Eliminating Overwhelm Part VII: The Role of Perfectionism

How you think, how you approach life, your beliefs, and your ability to manage your emotional responses are all sources of overwhelm and stress. Today, let’s discuss perfectionism.

Perfectionism is the unrealistic and unrelenting pursuit of the impossible. It is a form of motivation; a way of thinking in order to motivate you to act. But it’s a hard motivator as it uses fear of loss or failure to force you into behaving accordingly resulting in increased levels of stress and anxiety, decreased self-esteem, decreased productivity, and even procrastination.

How does it work?

In your mind, you craft an idea or mental construct of “perfection” which you may or may not even be conscious of. The perfect job, the perfect spouse, the perfect child, the perfect garden… As you go about your life, you struggle to make things in your external world match up with the ideas in your internal world.

The problem is that life never – nor can it ever – match up exactly.

Reality becomes the nightmare as your mind sees only the gap between its ideas of the way things should be – i.e. perfection – and reality as it is.

Perfectionism can cause anxiety, fear, even paralysis where you cannot even start the task let alone complete it. Trying to do things to a level of perfection can cause procrastination and decreased productivity for fear of not being perfect, resulting in missed deadlines and missed opportunities sabotaging your success. Inside rages an internal battle where you beat yourself up for what you haven’t done and for not being perfect which impacts your self-esteem while distracting you from simply completing the task to the best of your ability.

Your self-esteem can add ammunition to this internal conflict.

How well do you accept compliments and praise? Are you able to acknowledge your talents and successes? If you have difficulty accepting approval and compliments and you don’t acknowledge how amazing you are, then how could you ever expect to feel good about your results – even if they were perfect?

Repetitive negative thoughts about how you could be better, should have done, must do, blah-blah-blah are overwhelming! Nothing you ever do will be good enough.

If you cannot hear it or see it, then how will you know success? Is success about perfection? Or is it about getting it done to the best of your ability and enjoying the process?

Even if you could achieve perfection, so what? What does that mean? What does it prove? Where does it get you if you cannot accept your own goodness and appreciate all you do?

Do you recognize the impossible challenge of the idea of perfection?

Putting too much pressure on you to perform to an unrealistic standard is a huge source of unhappiness. It is futile, heartless, and quite damaging to your self-worth and your ability to experience satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. It can also lead to sleepless nights with heightened anxiety and fear which diminish your ability to be productive, creative, and perform at your best.

Consider this: the idea of perfection is all in your mind; it’s not real. Often the person for whom you are delivering the project or task is thrilled with your work because it meets their ideas or expectations for what they wanted. Perceptions or ideas are just that, mental playthings. They are often wrong, inaccurate, and are open for differing interpretations. Don’t be so attached to your idea being right or it being the only way. Don’t take your ideas so seriously.

Coaching Tip: Let go of perfection as an unrealistic standard and focus instead on excellence, on being your best, and on accepting yourself and the quality of your work.

• Look for the good in all you do and acknowledge it. Celebrate your successes.
• Trust yourself to do your finest work. You always do the best you can – even when you’re at your worst.
• When you make a mistake, accept your humanness and correct it. Move on. Practice forgiveness of YOU.
• Speak only positive and encouraging things about yourself to others AND in the privacy of your own mind.
• Accept compliments graciously. A compliment is someone else’s perception of you; it’s insulting to them to not accept it.
• Break things down into small, manageable chunks and schedule each task. Take baby steps.
• Laugh at yourself. Lighten up! Stop taking everything so seriously. In ten years, will it matter?

I will laugh at the world. And most of all, I will laugh at myself for many is most comical when he takes himself too seriously. Never will I fall into this trap of the mind.

                        ~ Og Mandino

Your partner for success,

Coach Julie, Nurturing Your Success