Perfectionism: impact on your life and how to manage it? Perfectionist. Many of us have used this word flippantly describing ourselves or someone else’s obsessive need for things to be a particular way. But what does it really mean for the perfectionist themselves and their anxiety? What is perfectionism? Perfectionism refers to the tendency to set excessively high standards, and to have overly critical, negative evaluations about the self, others or a situation. Such high standards, which are often unrealistic and rigid, can impact various aspects of an individual’s life. For example, perfectionists have high expectations of their performance and may feel distressed over even a single mistake. Similarly, a perfectionist may be fearful and on high alert of their imperfections. However, given it is natural for us to make mistakes, and that no one is perfect, such unrealistically high expectations naturally create tension and anxiety for the individual. The physical and mental impact of perfectionism? Research has indeed found perfectionism negatively impacts quality of life and contributes to health issues. For example, perfectionism is related to lower perceptions of relationship satisfaction, poorer physical health, poorer emotional health (including hopelessness, and life dissatisfaction), an increased vulnerability to burnout, job dissatisfaction, and depression in the workplace. Additionally, perfectionism is consistently found to be related to poorer mental health including experiences of anxiety and depression. Cognitive distortions and irrational beliefs that contribute to perfectionism? • Low self-esteem; a perfectionist often experiences a fragile sense of self which results in a greater reliance on situations, people and self to be a particular way. • Black and white thinking; perfectionists often think of things as being either one way or another, with nothing in between (for example if you do not “succeed” at a particular task, this makes you a “failure”). However in reality, situations are not often black or white and there is plenty of room for different perspectives in between. • Fear of rejection and failure; perfectionists often believe if they are not perfect, they will be rejected by others or be perceived as a failure. This belief contributes to overwhelming anxiety for the perfectionist when attempting tasks because they believe there is a lot at stake depending on their success or failure. Tips to manage perfectionism anxiety? If you identify with being a perfectionist, here are some tips to manage the anxiety associated with the tendency: • Be gentle with yourself and acknowledge that as a human we all make mistakes and have imperfections. • Focus on forgiveness; both of yourself and others. • Recognise and challenge beliefs underlying the perfectionism anxiety. For example if the underlying belief is “I always make mistakes”; challenge this false belief (What is the evidence that I always make mistakes? Have there been times where I have not made mistakes? Does this statement demonstrate a cognitive distortion such as black-and-white thinking?). • Record the examples of perfectionist behaviour as you observe them. This makes it easier to challenge unhelpful beliefs underlying the anxiety. • Be realistic and flexible about deadlines for a particular goal (i.e. if you cannot finish a task for the deadlines today, acknowledge it is possible to work on it at a later time). • Recognise that roadblocks are not the end of the world. Instead see roadblocks as challenges that you can overcome. • Recognise and challenge unrealistic expectations (i.e. an unrealistic expectation can be setting yourself one hour for a task that you know will take you four hours). By challenging this expectation you can alleviate the anxiety and allow yourself to be more relaxed in completing the task. • Focus on accepting things the way they are rather than wishing you, someone else or a situation was different. The tension involved with wishing things were different can be very anxiety provoking. Instead, acceptance of a situation you cannot control or change can be liberating. Given the impact of perfectionism on mental health, recognising perfectionist tendencies can be the first step to managing related anxiety. Once you are aware of perfectionist tendencies, and are proactive in using strategies to manage them, you can live a more relaxed and satisfied life. By Priya (ADAVIC Volunteer) Note: We have a session on Perfectionism on the 18th September which is booking up quickly https://adavic.org.au/product-view.aspx?Id=204
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 07:00:00 +0000
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