.st0{fill:#FFFFFF;}

Perfectionism Not Being a Perfect Thing 

 March 10, 2021

By  counselingwithnatalie

“Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best.  Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgement, and shame.” -Brené Brown

Perfectionism is a personality style characterized by a person’s concern with striving for flawlessness and excellence. It coincides with critical self-evaluations and creating these self-evaluation requirements based on how you think everyone would validate you.  This mental state is an endless cycle of needing to do everything right or how you want it, and then potentially breaking down if it did not work exactly how you desired for it to occur. There exists this internal pressure of needing everything to be done “right,” along with the judgement of others when you have “failed.”

Do you ever think that you hold yourself to outrageous standards, or recognize that you can be extremely hard on yourself if you don’t do something correctly? Does your mind focus on how others think of you while you are doing something or how they will see you after you’ve finished the task? This is a sign of perfectionism. One may hold oneself to over-the-top standards due to the need of achieving the best outcome. When trying to do this, one may become overwhelmed and begin to procrastinate due to the fear of failure. This can cause someone to experience a mental block because of the stress of failing, but also gives someone severe anxiety if the perfect outlook that he/she wants is not achieved. Many people with perfectionism only strive for their goals out of the fear of failing or not looking put together, rather than striving for the goals themselves.

Perfectionism can be thought of as a shield or iceberg. The shield is the blockage of a viewpoint, for it acts as a cover to disguise yourself from others seeing the true you. The iceberg is a small part that you allow the world to see, while there is a bigger part of you, under the surface, is the one you will not let the naked eye see. Shielding yourself not only keeps people from fully getting to know you but also prevents you from being able to see some of the most meaningful parts of life. This prevents someone from being able to enjoy the things in life, while only striving for the goal and how it NEEDS to be perfect, while all along forgetting to look at the journey towards it. Icebergs are big objects you are able to see above the water but when you look below you see how truly big it is and how there is so much more. This pertains to perfectionism perfectly because someone who struggles with perfectionism only show the world a small portion of him/herself. They show their friends, family, or social media how perfect their life is or how they were able to achieve their goals without anything going wrong.  Perfectionism makes someone convince others around them that they are all put together, doing the best they can, and never failing.

But unfortunately, someone who finds themselves striving for perfection can slowly begin to develop some mental struggles. Some of these struggles may include stress, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and potentially suicidal thoughts. These issues are due to the pressure put on oneself of thinking one needs to be perfect. The need to look a certain way may cause more harm to an individual then it may help them in the end.

Perfectionism is never enough for the person because he/she is always thinking there is more to do, or people are expecting more from him/her. This is why there has been such an increase of people struggling with this specific problem. The internet/social media has spurred this issue because many of us now feel the need to portray facets of who we are in hopes of being accepted while also observing the parts of other people’s lives that they choose to post for others to see. It causes people to begin to lack self-love because they are always thinking they aren’t enough, and/or they are now more susceptible to others’ opinions and perspectives of who they are.

There are various ways for someone who is struggling in this area to begin to develop a healthier way of being and learn how to better cope with perfectionism including, realizing that this is a problem, finding it within him/herself to develop self-love, setting standards that are more realistic and obtainable, and being able to accept that what he/she is doing is enough. After being able to realize the severity of the situation, one is able to take the right steps to overcome this problem and focus on the positive aspects that life has to offer By doing so, this will give you the opportunity to take back your life tasks and use them as things that actually make you happy. Your mind is the one thing that you always have in life and making it a safe and healthy place will help everything that flows from it, better.  Although this is a process, overcoming the control of perfectionism IS possible.

by Jessica M., Content Contributor

https://www.verywellmind.com/overcoming-perfectionism-how-to-work-past-perfectionism-3144700

https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-you-may-be-a-perfectionist-3145233#:~:text=While%20high%20achievers%20take%20pride,when%20%22failure%22%20does%20occur.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/perfectionism

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/987280-perfectionism-is-not-the-same-thing-has-striving-to-be


Tags

Get in touch

Name*
Email*
Message
0 of 350
>