start beating yourself yourself up and you start having ruminating thoughts about decisions that you've made and mistakes that you've made and all of this fear of failure and those,  thoughts, those emotions are taking over well, now it's a detriment to you, so it's not.

Hey, my name's Carrie. I, have high standards for myself. I'm an athlete. I'm a high performer, nothing wrong with that, but now it's like, I'm an athlete. I'm a high performer, I'm not able to make mistakes. I can never disappoint people. , I'm such a piece of shit because I didn't do X, Y, Z, or I did do X, Y, Z. So that's when I'm, I'm talking about when it becomes a detriment, uh, to your, you know, daily performance and relationships, it can kind of seep into so many different aspects of your life.

So not a fun place to be at all. Um, On the, the, the good news is there's there's ways to work through that. Right. Um, so we can keep the high standards. We can keep the good stuff, uh, about being who we are and performing at a high level and keeping, you know, keeping the good stuff of like performing at that next level, but we can dump.

What's not working for us. So all of the self blame and shame. Criticism and just being really mean and ugly to ourselves. That's the shit we can drop. Like we don't need that. That's really just taking up so much energy and so much space that we just don't have the bandwidth for so we can drop that stuff and keep the good stuff.

So I know. Sometimes it can be, um, it can seem not super attainable for athletes or high performing people to think like, well, yeah, I'm a perfectionist, but how am I gonna drop that? Like that makes me who I am. I don't know who I would be without that. Well, who you would be without the bad stuff would be.

A lot, a lot better of a person, right? If you weren't spending so much time beating yourself up, being so mean to yourself, spending so much time living in the past. Well, now you've freed up so much space, so much energy, uh, so much time for you to focus on. What you actually wanna focus on, right. Your goals and being in the present.

Um, right. And the positive emotions that we wanna have. So who you are, doesn't have to change. Right. It's just, we're just dropping the stuff. That's not really working for you. Okay. And so the antidote for perfectionism is self-compassion right? Which sounds. Maybe silly to you or like something super simple.

But if we think about all the things we talked about earlier, That go with perfectionism, that self criticism having low self-esteem people, pleasing the stress, never feeling good enough, that shame.  We're just constantly spinning our wheels in this. And we're in this like shame, spiral of feeling bad about ourselves, for things we did or didn't do.

So the antidote for that, the thing that is going to help us. Become better versions of ourselves is having  self compassion. Right. And so being kind to yourself. And when I say that, I know sometimes that may not seem super accessible, like in those moments where you're being so mean to yourself, you're being really hard on yourself.

, and you're just in that really negative space. Saying to yourself, like I'm amazing. I'm awesome. Like that's, that seems really far away. And that is absolutely not what I'm encouraging. , but self-compassion can look a little bit more neutral as well. So if you're beating yourself up, if you're beating yourself up and you're in that space, like, , I'm so stupid.

I can't believe I missed my run today, or I can't believe I let myself stoop down to that  so if you're in that negative space,  right. Being kind to yourself can look a little bit more neutral.

 I'm still a good person, even though I missed my run today. I'm I'm okay. Right. Like just self soothing in, in those moments where your brain is trying to kind of enmesh who you are as an athlete and high performer and who you are as a person. Right. So sometimes our brain will do that.

, it'll try to convince us that, you know, we, something is wrong with us as a human, as a person because of something we did or didn't do as an athlete. Right. So I, I can remember so many times throughout my career of, you know, hitting into the net or missing game point or do, you know, making so many different mistakes and.

At the end of the game, like if we lost or I didn't play well, I remember saying to myself like, oh, I suck. Right? Like I I'm just I'm I'm so shitty. Like I just suck. And I wasn't saying to myself, I'm a bad volleyball player or  I suck as a server. I was kind of internalizing that as you know, I suck as a person, I'm a shitty person.

And so that's when it gets to be a really slippery slope is when we start kind of enmeshing sharing, you know, who we are as an athlete and, and taking our performance. On and off the court or the field and combining it with who we are as a person. So if we made a mistake in competition, We're associating that with who we are as a person.

And that's when it gets kind of messy, right. Because we wanna keep that separation. Um, because just because you're making mistakes , , Does not take away from your value as a human being, what you have to contribute as a human, you still have value, you still have worth there.

So we have to be really mindful about like that identity piece and kind of like really keeping those things, um, separate and, and being mindful to not take that home with us. Some action steps for perfectionism. What, what are some ways that we can work on that? If we are realizing that it's, it's interfering with our relationships, , we're super anxious, maybe we're depressed.

 We're ruminating and, , areas where we've made mistakes. So a few things that we can do. Right practice. Self-compassion being kind to yourself in those moments. So figuring out things to say to yourself,  in those moments. So breathing is always my go-to tool.

I think it's so, so helpful in those moments where those thoughts are spinning and you're in kind of a thought tornado, right? We have to slow that thought tornado down and that shame spiraled down. And we have to say something, , self soothing to, to ourselves to  allow us to calm down a little bit.

Right. So I'm okay. I'm enough. , so just really having that self-compassion is, is so, so important and disconnecting your mistakes from your value as a person , Another action step that can be really, helpful.

, especially for people who are people pleasing. And we talked about how people pleasing and perfectionism go hand in hand, right? So. Start saying no  to things to people, , perfectionists tend to fill their calendars, fill their plates. And, you know, sometimes as high school athletes or college athletes or even professional athletes, we don't have feel like we don't have room to say no to things, or we don't wanna disappoint people.

Right.  And so we. Other people, other activities, other things ahead of ourselves. And so not saying no, , tends to lead to so much stress and anxiety and this burnout that can come with just never putting ourselves first, never taking time to, , give back to ourselves and, practice, self care, 

so saying no when you can and finding a way.  to, say that, to do that, to practice that. Right.  And  setting boundaries. So another tip that's really helpful for perfectionist to practice is working on your self-esteem.



So another tip that's super helpful for,  perfectionist is it goes alongside with practicing self compassion, right? It's working on your self-esteem. So building that self-worth plays such an essential role in overcoming perfectionism. If your self-esteem is overly reliant on your ability to perform and achieve 

right. It can be helpful to broaden your interests and develop other ways of feeling good about yourself. So I know everyone says, , focus on the process, not the result and as athletes and high performers, we just kind of like laugh at that. When people say that sometimes because of course the result is important.



Right. And I think that's what I didn't understand. Initially, when I heard this throughout my career, the result still is important. Right? Doesn't doesn't mean that it's not important, but if you're focusing on. Being in the present and the process and the journey on the way to the result, you're gonna be in such a better spot to get the result that you want and that you're working toward.

If your focus is on the right things,  right. So focusing on how to slow down in those moments to bounce back from mistakes,  in games, practices, things like that, that's gonna allow you to   harness, some of your power so that you can still achieve those results, and sometimes you're not gonna receive the result that you want and being okay with that, knowing that you worked your ass off.

What you did was enough. I think that's the, the hardest practice for people who are high achieving to,  comprehend is that it's enough. I'm enough. Even when we don't get what we want.  That's the hardest piece to kind of come to terms with and to accept right. If we work on some of these things, you know how to be more compassionate to ourselves, how to develop self-esteem how to say no so that we can protect our energy.

 And that will allow us to perform better, to be the best versions of ourselves. When we allow   our perfectionism to take a backseat and we put ourselves in the driver's seat, we take back some of the control and allow ourselves to say no to practice.

Self-compassion.  And to improve our self-esteem. Those are the things that are gonna ultimately allow us to be better athletes, better performers, better people. So the mindfulness piece is always such a big piece of the puzzle, in order to ditch some of these perfectionistic tendencies and these pieces of ourselves that we don't really love, we have to have this awareness.

Of what's happening, , in our brains, in our bodies. And what allows us to do that is by slowing things down in those moments of, of high stress, high anxiety, and allowing ourselves to take a step back for a second and realize  What thoughts you're having, how your body's responding to those thoughts and the situation.

And if we're able to do that, we're able to kind of take a step back from the situation, slow ourselves, slow our response. We can  stop that perfectionism tornado before it spirals out of control and, , a panic attack ensues, or we have anxiety or we slip into depression. So the goal is to catch these things.

 , as the perfectionism is building.  Before it becomes too big and it starts,  really taking over our lives. So if you're someone who has really struggled with perfectionism, you're not alone. There are so many of us out there who have struggled with perfectionism and maybe have even normalized it 

 It's important to pay attention to things that are slowing you down  in your,  life on and off the court. So hopefully you guys have found this episode helpful. I've given you a little bit of insight as far as what perfectionism looks like, , and how it can really impact stress and anxiety,, 

share this episode with a friend who may be struggling with some of these things and I will see you on the next episode.

  📍 Thanks so much for joining us on the Mindful Warrior Alliance Podcast. If today's episode spoke to you in some way, share it with your friend and leave us a review. It helps us to reach more warriors like you. Don't forget to follow us on social media and head to mindful warrior alliance.org to connect with our community access resources and stay up to date on what's coming up next.

Until next time, take care of your mind. Stay strong and be mindful.