223. Perfectionism, Self-Compassion and Making Progress - with Dr Tara Cousineau

Perfectionism can feel like ambition for many students, but it often fuels anxiety, procrastination, and a harsh inner critic that makes studying harder than it needs to be. 

We’re joined today by Harvard-trained clinical psychologist, author and perfectionism expert Dr Tara Cousineau, to unpack the psychology and triggers of perfectionism. Dr Tara shares practical skills everyone can employ for putting self-compassion before self-criticism, and learning how to strive for excellence whilst protecting your wellbeing.

This is an excellent advice-packed episode I hope the perfectionists in our Exam Study Expert community will return to again and again, covering everything from working definitions of perfectionism and types of inner critic, to key tools for rewriting your mindset about excellence and progress.

If Dr Tara’s advice has resonated with you, why not share this episode with a friend who’s stuck in overthinking mode, and leave a review so more students can find the show. 

👇 I’d love to know: What’s one perfectionist habit you want to loosen this week?

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⭐About today’s guest, Dr Tara Cousineau: 

📖 Find her recent book, The Perfectionist's Dilemma: Learn the Art of Self-Compassion and Become a Happy Achiever here: https://geni.us/perfectionist *

📖 Dr Tara’s first book, The Kindness Cure: How the Science of Compassion Can Heal Your Heart and Your World can be found here: https://geni.us/kindnesscure *

🌐Discover more about Dr Tara Cousineau: https://www.taracousineau.com/

🌐And learn more about The Perfectionist’s Dilemma here: https://perfectionistsdilemma.com/

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🎓About Exam Study Expert: 

Hosted by William Wadsworth, memory psychologist, independent researcher and study skills coach. I help ambitious students to study smarter, not harder, so they can ace their exams with less work and less stress. 

🎙️Support the podcast on Patreon and grab exclusive benefits: https://examstudyexpert.com/patreon/

🎯 Book 1:1 COACHING to supercharge your exam success: https://examstudyexpert.com/workwithme/ 

📘Get Outsmart Your Exams, my award-winning exam technique book: https://geni.us/exams * 

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Podcast edited by Kerri Edinburgh.

* As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases on suggested books.

Transcript

William Wadsworth 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Exam Study Experts Podcast. I'm your host, learning and memory specialist, and exam success coach and speaker, William Wadsworth. By definition, many students and scholars of all ages who tune into the show are ambitious for their academic success. You guys want to do well. You're taking the time, after all, to tune in to a show all about study strategy that already sets you apart from a lot of people. And this idea of constantly seeking to improve your skill set and find ways to grow and level up and get better at things. Again, like listening to this podcast to sharpen your study skills. That's an extremely desirable attribute that often comes with ambition and wanting to do well. But some of the attributes that accompany ambition can not be so universally beneficial. See the fantastic episode uh 159 with Hannah Tackett for a masterclass on that. Or perhaps we wrestle with imposter syndrome. Uh, all the way back in episode 44, we were talking about that. Uh especially uh, you know, imposter syndrome, especially kicking in later on in your academic journey, uh, you know, common among undergraduates and and especially among postgraduate students. But something that many listeners at all stages of their academic journey face, from school through university and on into the professional world, uh, something that's that's quite universal among people that want to do well is a tendency towards perfectionism. It kind of comes with a territory. We want to do well, and sometimes that comes at the cost of, you know, wanting to do really, really well, so good it's perfect. And that, as you might well know, uh can create challenges for us. Now, some of you listening may well identify with the idea of being a perfectionist. You know that label resonates strongly with you, in which case, please make yourself at home uh and welcome to perhaps your new favourite episode on the show. Um perhaps consider coming back and listening to this a couple of times. Or perhaps you don't really identify with yourself as the idea of being a perfectionist. Um, but but even then you might recognize the tendency to have perfectionist type traits popping up at certain times, perhaps triggered by certain kinds of tasks. So for me personally, I would say that I was definitely a bit of a perfectionist uh as a teen. Uh, but I think honestly, I've long since lost that uh overall. However, the tendency to perfectionism still does rear its head for certain kinds of tasks, including, kind of ironically, the task of coming up with introduction segments for podcast episodes, uh, as my podcast editor Kerry will gladly tell you. Uh, I've merrily procrastinated for about the last three weeks on recording this particular introduction. Uh, and a lot and and a and a and a part of that is the pressure I put on myself when I'm writing a podcast introduction. Uh, this is kind of one of my key uh channels to kind of communicate with the world and my community. Uh, and and I always want to make the introduction, you know, really kind of compelling, hook people in and get you super excited for what you're about to hear. So I try trying to have this drive to kind of try and make it perfect, basically. So I end up putting it off and procrastinating on it. Wherever you procrastinate in your life or in your studies, today's guest is here to help. She is Dr. Tara Kuzineau, and her credentials to teach us about perfectionism and how we can manage it in our lives, uh in an academic context, particularly, are second to none. Dr. Tara was originally trained at Harvard Medical School and became, amongst other things, uh a therapist and a researcher, uh, later including a role as a staff psychologist at the uh Harvard University's Counseling and Mental Health Service. Uh more recently, Dr. Tara is the author of The Perfectionist's Dilemma: uh Learn the Art of Self-compassion and Become a Happy Achiever, which is a really good book. I definitely recommend anyone pick up uh for a really good blend of the kind of the science of perfectionism, along with uh you know Tara's really vast real-world experience of helping people uh and students in particular to overcome this particular challenge and make progress. Uh, we're gonna talk about lots of Tara's kind of favorite ideas. We're gonna talk about the research today. Uh, we're gonna talk about some really good sort of practical steps you can use to help manage your perfectionist tendencies uh and help you make good progress. So we're in for a real treat today. I think this will be a fantastic conversation for so many of you. Uh without further ado, let's welcome Dr. Tara to the Exam Study Expert podcast.

Meet Dr Tara Cousineau

Dr Tara Cousineau 4:39

Hi, I'm Tara Cousineau. I'm a clinical psychologist. I'm in the Boston, Cambridge area in the United States. That's Massachusetts. And I'm really happy to be on your podcast, William.

William Wadsworth 4:47

We are so excited to have you here, Dr. Tara. Thank you so much for giving up your time. I'm really excited to have this conversation. Um I wonder perhaps if we before we zoom into the specific conversation about perfectionism, which I think will be of great interest to many of us listening today, I wonder if we could maybe start with just a little bit of breadth, perhaps your kind of perspective, having having had a uh a role as a staff psychologist on a on a university counselling um mental health services team at one of the world's great universities. I'm just curious, what are some of the sort of challenges and patterns and trends that you've sort of seen in the years you've been doing this? Uh, some of those kind of perennial themes that that create difficulties for students, um, you know, particularly studying at kind of elite institutions.

Dr Tara Cousineau 5:34

Wow. So I've been a clinical psychologist for a long time, about 25 years. I've worked at the University Counseling Center for about six. So, in the short time, relatively short time of six years, I think if there's there were there's some interesting trends. So we had COVID, um, which really actually incited a lot of anxiety because there was such a lack of structure. And so um a lot of students and high achievers actually felt somewhat at a loss during that time because the structure wasn't there. Um, and and now we have AI, which is, you know, in the last year has been also an interesting trend in a number of ways. How that affects studying, I'm not as clear as how it affects when people sometimes come into my office and they've asked ChatGP, you know, how to cope, you know, or I'm going on a first date, or you know, I need an outline for a paper. And so there's been some some interesting developments, I think, over the last few years that I I feel like we're all kind of curious about and trying to figure out how to navigate that.

William Wadsworth 6:43

Yeah, yeah. And in terms of the sorts of things, the sorts of conversations you know you you have with with with students and and the sorts of uh issues they they bring to the table. I mean, I clearly perfectionism is is is one and and that's that was one of the kind of inspirations for for the book and your your work on this. Um are there any other uh sort of patterns that that you see people uh you know causing people to come and knock on your door, so to speak?

Dr Tara Cousineau 7:11

Well, I uh they're they're typical, I think. They're human concerns. It's often imposterism, not feeling like you fit in, um sort of some hits to your self-esteem if you didn't do as well as that you you thought you could, um, having to do things that you didn't really have to do before, you know, presentations in front of large audiences, uh, situations like that. And also just developmental. I mean, you know, when you're transitioning from a high school to a college or college to graduate school, or even, you know, mid-career to graduate school, it's a new phase in life and you don't know what you don't know yet. And that could be really uncomfortable for people.

William Wadsworth 7:51

So you you've got kind of particular passion and expertise for for the topic of perfectionism. You've you know something you thought about quite quite a lot, written written on. Um I I'm curious, you know, what what kind of got you what kind of got you particularly interested in in that subject uh in in particular? What drew you to to work on that?

Dr Tara Cousineau 8:11

Well, I think first of all, I was raised by a perfectionist. My mother is German. We couldn't leave the house until things were organized and efficient. We always had to look our best no matter what. You know, uh you kind of squashed down your feelings in order to present yourself well to the world. So I had that conditioning. I love my mother, by the way, but there was a lot of that conditioning. And then there's just growing up in, you know, in the world and then, you know, going to college and earning a PhD. There's lots of comparison, you know, am I smart enough? So I have that life experience. I feel like, you know, I've been exactly where my students have been at one point or another. So I I resonate very much. But what really got me started is was probably in the first year of working at the University Counseling Center where every student came in, either saying that they were a perfectionist or struggling with not feeling good enough. And it was impossible for me on an hour-to-hour basis to address enough students. So I decided to start some workshops. I'm like, okay, if I could get more people who are feeling the same way in a room together, then we can start to tackle this as a group. So I started running groups called Overcome Perfectionism and one for graduate students called Befriending the Inner Critic. And I've been running those for about five years. And that has just been incredibly rewarding because many people struggle with this. You don't have to go to an elite university. Um, you don't have to even go to a college to actually experience a lot of the um sort of characteristics associated with perfectionism or wanting to strive or being highly motivated. So, you know, I was just really immersed sort of in the perfectionism pond, so to speak. So I felt like I had to do more.

William Wadsworth 9:55

Yeah, no, it's really interesting. I I wonder if you could maybe just give us a little bit of colour um on the sorts of ways it's affected. I know, either from your own story or from the students you've seen, sort of how it's kind of affected people, you know, perhaps in terms of kind of late for deadlines or kind of emotional state. Yeah, maybe just a little bit of human colour on what perfectionism means for people and what it uh how it impacts their lives.

A Practical Definition Of Perfectionism

Dr Tara Cousineau 10:21

Well, so I I've come to there are some research orientation, you know, sort of research definitions around perfectionism. And I've sort of come to my own, I just call it my armchair definition of perfectionism, which is it's really a paradox created by a need for belonging and a fear of rejection paired with unrealistic expectations for achievement or approval. And this sacks your energy or life force. So I feel like a lot of the research-oriented definitions don't actually address how draining it is. So people will come in often in a panic. They've left a 10-page paper to the last minute, right? They've they're trying to pull those all-nighters. You're probably familiar with this behavior. Um, or they got their first B or C plus here in the United States, we, you know, the A, B, C, D system. So they got, you know, a less than stellar grade on something, and it's so counter to their experience to that point, it feels devastating. Or they're studying, if you know, medical student has a shelf exam, you know, they've just done a rotation and now they're going to be tested on it, and it will be, you know, sort of an oral exam or a written exam, and they're in a panic because they're afraid they're gonna freeze. Those are the kinds of situations that might bring a student to a counseling appointment, and rightly so.

William Wadsworth 11:44

So you mentioned that that definition, um, which is really interesting, and and you you mentioned some of the kind of research, the kind of academic literature on this. I'm just curious. I mean, you you we you we may have a fairly scholarly uh listener phase today. I'm just curious, like, are there any sort of interesting things um in the academic literature in terms of the sort of research that's been done on this that might be helpful uh for us in sort of starting to understand perfectionism, where it comes from, how it affects us?

Three Types Of Perfectionism

Smartphones Social Media And Compare Despair

Dr Tara Cousineau 12:14

I think it's a fairly small area of study, generally speaking. Um, but in that domain, there have been researchers in Canada, for example, who have been studying perfectionism and they actually developed this multidimensional scale of perfectionism. And um, they've really sort of identified three types of perfectionism, if you will. One type is self-oriented perfectionism, and self-oriented perfectionism is really, you actually have have raised the bar for yourself. Your standards are really high, you strive for excellence, you're sort of internally, you know, internally and externally motivated to do well in the world. Um, you put a lot of pressure on yourself, basically. You know, that's the that's sort of the self-oriented perfectionist. I know I identify with that category. I got myself, you know, as the first, you know, person in my family to go to college and then get a PhD. So I definitely fit under that category. Um, and then there is other oriented perfectionism where you have this expectation that other people have these high standards of excellence just like you do. And so you can get very easily frustrated when people don't meet the standards that you have or expectations you have for them. And that could be the stereoty almost the stereotypical sort of bully that you might see in a movie, you know, um, you know, Meryl Streep's character and the devil wears Prada, you know, Miranda, you know, just this high unrealistic standard for other people that no one can ever meet. So there's that category. And we all have a little bit of all of this if you're at all in this domain of perfectionism. And then there's um socially prescribed perfectionism, which is the kind of perfectionism where you're you're doing that, what I call the compare and despair. You're constantly measuring your own ability, capacity, and success to other people. Um, so those are sort of three buckets, and we have to see them more as spectrums, right? So we might have a little bit of this, we might have a little bit of that. But my understanding from the researchers is that the kind of perfectionism that has the most um consequences in terms of mental health is the socially prescribed perfectionism. What I do think is interesting, and there's actually a UK researcher, uh Thomas Curran, who also wrote a book on perfectionism, um where there seems to be trends, if you this is so correlational versus causation, but that perfectionism really started, it was like on this little trend upward, and then all of a sudden there was this big spike, and that was around, I don't know, 2012, you know, or so in the in the mid-10s, if you will, that coincides with the onset of the smartphone. When all of a sudden people started having their phones in their hands, you're looking at it 24-7, you you know, you go to sleep with your smartphone under your pillow at night. And so we can make some inferences that social media, the introduction of smartphones, um spiked that socially, you know, that social perfectionism. And so that's in a way the ones that we have to kind of watch out for, at least and sure enough, like that's one of the things. I'm like, how long are you on your phone? You know, if you're spending, you know, more than a few hours on your phone a day, that's a problem, you know, it could really sort of trigger um self-defeating thoughts and that compare and despair cycle.

The Inner Critic And Negativity Bias

William Wadsworth 15:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'd I'd love to talk about some sort of practical strategies in in a moment. It sounds like we may be already hinting the way towards one of them, which is try and get off the phone a bit. Which has benefits for for lots of things, not just perfectionism. Um in terms of in terms of just sort of rounding out our understanding of of the kind of phenomena of of of perfectionism, you've mentioned this idea of the inner critic a couple of times. I wonder if you could just expand on that concept a little bit more for us.

Dr Tara Cousineau 16:04

Yeah, sure. So, you know, perfectionism is really the sort of unrealistic set of standards, right? Or ideals ultimately that's difficult to attain. Well, how does that actually manifest in our internal life? And it usually manifests um, well, physically with tension, stress, and anxiety, but also mentally with what we say to ourselves. So the that sort of inner dialogue. And when we are stressed, the body is actually interpreting that as threat, right? It's a it's a sort of str a response to threat. And then we have to make sense of it. So we come up with a story. And the story is usually I'm not good enough, I shouldn't have been here, I'm a fake, I'm a fraud, and all sorts of things, you know, come in because we have this, you know, what some neuroscientists would call the negativity bias, right? Is that our bias for our attention networks is to focus on what's wrong rather than what's right. And we all have it. We all have the negativity bias to some extent. And so that really can sort of feed that inner narrative or narratives, because often there's more than one narrative that's happening at the same time. That's especially true for the perfectionist procrastinator sort of loop that will happen is that there's one part of you that's saying, This is exactly what someone said to me last week, you know, I'm saying, go, go, go, go. And then there's another part of me that says, wait, just chill, just relax, it's gonna be okay, right? So then you have this internal conflict that's happening. Those are competing voices, right? And they they both are valid. You know, they're so how do you kind of manage that? Um, so learning to identify and tease out with some specificity, what the narratives are can be really helpful in identifying patterns.

William Wadsworth 17:56

Yeah. Well, should we talk a little bit about what we can what we might be able to do? So if we're we're listening to this and resonating with some of the things you've been describing, uh Dr Dr. Tara. I would love to sort of explore what are some of the things we might be able to take from this conversation to to help us uh to help us move forward a little bit. So we've already signposted the way to one. You you mentioned the the impact of social media, smartphone use generally. So that will that. I guess the takeaway there would be, yeah, let's try and get off the phone, let's try and get off social media a little bit. Right.

Inner Critic Archetypes You Can Name

Self Compassion As The Antidote

Dr Tara Cousineau 18:30

You know, people talk about a media diet, and that's all very practical. We need diets, you know, we have to kind of do everything in moderation. And so I it's an obvious one, but students actually really do struggle with it. They have a hard time because now they've got the dopamine hits and it's become a little bit of an addiction, and so to tight trait off can be you know challenging. And that that can affect your social life, it can affect your study life, it can affect a number of things. But I'm gonna go back to the inner critic because you know, when I started running these groups in a university setting, there were different sort of scripts or stories that would come up. And so then I kind of identified these archetypes, if you will. Like there could be that inner bully, which is almost oriented, like that other oriented perfectionism. Like you expect other people to do everything right, you expect yourself to do everything right, or an inner detective that's that's that doom scroller, or you know, leave no stone unturned. Like sometimes some people cannot stop studying and they're not studying effectively, as you know, and they kind of go down these rabbit holes. So there I call that sort of your inner detective. There could be an inner joy thief that almost everybody relates to, and also in summertime, right? People are on vacation. I've got graduate students who say, like, I can't enjoy a weekend. I can't relax because I've got all these other things to do, right? And so that's a part of you that's saying it's not okay and you know, guilt trips you. Um, there can be a nitpicker, right? So I definitely have an inner nitpicker with the way that I grew up that I can't even think straight unless my desk is clean. Like before this podcast, I had to actually just put away all my sticky notes because I had a hundred of them. It's totally inefficient, right? And so I need to actually work with that part, you know. So when we identify that we've got these sort of, you know, little inner personas or characters and that they're all, you know, trying to help you in some way. So, so here's where I kind of have like an issue with the mindset work because yes, it's great to change your mind, but if you don't understand the underlying mechanisms of why you're sort of like, you know, your inner judge is getting on you, um, it's gonna be very hard to change your mind. You're gonna go back to that pattern. So many people come in, they've got an inner judge. Sometimes I'm like, give it a nickname, Judge Judy, give it, you know, and notice when that that comes up, because it does come up in every area of life. It comes up, oh, in this computer science class, or it might come up when you have to go to the dining hall and you know, you don't want to sit by yourself. When does the judge show up? And how might this element have been constructed in your life to help you? And this is where, like, you know, that's a mind-bending thing. Like, well, you know, I need my perfectionism, I can't let go of it. If I didn't have my perfectionism, I wouldn't have gotten this far. And I'm like, Yes, that is probably true. But do you have to suffer to get this far? You know, check in with your feelings. So when people start to to recognize, like, oh, this judge part of me showed up in the third grade when I had a math teacher, and that math teacher said, Well, I'm really surprised, Susie, that you didn't do better than this. Right? That becomes a traumatic memory in a way, you know. And then, you know, what does little Susie do? Well, she tries like heck to make sure that she doesn't make any mistakes and that she studies, and then she begs her mom for a tutor and all these things, and you know, and then overcompensates. Well, when you can recognize that, that allows you to get a little bit of mental space and some emotional space to say, oh, I know why this little judge is here. This class really means a lot to me, and I want to do well. And then we start to insert practices of self-compassion. So Thomas Corinne, who wrote a book on uh the perfectionist trap, and he comes from the sort of social economic perspective, like we're just marinating in the soup of perfectionism, and everything has to be more, more, more and better, better, better. Um, you know, I had the same question to him that you had to me, like, okay, well, how do you help with this? And he also mentions self-compassion. Because the practice of self-compassion helps to offset that inner critical narrative. And there is a lot of research on this. Is that self-compassion is a really great antidote to um that the harsh inner narratives, and it can help alleviate anxiety and depression and traumatic memories and all sorts of things. And it's a hard sell, William, with high achievers. You know, oh, be kinder to yourself. You know, they're like, Well, I need to let myself off the hook. And like, no, that's not what it is at all. So then we actually have to learn what self-compassion is.

William Wadsworth 23:07

So not always an easy thing to implement. I I can you give us some uh examples of ways we could practice more self-compassion, what that could look like in practice?

Dr Tara Cousineau 23:16

Yes, yes. Well, you know, self-compassion is this, um, and again, according to the research, uh, Dr. Kristen Neff's research, is that there's actually three elements of self-compassion. Isn't that interesting? One is mindfulness, which is being aware of this of the present moment without judging it. Like, can we be aware of our moment-to-moment experiences without trying to define it, change it, or judge it? So mindfulness is a really important element with self-compassion. It's often, I think, there's no order here, but it's a good first step. Um, the second piece is common humanity, which is recognizing that you are actually not alone with your struggle or your fears or your worries or your imposterism. It is a human experience. While your situation might be specific to you, it is actually a very common human experience. And that's why I love doing the groups because I feel like it really engenders common humanity. And then the the third component is self-kindness. And what is self-kindness? And I was like, well, I think the easiest way to remember that is to like, you know, be a good friend to yourself. I call it befriending. You know, if you knew a friend was struggling with her exam anxiety or her dissertation or her oral defense, how would you orient yourself to that person? How would you tent to that person? And you know, and often people say, well, I would be really encouraging. I would be kind, I would give them a hug, I would say a mirror for them. Like, great, can you redirect that back to yourself? Can you make that u-turn and do that for yourself? So those are the elements of self-compassion. And one way to kind of, and I'd be so interested from your study expertise, see what you think about this, um, but is actually creating for yourself what I call sometimes self-compassion statements or power statements where you actually are writing down for yourself a statement that is encouraging, that you can metabolize, that that it's not like fake it till you make it, you know, that you actually can digest it, right? Because you know, people you tell people to go in front of a mirror and say, you are beautiful. They're like, no way, I can't do that. So you have to come up with phrases that actually mean something to you. Um, and so it's being kind, it's being clear, and it's being authentic to yourself. And I often ask students to write at least three of those and then to put it somewhere in their visual cue. It's like, ah, screensaver on your cell phone is the first thing that you look at in the morning. Um, put it on a sticky note, say it out loud, talk about it with with friends, start to create, it's like learning a new language, essentially, is orienting your attention to okay, we can call it a positivity bias. And that takes time. That is all about, like you said, making space. It's about repetition over and over again. And if you can reinforce that with allies, your roommates, your friends, um, it can be really powerful, but it does require practice.

Perfectionism In Studying And Research

William Wadsworth 26:09

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's great advice. That's great advice. And you you as as you've been talking, I've I've been kind of ruminating on some of the kind of specific ways I think kind of different elements of perfectionism show up in some of the conversations I have with with with my coaching clients. And you know, like a couple of the big ones, I think, are you know, kind of beyond the kind of kind of everyone's sort of general impression of what you know what perfectionism would would involve. I think there's a couple of interesting sort of specific little details where it kind of shows up. I mean, one is you know, we talk a lot, as you know, about kind of power of retrieval practice on the show, testing yourself and that that being the the high road, if you like, to learning effectively, learning um, you know, in a in a kind of rapid uh space of time. Um that inevitably involves being wrong. Like testing yourself means you'll sometimes get the answer wrong. Um, and sometimes people will put off doing the testing, doing the retrieval practice because they don't like the element of being wrong. Like they want to just read it and read it or kind of write it out a billion times until they can get it like right. But but that of course is in an inefficient way to study and means the whole thing takes a lot longer, versus like embracing the element of kind of being wrong and kind of accepting that as part of the process. And and then I think sort of more generally, you know, for for students perhaps that are uh um you know further on in the academic journey, you know, as as you get into sort of more more um you know research roles kind of further on in the academic journey, you know, that increasingly involves a huge amount of uncertainty. You know, you you're trying to figure out things that no one's figured out before. It's not supposed to be easy, like it's really hard. No one's worked this stuff out before. Um, and you know, the the the sort of psychological struggles that people wrestle with there, um, you know, are very uh can can be can be very can be very tricky. Like I've never been in one of those roles myself, but from the conversations I've had, um, you know, that's that can be can be a big thing.

Even Though Statements And Nervous System Skills

Dr Tara Cousineau 27:55

Well, there's a number of techniques that can be used, and this is where everyone needs to kind of figure out what their own toolkit is. Like you need to try a number of things because not everything works for everybody. I think that's there's like no simple answers. But often when you're struggling with like, I really don't want to do this, or there's maybe a part of you that's saying, Oh, I don't have the energy, that's when an I say, use an even though statement. Even though this is a struggle for me right in this moment, I know that when I put in the effort, I will feel so much better later. And I completely accept where I am right now. And now you can pair that even with there's certain um energy psychology techniques like tapping, which so many students have found helpful because um tapping is emotional freedom technique. There's been a couple of meta-analyses on the benefits of tapping, which actually helps to reduce that amygdala response to the fear, right? Because whether you're facing uncertainty, you don't really know what you don't know yet, or you're trying to discover something new, you have no idea if it's gonna work out, or you have to, you know, do an exam. All of that is actually, you know, causing a fight-flight-freeze reaction. So I often work people with people from a sort of like a bottom-up perspective versus the top-down. Like mindset work is top-down, and that's really important. But you also actually have to work bottom-up, which is actually tending to the nervous system in some way, and it's absolutely essential. And I feel like for many students in particular, it's a missing ingredient. And, you know, are the you know, procrastination is often a freeze response. Well, that's different than a fight-flight response. And actually, the coping skills for a freeze response are gonna be different than coping skills for a fight-flight response, right? So if you're in that freeze response, skills that will help you get a little more energy and to move and motion is gonna be helpful if you're in freeze. If you're in fight-flight, actually, the calming skills will be helpful. Learning, you know, the breathing techniques, box, box breathing, things like that. So I feel like it's almost, you know, you have to kind of have a number of skills, like a good 10 skills, and then you have to know when to use them, right? And that's when you have to check in with your body. What do you what is your body saying it needs right now? Does that make some sense? And then try all these retrieval skills, right? I think it's important to practice. I mean, life isn't easy, right? So that's the other piece of it, is like that's why I like the even though statement. Like, even though this is a struggle and I'm learning, I know that practice is really going to help me. Um, and it just kind of helps with the dialectic there versus the you know, all or none that humans will often default to.

The Point Of Diminishing Returns

William Wadsworth 30:30

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, so maybe some days we need to to go go for a walk, get get the body moving. Some days we might need to need to calm ourselves down and and do some decent breathing breath work. One one other thing I just wanted to to put to you, and and uh kind of on behalf of of all of you listening, which uh, you know, this I know this is a thing for for a lot of people, um, is is it sounds kind of obvious when you say it, but the amount of conversations I've had where people are wanting to go into an exam, particularly being 100% prepared. In other words, they have done every resource, they've done every question, they've learned every detail. And that's rarely an achievable goal except at you know relatively young, you know, when you maybe 14 or 15. You're taking quite a straightforward exam at high school, relatively straightforward exam at high school, you might be able to do that. But the further up you go in academia, the harder and harder it gets to do that as as the scape scope and scale of your course grows and grows. Um you you know, you'll you'll you'll never perfect every detail for for a more advanced, more challenging exam. Um and here's the thing: you you you don't need to. Nobody needs 100% in an exam. That that's not the goal. The goal is to pass or get the 4.0 or the A or the whatever, and that doesn't need 100%.

Dr Tara Cousineau 31:44

That's so true.

William Wadsworth 31:45

The idea of enough, you were talking about totally.

Excellencism Versus Perfectionism

Dr Tara Cousineau 31:48

It is, you know, what is enough? And so there's a couple of things. So, because you like the research, right? So there's a Canadian researcher, Patrick Gaudreau, and he looks at perfectionism in the context of goal attainment. And he has what's called sort of the uh, you know, it's the point of diminishing return. So if you're looking at a graph, right? So there's a tipping point where your striving for excellence is no longer beneficial, right? You've put in all of this effort and actually it's gonna backfire at a certain point. You've put in 110%, and guess what? You're gonna be exhausted, more likely to make a mistake, uh, you know, all of that. So I like that, I like sort of the idea of this point of diminishing returns, which brings in sort of the 80 or the 85% rule that people often talk about, talk about it in business, talk about it, you know, it's like you're really shooting for 80%. And that gives you some space, it gives you wiggle room, it gives you, you know, an understanding that, right, I need to get through this milestone. It doesn't have to be, you know, 100%. Now that is it's it's a hard sell, but when you when students begin to understand, right, uh there is a point of diminishing returns. And often, and of course we see students when they're usually in that panic state already, like you have the privilege of seeing them before they get there, probably, but sometimes, not always. Um, it's like, yeah, no wonder is like you know, they've gotten to this panic point and their body has spoken, right? Because sometimes I say, yeah, if you don't get it yet, like if your body will tell you in some way. And the body is such an exquisite emotional radar system. So if you're denying how much you're struggling, or you know, you're trying to get to this point and you're not in sync with your body, your body's gonna shout it out. So what happens? You know, people get insomnia, they get IBS, headaches, migraines, there's all sorts of things, and those are really important cues. You hope that it doesn't get to that level of significance. So this idea of point of diminishing returns to me says, okay, what do you need to do to set up your life? That you're in a place of regulation, essentially, emotional regulation, attention regulation, like you've got a good balance in your life, and you're remembering the meaning of the work that you're doing. So this comes up often like with dissertation students, right, or thesis students, where sometimes they they fall out of love with their project or why they went to graduate school in the first place. And um, you know, Adam Grant, who's an organizational psychologist, has what he calls a minimal viable, no, a minimal lovable product. And I love that phrase because I feel like, you know, when you're going for your thesis or your dissertation or presentation, go for the minimal lovable product. Like what still gets you sparked and inspired and that you feel like, yes, this is meaningful to me. I have something to share with this particular audience or reader. Um, that's what I'm going for. It's not actually about me so much as about the meaning that I'm actually putting out into the world. So you're almost like extracting you, your ego from the situation, like, oh yeah, I'm striving towards this. And I do have something interesting to share. So I love the concept of minimal lovable product because that's this, that's how I say minimal lovable dissertation. You know, get to where you need to go. You want to write that book, you do it after. You know, you can always write it later. So, you know, I think sometimes we just have to get to that 80%, you know, point rather than trying to go overboard and you might just end up harming yourself rather than helping yourself if it gets too extreme.

William Wadsworth 35:32

Indeed. Yeah. I I love that idea of the minimal lovable products as well. That's great. I uh put put in mind uh was it ahead of the the the calmest uh doctorate um PhD candidate I I knew um sort of tooth you know tooth in the final weeks uh before before deadline um he always struck in my stuck in my mind because uh he he he just um remember sort of asking him how his how his write-up was going and and he just sort of very calmly said, you know, I think I've got a I've got a good sensible body of work to to to call a PhD um and and that kind of attitude of like I've done a good I've done a sort of I've done enough. I've done enough. I've done a good enough amount of work. Um and he handed it in and got a pass without any minor corrections, uh, which is not something you come across every day. Um so so he's done a great job. Um but but that kind of calm I think was was really interesting to see in that attitude of I can always do more. There's always more, you know, there's always more, there will always be more. Um but I've done enough uh was was really cool. The the we sort of I think the the the the conversation we're having about those sort of diminishing marginal returns kind of feeds into this this quite nicely. But you mentioned a little bit earlier that sometimes we have this idea that perfectionism as kind of a force for good. You know, we feel it helps us to achieve our goals. So so you know, clearly, like maybe a little bit of perfectionism in sort of inverted comments, you know, will help compared to having if you think the counter if if the if the uh if the counterfactual is having very, very low standards for ourselves. You know, how would you help us sort of reconcile this idea that you maybe want a bit of a when you go too much, it's not good.

Dr Tara Cousineau 37:12

Yeah, no, I do think that we have to think of things more as multifaceted and honest spectrum. I think that that's a much more flexible way of looking at things. I mean, people often say, okay, like you know, it like perfectionism will be like the favorite flaw that you'll say in a job and review, you know. But actually, if you can see it more as striving for excellence versus perfectionism. And actually, Patrick Gaudreau, I loved it when I saw his research, I was like, yes, thank you. You did the research behind this, where he calls it excellencism versus perfectionism, right? So you've got the isms in there, but it's really a striving for excellence. And so, so what is that? Well, that is that that good enough attitude. It's having flexibility versus rigidity, it's having realistic expectations, it's not attaching your self-worth to your accomplishments, right? Whereas perfectionism is very much a singular kind of identity focus that I am what I produce in a way. And so I think we just need to kind of loosen the reins on the perfectionism. And there are a lot of perfectionism, you know, influencers, let's say, in the world, you know, of course, we don't see what people's struggles are in their real lives, but we have to remember that our brains are very vulnerable, you know, to the messages and the information, um, how systems are structured, that we don't even recognize that we might have fallen into that perfectionism trap because we're just marinating in it all the time. So it is really important on the cognitive behavioral side, you know, to bring in some of those skills is like, well, all right, if I'm such a dumb person, you know, what's the evidence for that? Like then you start checking the evidence. And there usually hardly is any evidence other than your own inner critic, right? Which is not evidence. So we have to kind of remind ourselves that um there's actually a lot of positive things are happening in our life all the time, and progress is being made, but we're not paying attention to that. What we're paying attention to is what we're not getting done or not, you know, and so we really do have to see where is our attention going? And that is actually sort of a really good mindfulness skill. Like, where are you noticing your attention is? But to your question about like when students say, Well, ah gosh, I you know, my perfectionism got me this far, and I'm like, okay, let's keep the word perfectionism. When you notice it in your life, how are you feeling? Let's just do a little litmus test. How are you feeling? And if they say they're tense and anxious and in panic, I'm like, okay, it's not really working for you, is it? If they're saying, Well, I'm feeling inspired and motivated, and and you know, I can't wait to pursue this, I'm like, oh, then it's inspirational, right? So I think sometimes we have to kind of check in with what our body and our mind and our hearts are telling us. Never a one size fits all. It's never a size.

Self Trust Micro Kindness And Closing

William Wadsworth 40:05

Your own uh yeah, your own psychology around this all this is so important. I did just want to ask though, so you you've shared a kind of a number of nice sort of practical nuggets along the way as we as we've been talking. I kind of wondered if there's one, and you know, mindful of the fact that you know different things for different people, but but if there's kind of one or one or two sort of practical habits or tools that you think you wish the the kind of the typical student, the vast majority of students, would know and use when it comes to to supporting with with this area. Is there anything in particular that comes to mind that that we haven't touched on?

Dr Tara Cousineau 40:41

Well, I wanted to remind your listeners, sir, wherever they are in their life, they have all the gifts that they already need, all the talent. They're there, they're in you. Sometimes we just need to kind of pull over the curtain to see that they're there and to really trust yourself. So I think self-trust is a really important element. Um and and just trying to silence those inner critics and that inner doubt, right? That's just fear speaking. And if you can actually become comfortable with uncertainty and fear, and no, it's just another sort of element in your life, I think that will be really helpful. And the second thing is I would really encourage people to practice self-compassion. So, you know, there are studies that show that even like micro moments, like putting a hand on your heart or just inclining your head towards yourself and saying, you know, like, oh, hey, Tara, you're doing the best that you can. It's gonna be okay. Keep at it. Some simple gesture like that, done repeatedly every single day, actually promotes well-being. And it's so simple. I feel like it's the best prescription, you know, that we can have. Um, that, and then let somebody else know that about themselves. Like be kind to somebody else. I know it sounds simple, it sounds trivial, but uh, the research is unequivocal. My first book was called The Kindness Cure how the science of compassion can heal your heart and your world. And there are all of these skills accumulate benefits over time when you practice them repeatedly. Just like if you're practicing those really great study skills, repetitions matter. So be kind to yourself and repeat.

William Wadsworth 42:22

Well, Dr. Tara, thank you so much uh for that and and for your wisdom generally today. It's been genuinely really, really interesting talking to you and I. I've taken a lot from our conversation. Uh, and I'm sure many, many of our listeners will have as well. If anyone is interested in your work that wants to find out a little bit more, where would we go next?

Dr Tara Cousineau 42:44

Oh, sure. Well, people can find out about my book, uh any sort of online retailer, The Perfectionist Dilemma, or go to a website for the book, which is perfectionistdilemma.com, or my website, which is my name, tarahuzno.com, or if you're interested in learning more about perfectionism, I have a Substack newsletter called the um The Peaceful Perfectionist. So you can find me on Substack too. So yeah. But it's been a joy to be on this podcast with you, William.

Patreon Thanks And Final Sign Off

William Wadsworth 43:13

Wonderful. Well, thank you again. We will put the links in the show notes to make it easy for people to find. Thank you so much once again. We really appreciate it. Well, thanks again, Dr. Tara. Uh, and as always, links to Tara's resources, including her book, are in the show notes. So do take a look at the episode description on whatever platform you're listening to and click through those links to check out her work. I want to take a moment uh just before we go today to thank our supporters on Patreon over the past year or so since we we relaunched our Patreon. Uh, really grateful to those who've been supporting us in that time uh and really helping to make the show possible. Uh, if you yourself have found value from the show uh and the tips we've shared, and that's helped you in your studies, helped you along the way with your exams. And if you're in a position to do so, we'd be really glad to welcome you to our supporters community. And in exchange, we'll be able to hook you up with some really nice exclusive benefits just for our supporters. Go and check out the options and how you can support the work we do over at examstudyexperts.com forward slash Patreon. P-A-T-R-E-O-N, the links in the show notes. That's examstudyexperts.com forward slash Patreon. And thank you very much to all those who support. And with that, I just want to say thank you to everyone for tuning in today. It's been a joy, as always, to have your company, and I'd love to wish you, as ever, every success in your studies. I'll look forward to seeing you next time.

Speaker 1 44:42

Well, that was good, wasn't it? I found myself taking notes. If you need a reminder of anything from today, head to the website for a write up of this episode, as well as lots more top notch advice and resources. That's uh examstudyexpert.com. See you next time.