Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life

Breaking Free from the Chains of Perfectionism: Finding Joy in Imperfection

• Dr. Julie Merriman • Season 2 • Episode 22

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Perfectionism can be both a blessing and a curse for those in helping professions. While striving for excellence drives us to learn and grow, perfectionism—that rigid, unforgiving demand for flawlessness—can lead to burnout, paralysis, and diminished effectiveness with clients.

What's the difference? As I explain in this episode, "A healthy striver wants to do well. A perfectionist needs to be perfect to feel okay." This crucial distinction shapes our professional lives, our wellbeing, and our capacity to serve others authentically.

This perfectionism trap is particularly seductive for helpers. Our work involves high stakes and ethical imperatives. Many of us battle imposter syndrome, using perfectionism as armor against being "discovered" as inadequate. The inherent ambiguity in human services challenges our desire for certainty. We desperately want to be the perfect helper, often tying our worth to external validation rather than internal satisfaction.

The costs are significant. For us, perfectionism breeds burnout, procrastination, chronic self-criticism, and rigid thinking. For our clients, it creates unrealistic expectations, difficulty accepting imperfection, lack of authentic connection, and even delayed interventions while we pursue the perfect approach.

But transformation is possible. This episode offers nine practical strategies including embracing "good enough," reframing failure as feedback, practicing self-compassion, seeking supportive supervision, and modeling appropriate vulnerability. I also guide you through the "Taming the Perfect Beast" activity to identify your perfectionism profile and develop personalized strategies for shifting toward healthier striving.

Your immense value as a helper lies not in flawlessness, but in your humanity, dedication, and willingness to grow. Subscribe to Soul Joy for more insights on preventing burnout and practicing sustainable self-care in the helping professions.

Speaker 1:

Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. Today we're still looking at the crown chakra by tackling a pervasive trait that can feel like both a superpower and a significant burden for many of us perfectionism, because, y'all, this is a very necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care, also known as wellness. All right, hello, welcome, welcome. I appreciate y'all taking a minute to hang out with me as we talk about I think this is a really important topic perfectionism. I cannot think of a client I've worked with. Well, that's not true. I can probably think of one or two clients over the years. My invitation there is that this is a very pervasive topic perfectionism getting in the way of our happiness. But before we get there, quick moment about home chat. Let's see. Oh, this is exciting, kelly.

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My husband, my beloved, has a birthday Friday. He's a little younger than I am, he's still in his 50s, but anyway he has a birthday. So we are flying up to Montana to see our oldest son and his lovely family, my daughter-in-law and my two grandkiddos, and we're going to hang out over the weekend and celebrate the birthday. So I'm excited and then when I get back, while y'all are listening to this, I will be in Iowa. It's the back to school stuff for the university I teach for. So we're going to get that done and I have a new podcast I will be starting in September. It's for women over 50. It's called Hotter After 50. And it's a very spicy topic, so I'll be opening a Facebook page for that and sending out some social media around that. But stay tuned if you're interested. I'm excited, all right, okay, professional helpers, this podcast is dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of this career we chose, and those hazards are burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. It's a real deal, but I'm here to give you interventions, techniques, solutions so that you do not experience any of those constructs. So y'all in the helping profession, where stakes are high, ethical responsibilities are immense, right, and the well-being of others often rests in our hands.

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The drive for excellence is understandable, even commendable, but we want to do our very best for our clients, our patients, our students, our communities. This striving can push us to learn more, refine our skills and uphold the highest standards. I know just this week I signed up for a couple of trainings because I have some clients that I think would really benefit from some of these modalities and I'm trained in them, but I want to get deeper into it. So you know, internal family systems, emdr just, I believe we're never done. I'm in my 60s but I'm still growing and still learning and we're driven in this field to do that.

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What happens when this healthy striving now it can be good, but what happens when this healthy striving for excellent tips over into rigid perfectionism? Because that can happen Anything. Rigid. I want y'all to throw your ears up and go. Rigid is not the place I want to be.

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What happens when the pursuit of an impossible ideal leads us to paralysis, to burnout, to self-criticism, and even impacts the very people we aim to serve? Today, we're going to explore the nuanced nature of perfectionism in the helping professions. We're going to distinguish healthy striving from its more debilitating counterpart and uncover the unique ways it manifests in our roles and offer practical strategies to transform this double-edged sword into a tool for sustainable excellence. Okay, so let's start by clarifying what we mean by perfectionism, because it's crucial to differentiate it from healthy striving or conscientiousness. So healthy striving, this is about aiming high, working diligently, you know, learning from our mistakes and finding satisfaction in our effort and our progress. Y'all, healthy striving is flexible, it's resilient and it's growth-oriented.

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Now let's look at perfectionism. So, on the other hand, perfectionism is characterized by unrealistically high standards combined with critical self-evaluation. It's often driven by a fear of failure, a fear of judgment or a need to prove one's worth. It's rigid, unforgiving and focuses on avoiding mistakes at all costs rather than achieving excellence, and y'all know we're going to make mistakes To try to avoid. That is a huge waste of our energy and I think that leads to that rigid piece. I invite you to think of it this way A healthy striver wants to do well. A perfectionist needs to be perfect to feel okay. Say that again. A healthy striver wants to do well. A perfectionist needs to be perfect to feel okay. Just hear the different energy in those sentences, and I'll stop with that. Just hear. One is a very jubilant, effervescent energy. One is a very heavy, rigid energy, rigid energy, and I would just ask you to think about why is perfectionism so prevalent and often amplified in the helping professions? Well, like I tell you every week, I've done some research to prepare this podcast. So here's what my research uncovered. See if any of these resonate with you. So here's what my research uncovered. See if any of these resonate with you.

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First, high stakes and ethical imperatives. Right, we work with human lives and well-being. The thought of making a mistake can be terrifying, leading to an intensified need for flawless performance. Our ethical codes often emphasize competence and beneficence, which can be twisted into a personal demand for infallibility. Next there's imposter syndrome. I've heard a lot of my clients, a lot of people I've coached, talk about this imposter syndrome. A lot of my students oh, bless their hearts when they first get out in the field talk about this imposter syndrome. A lot of my students oh, bless their hearts when they first get out in the field talk about this. Many highly competent professionals secretly fear they're not good enough. Perfectionism becomes a coping mechanism. If I'm perfect, no one will discover I'm a fraud. Right, they're hiding behind that perfectionism. Discover I'm a fraud right, they're hiding behind that perfectionism.

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Third, we have ambiguity and complexity. Our work is rarely black and white. Wouldn't that be nice? But no two clients have ever presented the same. No two patients have ever presented the same. There's lots of ambiguity in our work. There are no perfect solutions. This inherent ambiguity can be deeply uncomfortable for a perfectionist, you know, because a perfectionist craves certainty and control, because really, under it all, perfectionism is about control, perfectionism is about control. But this constant battle leads to an endless reanalysis or delayed action. That's paralysis, you know you get in the analysis paralysis piece and we have to be okay with knowing that there's a lot of gray area here. We're going to make our best informed, professional decision and move on from there.

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Number four the desire to be the perfect helper. We see ourselves as healers, supporters and guides. The idea of being anything less than perfect in these roles can feel like a personal failing or a betrayal of our clients and y'all. It's not. We're human. We are not superhumans. We're humans and we're going to make some mistakes and that's why we stay in consultation, that's why we stay in supervision, that's why we seek training, that's why we continue to learn. But we have to accept that we're human.

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Then number five is that ever-present and never-feels-good external validation. See, early life experiences or professional training might have subtly or overtly taught us that our worth is tied to flawless performance or external approval. And it's not. Your worth is tied to you and what you do it's from the inside out, not from the outside in do it's from the inside out, not from the outside in. Number six is modeling unrealistic expectations. Unintentionally, some training environments or supervisors might perpetuate an unspoken expectation of perfection, and y'all this makes it harder for new professionals to embrace a more realistic approach. I try so hard with my students or my associates, my LPC associates to create a safe environment where they can make mistakes. In fact, I want them to make mistakes and feel like they can learn from it instead of being shamed by it. And I don't know. We all had that benefit as we were being trained or even in our childhood.

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The impact of perfectionism, while initially appearing to drive achievement, can be incredibly detrimental to both the helper and all those that we serve. Okay, so let's dive a little deeper, looking at the helper For the helper you're looking at burnout, and that's that. Relentless pursuit of perfection becomes exhausting, just absolutely exhausting, and this leads to chronic stress, anxiety and eventual depletion. The helper is going to experience procrastination and paralysis. The fear of not doing something perfectly can prevent us from even starting at all. Then there's chronic self-criticism, a constant inner voice tearing down efforts, which leads to low self-esteem and even depression and falling out of love with your job, with your career, with your life because you're so self-critical. It also leads to that rigidity and lack of creativity because there's a fear of making mistakes and this stifles your innovation and your adaptive problem solving.

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That's one thing I love about this profession. I love to sit with my clients and hear their story and my creativity kicks in. I start thinking about innovative ways to address this or that and ways to problem solve, and it's just. I think it's tremendously fun, but it can easily slide into that rigidity and lack of creativity because we're being too hard on ourselves. And then for the helper, there's that impaired well-being. This is going to impact your sleep, this is going to impact your relationships and this is going to impact your overall life satisfaction.

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And helpers let's consider this through the lens of our clients slash patients. There's going to be unrealistic expectations. A perfectionistic helper might subtly convey an expectation of perfect client progress or adherence, which leads to our clients feeling shame or disengagement. I know that's something I sit with my clients at our intake session we talk about. You know it's going to get worse before it gets better and there might be times where you find yourself moving backwards before you're going forward. Anyway, I'm trying to create a space for them to be less than perfect, because we all are less than perfect and I never want them to feel shamed if they didn't do their homework, if they made a bad decision knowing they shouldn't have made it, whatever it might be. I do not want to put unrealistic expectations on my clients and I know y'all don't either on my clients and I know y'all don't either.

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For our clients there could be difficulty with imperfection. A helper who cannot tolerate their own imperfections may struggle to truly accept and work with the client's struggles and messiness. I mean, check yourself on that. We would not do it on purpose, but it is something to bring into your awareness and think am I doing that? Then there's lack of authenticity. The helper might present a flawless facade, making it difficult for clients to connect on a human level. You know they want to see you make mistakes. They I mean not mistakes, it's going to hurt them. But to not have the answer, to stumble over something to. I mean we don't want to be perfect perfect, I'm going to try and say perfect robots. We want to be very human with our clients. That's where they connect with us and y'all know that's what research says. The biggest change agent we can provide our clients is that relationship where they feel safe with us.

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Then there could be delayed interventions. Because we're waiting for the perfect plan, we delay necessary support. I mean, it all is a chicken and the egg kind of thing, but we need to accept our own imperfections so we can approach our imperfect clients and be human with them and help them even in a greater capacity. So, y'all, how do we navigate this double-edged sword? How can we retain our drive for excellence without succumbing to the debilitating perfectionism? Good news, I've got a few strategies for you. Okay, again, I researched these and I found a plethora, but I narrowed it down to about nine, I believe. So, okay, alrighty.

Speaker 1:

So first, we're going to differentiate striving from perfectionism. So consciously ask yourself is this pursuit driven by a genuine desire to learn and grow or by a fear of inadequacy? Is my standard realistic and flexible, or am I being rigid and unforgiving? Second, you want to embrace good enough, and good enough is often excellent. Recognize that a well-executed, timely and effective intervention is often far more helpful than a delayed, perfectly crafted one. You want to strive for impact, not just for flawlessness. And next number three, you want to redefine failure as feedback. I love this one.

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Mistakes are inevitable and y'all know it, you've lived it, you've been around the block a time or two. In complex human work, mistakes are inevitable. So instead of seeing them as evidence of your inadequacy, I invite you to view them as a valuable data point for learning and refining your approach. What can you learn from this? How can you adjust next time? Some of my best play therapy interventions have come about from this. The first time I introduced them, perhaps they bombed, or maybe they didn't completely bomb, but it's like oh, the energy wasn't just right. So I went back in and refined and does it work? Perfect all the time? No, but I'm willing to learn from those mistakes. Take that as a data point.

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Next, you want to practice self-compassion. I think I have a whole podcast on this if you search back through my podcasts. When the inner critic of perfectionism arises, we want to deliberately counter that with kindness and understanding. Speak to yourself as you would a struggling colleague or client. I like to kind of pat my cheeks because I know it releases a little oxytocin, helps me calm just a little bit. Or maybe I do a little EFT, where you tap on a nerve center and I say to myself it's okay to be human. I'm tapping, that's why that vibrated. It's okay to be human, girl, you're doing the best you can. This is a learning opportunity and I believe y'all I like to say my name, julie. It's okay to be human, julie, you're doing your best. That awakes your amygdala. She's here, she is going to go ooh, you're talking to me and your brain is going to wake up and take that information in better.

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Five, you want to set realistic goals and minimum viable product mentality. Minimum viable product mentality. So what does that mean For new projects or interventions? Define what done looks like, y'all, even if it's just a first draft or a foundational step. This combats procrastination. I would say to any graduate students I have listening or doc students write the first paragraph, outline that thing, or just any. I know I have a new book coming out. I mean, I'm in the process of writing it, but I sat down. I had to outline the thing that gets me out of procrastination and into action. That can happen for anything Doing your notes, for anything Doing your notes.

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Six, you want to seek supportive supervision and peer consultation. You want to create safe spaces, y'all, where you can openly discuss your challenges, where you can seek feedback without that fear of judgment. This helps you gain perspective on what excellence truly means in a practical, sustainable way. If you don't have a supervisor, find one. Join a group. I know a gal I was on the board with the Texas Association for Play Therapy. She's got a group that she meets with weekly out in Dallas, just for peer support and just to grow. It doesn't cost a thing, it's just peer support. Find something like that. Join that.

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Model imperfection ethically as appropriate. Allow yourself to be human in front of your clients, of course within professional boundaries, but this can model resilience for your clients, vulnerability and realistic nature of growth. Think appropriate self-disclosure. I know, as we've been trained, there's a time and place. I'm thinking y'all. There's a time and place for self-disclosure all day, every day. Hell, no, that's not what I'm talking about. If there's a little piece of you you can share, that's going to help connect with that client and that client see you. Model imperfection in an ethical way. That is being a good therapist, that's helping others. Again, we know why we're sharing. We know how it fits the treatment goal. We know where we're going with it. We're not just out there rambling about ourselves. But I believe this model of imperfection is good for us. We take ourselves way too serious at times and it's good for your client. It's good for your client too.

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Okay, so number eight we're almost done with these. We want to prioritize process over outcomes. Sometimes, while outcomes matter, focus also on the quality of your effort, your commitment to the client and your ethical process. Not every outcome matters, not every outcome is solely within our control. Right, and then we want to practice mindful self-awareness. I have several podcasts on this. I think this one's very important. And remember, we're still working on our crown chakra. We're trying to balance this crown chakra so we can be the most evolved human we can become. Right, think of Maslow's pyramid. We're trying to self-actualize, get to the top. But number nine is practice mindful self-awareness.

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So you want to pay attention to the physical and emotional cues of perfectionism. You know, for me there's an anxiety that just overwhelms my solar plexus. Maybe for you it's tension. Maybe you start overthinking, maybe it leads to procrastination. When you notice these things, whatever it might be, for you and y'all it might take some good old body scans and a hot minute to get in touch with that. How does perfectionism impact me? What am I walking around with here? When you have them identified and you notice them, you pause and consciously shift your focus to what is good enough or the next small step. See, navigating perfectionism is an ongoing journey, but one that is profoundly liberating so liberating, I always say I'm, I think a 12 step, but I'm in recovery. I'm a recovering perfectionist.

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By transforming y'all the relentless pursuit of an impossible ideal to a flexible striving for excellence, you're not only going to protect your own well-being, but also become more authentic and resilient and effective as a helper for those who need you most. Remember, your immense value as a professional lies not in your flawlessness, that's not where it is. It's in your humanity, your dedication and your willingness to grow. Okay, my quick commercial, then. We're going to move to our activity. I really invite you to subscribe to my email list. I would love for y'all to be getting this email I make for you each. I create for you each week. I'd love for it to be landing in your inbox. I create a PDF of the activity we're about to do and I also give you a link to the podcast episode each week. All you have to do is hop on over to wwwjuliemerrimanphdcom and sign up for my email list. There's some fun things over on the website actually. I hope you take a look. Okay.

Speaker 1:

So the activity this week I have named Taming the Perfect Beast, a self-compassion action plan, and y'all. I designed this activity to help you actively engage with the concepts from this episode of Soul Joy. Through guided reflection and practical planning, you're going to pinpoint how perfectionism manifests in your work and develop compassionate strategies to shift towards a healthier striving, which is our goal. We're not perfectionistic, we are a healthy striver. That's a t-shirt I think we should make. Okay. So step one you know, listen to this and you can think it through as you're in the car, but when you get home, if there's something in here that really tweaks your interest, I invite you to re-listen to the podcast and identify your perfectionism profile so you'd find a quiet space where you can focus without interruption and re-listen to me talking to you right now or as you're driving in your car or walking. I usually walk as I listen, whatever you do you. But I invite you to pay close attention to the descriptions of perfectionism versus healthy striving and its common manifestations.

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I want you to identify two to three specific ways perfectionism shows up for you in your professional role, or maybe in your personal role. Think about behaviors procrastination, over-preparing, redoing tasks, difficulty delegating, never feeling done. I've lived every one of those. Oh, yes, I have. So there's behaviors and there's thoughts. It has to be perfect. If I make a mistake, I'm a failure. What will they think Then? Feelings? Oh, cbt model there right. Constant anxiety, fear of judgment and you become exhausted. Or there's some shame after a perceived error. So this might look like. Here's some examples. I spend hours refining notes, even when they're already complete. I delay starting complex projects because I don't know the perfect way to begin. I get anxious when I receive any constructive feedback. I feel like I've failed. None of those feel good.

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But step one you are identifying your perfectionism profile. Then, step two, you're going to assess the impact For each manifestation of perfectionism you identified, explore its impact on your well-being and your professional effectiveness. So I invite you to consider the impact on you. The helper Is there? Burnout Is there? Criticism, missed opportunities, reduced joy. And then the impact on your clients Delayed support, unrealistic expectations, reduced spontaneity, less authentic presence.

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And then you move to step three self-compassion and reframe practice. You choose one of the perfectionistic tendencies from step one that you want to address and spend a few minutes doing a quick self-compassion practice. Bring to mind this specific perfectionistic thought or feeling. Place a hand over your heart, offer yourself words of kindness and understanding, like you would a very dear friend or your children. You tell yourself and picture this with your hand over your heart. This is hard. It's okay to feel this fear. You're human and you're doing your best. You want to try to reframe a typical perfectionistic failure statement into feedback for growth or a feedback for growth statement, so that might look like I messed up that session. I'm a bad therapist. Reframe that session was challenging and I learned something valuable about navigating X. I can adjust for that next time.

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You write down your chosen old thought and its new reframe and then the last step, my healthy, striving action plan.

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You choose one strategy from the podcast or when you brainstorm, from step three and you commit to implementing in the next week to counter your perfectionism. So you write down your specific action plan, which I love I know I do this a lot, but you include the specific strategy and then the action Embrace the 80% rule for drafting emails, or maybe define the next smallest action for a delayed project, or practice self-compassion after any perceived mistake. And then your very concrete how and where You're going to apply this and then your commitment. You write a brief statement to yourself, your name, a little statement, your signature, to reaffirm your intention to take this step because you, my dear my friend, are worth the effort. Okay, so that's all for this episode of Soul Joy. Thank you so much for doing this vital work and for being willing to examine these complexities of our own experience. Until next time, embrace your excellence, release the need for perfection and keep thriving through your helping role. Subscribe to my podcast, leave a review to help me reach more people and until next time, take care of you.