Help! I'm a perfectionist at work. What's a totally perfect way to cope?
I salute you. In the work world, your perfectionism has likely helped you get ahead.
But if you’ve ever used the word “perfectionist” in a pejorative sense, chances are you’ve noticed negative consequences. You know, like the stress of agonizing over every detail in a slide deck. Running through lines of code again and again to find a flaw. Agonizing over the tiny portion of your performance review that wasn’t as positive as the rest. Spending 20 minutes composing a one-paragraph email. Repeatedly replaying a conversation in your head in which you didn’t say something in an ideal way. This stuff is all too common.
Am I saying not to work hard… not to strive for greatness? Not at all. Instead, I’m suggesting that you get out of your own way. By fixating on absolute perfection as our standard, we bring on anxiety, lost sleep, negative health effects, and burnout. Ironically, in trying so hard to get ahead, we slow ourselves down.
Where does perfectionism originate? It frequently traces back to messages that kids get from early caregivers.
Kids naturally need to feel loved and valued. They’re also aware of who provides that love (not to mention shelter, food, videogame time, etc.). So they wind up “reading” their caregivers, picking up on the subtle, often unintentional messages they convey.
What sort of messages? By over-emphasizing achievement, parents can convey “You’re worthy because of what you do, not because of who you are.” By controlling what their kids do, what they like, etc., parents can convey “You’re worthy because you fit my own sense of who you should be” or “You’re worthy because you meet your parent’s needs.” By excessively criticizing or shaming their children, parents can convey “You’re not good enough,” and “You’re never going to make it unless you push yourself.”
Some other unhelpful messages: By hovering unnecessarily, parents can convey “the sky will fall if you don’t perform to this level.” By showering kids with too much praise, parents can convey “You’ll be okay as long as you keep meeting this standard.” Individual therapy can lessen the present-day effects of these unfortunate messages, especially utilizing EMDR.
In the meantime, what can you do to cope with perfectionism?
Your first task is to notice your inner perfectionist. It’s like your inner “Chicken Little” (“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”).
It takes different forms in different people. Let’s figure out what form it takes for you, so you can recognize it when it appears. Ask yourself:
How quickly it arises: Does it seem to come out of nowhere, or is it always with you?
The contexts that bring it on: Does it show up as you’re doing your work? Composing an email? Having a conversation? Exercising? Sitting in a work meeting? Engaging in sexytime?
The messages it tells you: We often engage in “self-talk,” consisting of thoughts that wind up being catastrophic or otherwise illogical. What messages do you send yourself? Is it “I should be advancing more quickly in my career”? “I have to “I’ll never make it unless...”? Or something else?
The themes it likes to focus on: Is it your intelligence? Your professional worth? Your judgment? Your looks?
How it makes you feel: My guess is that you feel more stressed when your inner perfectionist peddles these messages. Perhaps there’s extra tension in your body, or maybe it feels like your heart’s beating faster.
What it causes you to do, behaviorally: Ruminate? Obsess? Replay a conversation over and over? Lose yourself in your phone for a while? Or something else?
The consequences of that behavior: Does it distract you from your work? Make you obsess over whatever you’re working on? Cause you to hate your job? Prevent you from getting good sleep? Keep you from enjoying your free time?
Okay, so now you’ve identified what your inner perfectionist sounds like, and what it does to you. How can you release yourself from its grip?
Access your wise mind. Ok, so another part of you is your “wise mind.” It guides you through things, gives yourself sensible advice, makes good decisions, etc. Too often we don’t remember that it’s there, and we forget to use it.
Do a reality check. Remember, your inner perfectionist invents these scary scenarios, things that will supposedly happen if whatever you’re doing isn’t flawless. Your wise mind is like your inner Yoda, keeping perspective on things. So, as weird as this sounds, ask it a question! You can ask yourself something like “Is it necessarily true that I’ll lose my job if this isn’t perfect?” You’ll realize that perfectionist logic is usually flawed. Now that you’ve exposed it…
Send a counter-message. It can be a more realistic way of viewing the situation. Your wise mind can (as weird as this sounds) talk back to the inner perfectionist, rebutting its unhelpful messages.
Example: “If this isn’t perfect, I’ll never make it” can be countered with “No one’s perfect; I can make a few mistakes and still succeed.”
Locate your self-compassion. Your inner perfectionist doesn’t only send unrealistic messages; it’s also harsh. So you’ll need the opposite. Think of the one person in your life who is most supportive and nurturing to you. They wouldn’t be as harsh on you as you are to yourself, right? Imagine what that supportive person would say to you, then take that in. You’re in effect establishing a more stable sense of your own worth.
Find your backup source of motivation. So many of us let our inner perfectionist take over our lives because we think we “need” to be motivated by it. But very often, something else is the real thing that matters to us… what we’re really trying to achieve.
If any of these sound good to you, substitute it for “perfect” as your true standard:
➔ Getting the job done;
➔ Knowing that you did your best;
➔ Feeling good about yourself;
➔ Balancing work with your health and your relationships;
➔ Learning and growing over time;
➔ Not caring what other people think of you;
➔ Enjoying the learning process;
➔ Having fun;
➔ Feeling relaxed;
➔ Making slow and steady progress.
➔ Living in accordance with your values.
As for this last one, it can be so rewarding to live in accordance with what’s truly meaningful to you. It might be honesty. Reliability. Teamwork. Diversity. Compassion. Authenticity. Professionalism. Creativity. Insightfulness. Honor. Loyalty. Humility. Decisiveness. Kindness. Playfulness. Humor. Fairness. The list goes on and on.
The bottom line: Once you identify a healthier, more realistic standard by which to “judge” your efforts, something that is consistent with what matters to you, the motivation will come naturally.
So please, by all means, keep achieving. But by identifying what your inner perfectionist sounds like, how it’s working against you, learning how to counter it, and figuring out an alternate way to motivate yourself, you’ll make it even further.