All About Perfectionism: When It Works, When It Hurts, And How To Become A Happy Imperfect Perfectionist

‘If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.’

                                                                           Beyonce Knowles (musician)

The nice thing about writing this blog is that I learn so much. I am a bit of a perfectionist just as - no doubt - many of you are. In many ways, trying to live a Good Life has to do with learning to live with errors, mistakes and imperfections, but I just had no idea how complex the subject of perfectionism was before researching for this post!

Perfectionism is a personality trait, which is particularly common in the veterinary profession and many other occupations with a high proportion of high achievers, including sport professionals. However, being a perfectionist also has its price. So today’s post dedicated to this interesting trait, discussing its impact on well-being and strategies on how to overcome excessive perfectionism. Even if you are lucky enough not to be a perfectionist yourself, you may find this post interesting as it can explain why your work colleague, friend or family member is sometimes behaving the way they are!

Not all perfectionists are the same

Perfectionism is usually defined as the striving to be or appear perfect and without fault, although the definition can vary somewhat across the literature.^1-6 For example, perfectionists have been described as ‘those whose standards are high beyond reach or reason, people who strain compulsively and unremittingly towards impossible goals and who measure their own worth entirely in terms of productivity and accomplishment’, or ‘setting of excessively high standards for performance accompanied by overly critical self-evaluation’.¹ So as perfectionists, we are generally more likely to base our self-worth on achievement and striving, and we are more likely to be self-critical.

However, not all perfectionists are the same and there are some important subgroups:

• Directions of perfectionism: For example, we can have high expectations of ourselves (self-orientated perfectionism), or have high expectations of other people (other-orientated perfectionism).¹
• Motivation for perfectionism:^2,3
• Personal Standard Perfectionists (PSP) set high standards when evaluating their own performance. This means that they strive for perfection because of a strong inner motivation.
• Evaluative Concerns Perfectionists (ECP) are striving for high achievements because they are excessively concerned about making errors and mistakes, particularly out of fear of negative evaluation or reaction by others, or feelings of discrepancy between the own (high) expectation and perceived performance. Errors result in strong negative thoughts and feelings of blame, shame or guilt.
• These traits can either occur in a mixed form (PSP and ECP combined), or as ‘pure’ PSP or ESP perfectionism.

The interesting point is that the various groups of perfectionism have different pros and cons. As mentioned above, perfectionism is not all bad: particularly Personal Standard Perfectionists can excel in their chosen activities, whether it is at work, or when pursuing hobbies or sport activities (adaptive perfectionism).^1-3,5 This type of perfectionism also appears to be (at least to some degree) protective from burnout and exhaustion, as the striving for perfection due to internal motives leads to positive emotional experiences, active coping strategies and increased performance.³ On the other hand, Evaluative Concern Perfectionists are significantly more likely to experience anxiety and a variety of different mental disorders, including depression, burnout and eating disorders.^1-6  

Another important difference between the different types is that people with Evaluative Concerns Perfectionism find it more difficult to constructively learn from their mistakes.² If we are concerned about our evaluation by others, we are more likely to spend a great deal of our time assessing potential threats, more likely to experience anxiety, and to use avoidant coping styles (withdrawing or escaping from perceived threats, rather than actively seeking a solution). We are also more likely to have a rigid self-evaluation, excessive black-and-white thinking, and ruminate about past failures.^1,3 This means that Evaluative Concerns Perfectionists experience a lot of stress when receiving external expectations and criticism, and feel that their self-worth is under constant threat.²

Perfectionism, conscientiousness and obsessive compulsive personality disorder⁴

Perfectionism does not only come in different categories, but also it is also a scale from mild to severe. There is also some overlap with other personality traits. It has even been suggested that perfectionism can in fact be seen as an extreme version of the personality trait of Conscientiousness.

People who score high on Conscientiousness are highly disciplined, organized and self-controlled; they are able to set internal goals and plans, and stick to them without procrastination. On the other hand, people scoring lower on Conscientiousness are more spontaneous, impulsive and may have a weakness of will.

Of all personality traits, Conscientiousness is the most reliable predictor of professional success, particularly in jobs with a relatively high level of autonomy. On the other side of the medal, conscientiousness can lead to overproductivity, excessive goal chasing and people may turn into very driven workaholics, neglecting social contacts and the need for relaxed downtime. Also, conscientious people do not do well in an unpredictable environment, as they are restricted in spontaneity and flexibility. They find a change of routine very upsetting and difficult to adjust to. On the other hand, low Conscientiousness scorers often cope very well in a chaotic environment.

Perfectionism and Conscientiousness can also be associated with Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), which can be defined as a ‘pervasive pattern of preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and mental and interpersonal control, at the expense of flexibility, openness and efficiency’. OCPD is not to be confused with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which is an anxiety disorder associated with frequent intrusive and obsessive thoughts combined with repetitive compulsive behaviour, impulses or urges, whereas people with OCPD are pre-occupied with schedules, lists and tasks and show a very inflexible approach to rules with excessive black-and-white thinking. In the extreme form, OCPD may prevent a person from getting things done, as they are not able to complete any projects due to their extreme striving for perfection.

However, although there are these important associations and overlapping characteristics, perfectionism has been generally regarded as a unique multifaceted personality trait in its own right.³

Three reasons why extreme perfectionism does not make you perfect

So particularly perfectionists who are highly concerned with the evaluation by others can have an unpleasant time when trying to perform well. But ironically, the desire to be flawless can also interfere with our performance:

• Taking longer to perform tasks or not completing tasks: Perfectionists can take longer to do and re-do tasks, or spending more time on it than necessary due to the high standards or the fear of making mistakes, which can result in avoidance, procrastination, repeated checking and excessive thoroughness.⁵ Performance anxiety is a particular feature, and may lead to incompletion of tasks at work or academic projects and exams.¹
• A higher likelihood to make mistakes: As previously mentioned in other posts, strong negative emotions activate the body’s stress response (fight-or-flight reaction), including the release of stress hormones. This stress response (which is easily evoked by harsh self-criticism and the fear of making mistakes) in turn reduces cognitive function, and may decrease our ability to think straight and lead to poor decision-making. Particularly in a complex and high-pressure working environment with high demands, this can additionally reduce our performance and paradoxically increase the likelihood to make mistakes.⁶
• Reduced ability to learn from previous mistakes: The key to improved performance is to learn from errors and sub-optimal outcomes. In order to draw constructive conclusions for better future behaviour, we need to be able to look openly at these events.^2,6 However, this may not be possible if we are overly concerned with the evaluation by others, and we may instead be tempted to go into denial and/or blame others for our failures.

How to become a happy imperfect perfectionist?⁵

So, perfectionism is a mixed bag- it can actually be a very helpful characteristic in many ways but the extreme forms, particularly if combined with an excessive concern about the evaluation by others and harsh self-criticism, can be more inhibitive than helpful.

The good news is that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that we can reduce our striving for perfection.^1,5-7 The secret here is of course to reduce the maladaptive and unhelpful aspects, while preserving or potentially even further increasing our ability to perform well at the times when it really matters. I am not going to pretend that this is easy, but it is certainly possible! Reducing unhelpful perfectionism means particularly addressing the way we handle mistakes and failures, and becoming aware of whether we try to do something well because we genuinely care about the outcome, or because we are predominantly concerned about how our performance is evaluated by others.

In severe cases it is certainly advisable to seek professional help as cognitive behavioural therapy has been found to be effective in the treatment of perfectionism and its potential wide range of associated issues,^1-5 but there are also many basic self-directed steps we can take:^1,6-8

• Be realistic and adopt a growth mindset: Have you ever really believed that your perfectionism is making you perfect? Of course not. As much as we would love it, perfection just does not exist. Absolutely everybody has some flaws and makes mistakes, and that includes ourselves: to err is human. So instead of trying in vain to become some sort of super-human, it is more helpful to try and adopt a growth mindset: When we believe that we can develop our strengths and see mistakes and errors as an opportunity for growth, we are less likely to lose too much confidence when experiencing failures, as we see our abilities and skills less tightly connected to ourself as a person. As Beyonce Knowles noticed, only imperfection allows for learning and growth.
• What can be really helpful is to learn from other people, who use constructive ways of dealing with mistakes and who are able to say: ‘Yes, I got this wrong but let’s see how I can avoid this happening again.’ I am sure that all of us know a colleague, a friend or family member like this!
• It is particularly important to change unhelpful attitudes and beliefs, and learn to deal with negative emotions associated with perfectionism. This includes reducing or softening negative self-talk by replacing ‘must’, ‘should’ with ‘I would like to’. This converts overly strict rules without options into a goal or desire, which is kinder and less absolute.  
• Deal with your inner critic: As we perfectionists can be very unforgiving self-critics, this one of the most important issue to address. Following from above point, try and learn to treat yourself with some kindness. Self-compassion is a very important skill in this context, which allows us to assess our strength and weaknesses more objectively, and helps us dealing with mistakes and errors that we make more constructively. Find out more about self-criticism and self-compassion in the post Taming Your Inner Critic: About Self-Acceptance and Self-Compassion.
• Try to differentiate: Not all situations are the same and perfectionism is not necessarily required in all contexts. Try and make a habit of assessing situations and only apply high standards in circumstances where it really matters, i.e. when the outcome is truly important. You may find that in many circumstances good is good enough, which will save you time and energy.
• Practice mindfulness: An important aspect of mindfulness is to cultivate the willingness to be with things as they are - which can be understood as the ‘antithesis’ of the striving for perfection out of the sense that we are currently not good enough. Amongst other things, mindfulness allows us to experience moments of non-striving and we learn to cultivate acceptance.

A truly amazing person- What can we learn from…:⁹

Reshma Saujani is somebody who learnt about failure the hard way: she ran for the US congress and spectacularly lost the election. Although she admits that it was a very humiliating experience, it did not take her too long to re-orientate herself and take on another project: During the election campaign, she had visited local schools and noticed a significant gender gap in computing classes. In 2012 she founded the non-profit organization Girls Who Code in order to teach young women computer skills. In her inspiring Ted Lecture Teach Girls Bravery Not Perfection, she discusses why perfectionism can be a particular problem in women.

What we can learn from Reshma Saujani is that it is not only possible to turn a big failure into something of value, but that it may be also time to discuss the issue of perfectionism and the fear of making mistakes on a wider level within society and different professions.

Preview: As striving for personal growth is a more helpful mindset than striving for perfection, we will discuss different ways in which we can expand our personal horizon next week. 

References and further reading:

1. Shafran R, Coughtrey A, Kothari R. New frontiers in the treatment of perfectionism. New Frontiers in Cognitive Behavioral Therapies. 2016;9(2):99-106.

2. Barke A, Bode S, Dechent P, Schmidt-Samoa C, Van Heer C, Stahl J. To err is (perfectly) human: behavioural and neural correlates of error processing and perfectionism. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2017;12(10):1647-1657.

3. Hill AP, Curran T. Multidimensional perfectionism and burnout: A meta-analysis. Personality and Sorcial Psychology Review. 2015;20(3):269-288.

4. Nettle D. Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford University Press; New York. 2007.

5. Kothari R, Egan S, Shafran R. Overcoming perfectionism: Protocol of a randomized controlled trial of an internet-based guided self-help cognitive behavioral therapy intervention. JMIR Research Protocols. 2016;5(4):e215.

6. Seppälä E. The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success. Piatkus; London, UK. 2016.­­

7. Pittman CM, Karle EM: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications: Oakland. 2015.

8. Kabat-Zinn J: Full Catastrophe Living: How To Cope With Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation. Piatkus. 2013.

9. https://www.ted.com/talks/reshma_saujani_teach_girls_bravery_not_perfection, https://girlswhocode.com/our-team/, https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-ceo-of-girls-who-code-wants-you-to-know-that-its-ok-to-fail

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad!

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Living Forwards And Upwards- About Finding Hope And Optimism (And Knowing When Not To)

‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’

                                                              Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher)*                                                                                           

*The quote was kindly sent in by a blog follower!

Are you a ‘glass half full’ or ‘glass half empty’ person? Your answer is likely to very much depend on your general sense of hope and optimism. These two very closely related concepts help us to live our lives forwards and upwards. While an optimistic attitude is generally associated with a high level of well-being, there are some situations where it has been shown to be less helpful. I am admittedly leaning towards the ‘glass half empty’ attitude and believe that it has served my well in some situations. So today I would like to shed a little bit of light into the pros and cons of optimism.

The advantages of optimism

Of course, without optimism human kind would not have achieved anything. Optimism helps us to make great plans, and have dreams and hopes. More specifically, it has been shown that optimistic people enjoy following benefits:^1,4

• They experience life as more pleasurable.
• They are generally more confident, motivated, energetic and tend to be more proactive, persistent and committed when working towards goals. For this reason, they also often achieve more at work. They tend to be more productive (particularly under pressure), and do not get disheartened in jobs where setbacks are frequent and work-stress is high. They are also best suited for jobs that require initiative, persistence and the ability to ‘think big’.
• They are less likely to become depressed.
• They are on average in better physical health.
• Being optimistic also has something to do with self-control and the ability to change ourselves, which where were the topics of the last two posts. This is, because optimism is a great motivator, which helps us achieve the goal we have set ourselves, even when we experience setbacks.

What does it take to be an optimist?

Optimism is a mindset that is partially influenced by our personality, but it has been shown that an optimistic attitude is something, which can be learned.^1,2 Essentially, optimists have a strong sense of hope for the future even when facing difficult circumstances.^1-4 Instead of reacting with hopelessness or despair, optimists have the hope that that things may change, which inspires them to have faith and to plan for better days.³

In addition to the sense of hope, optimists have a different thinking or explanatory style compared to pessimistic people. Our explanatory style is about how we interpret or make sense of our life events.¹ The explanatory style has three key elements: pervasiveness (our view on how many aspects of our life are affected), permanence (our view on how long a situation will last) and personalization (our view on who has caused the situation). Here are some examples of optimistic explanatory styles when facing failure or adverse events:¹

• Pervasiveness: Optimists tend to identify a specific cause and only see specific aspects of their life affected. For example, if experiencing a rejection by someone else, they may think ‘This specific person does not like me’ rather than ‘I am unlikable’.
• Permanence: Optimists will generally think that the problem may be overcome relatively quickly. When becoming unemployed, an optimist may think ‘I am likely to get another job soon’ rather than ‘That’s it, I will never find work again’.
• Personalization: Optimistic people tend to externalize failure. This means that they put the blame for the difficult situation or mistake onto external events (or other people) rather than themselves. When making a mistake they may think ‘Well, I have been really tired and overworked’ rather than ‘It is all my fault’. On the other hand, when experiencing a success, optimistic people use an internalized explanatory style: they believe that the positive result is down to their ability.

Thinking that a problem is temporary, that there are specific causes for it, and that it is not our fault is of course bound to make us more hopeful and positive. Conversely, if we think that a problem is permanent or lasts for very long, that it is likely to affect all aspects of our life and that we are to blame for it, we are not only more likely to feel despair but we also tend to lose self-esteem.¹ This is very significant, as poor self-esteem can further exacerbate the situation.

Pessimism, learned helplessness and depression

People and animals who are put in an adverse situation, which they cannot do anything about and from which they cannot escape, they tend to become passive and give up;¹ In other words, such situations make us helpless, and we remain helpless even if the situation later changes and could be resolved. This state is known as learned helplessness. Only a minority of people do not become helpless, and these are the ‘natural optimists’.¹ As discussed above, these people think along the lines of ‘It is just the situation. It will pass and things will get better.’

So almost everybody can become pessimistic when facing really difficult situations, but there are different degrees of pessimism. If we have a very pessimistic general attitude to life, we may not even need extremely adverse events to trigger helplessness. We are also more likely to collapse under pressure, tend to stay helpless for a longer time and across more aspects of our life than people who are less pessimistic and who may regard failures as a temporary event causing only brief demoralisation.¹ In the worst case scenario, an extremely pessimistic thinking style (‘It is all my fault, it will always be like this, and all aspects of my life are ruined’) together with its associated learned helplessness and loss of self-esteem can result in depression (protracted learned helplessness).¹

So it is no surprise that pessimism is associated with a lower level of mental well-being, as it makes us feel bad about ourselves, our relationships and the world in general. In addition to the pessimistic explanatory style, there are further specific pessimistic mindsets and consequences:²

• Awfulising: Strong exaggeration about how negative an event or a person is.
• Exaggerated sense of rejection: Similar to awfulising, we may feel easily rejected or feel disproportionally hurt even with a minor rejection or criticism.
• Distress intolerance: People tend to underestimate their ability to cope and recover from difficult events.
• Negative self-fulfilling prophecies: Assuming a negative outcome often brings a negative outcome. This is due to a negative communication with others (somebody else may react negatively because we suggest that we are expecting a negative outcome), and because we may not bring in as much commitment into a given situation.

So what are the disadvantages of optimism?

What can there be wrong with optimism if it makes us more successful and feel good? Well, it appears that there can be quite significant disadvantages as well:

• It has been shown that optimists tend to distort their reality slightly towards the positive, introducing a positivity bias, where as pessimists often have a more realistic understanding of their ability to influence situations.¹ Unjustified optimism and hope (also called delusional optimism) can set us up for huge disappointments, as we may have unrealistically high expectations and be less aware of dangers and pitfalls in our plans. There are many examples from business and finance illustrating this point.⁵ Also, it has been shown that a high level of optimism in youth is a predictor of earlier death.⁶ So in any risky situation or where our decisions can have severe consequences, a healthy degree of pessimism may be helpful.
• Following from above point, there are areas where ‘mild pessimists’ perform better at work, as they are able to assess situations more realistically. These are typically positions requiring a high level of technical skills and where decisions can have far reaching consequences, so that the people need to know when to err on the side of caution rather than charging ahead.¹ Ideally, these jobs should also have lower time pressures and less frequent setbacks.
• Erosion of responsibility:¹ As adults, we are responsible for our actions and if we want to learn from failure and mistakes, we need to be able to get a realistic understanding to which degree we have contributed to a problem. We cannot achieve this if we habitually externalize failure, and put the blame on others or external circumstances. So if we want people to be responsible for what they do, then they need to have an internal explanation style.  But it is important to use this internal explanation style with a degree of self-compassion and making sure that our explanations are balanced, temporary and specific  (e.g. when failing an exam, you may think ‘I may not have studied hard enough on this occasion, but failing an exam is not the end of the world. I will review my exam technique and hopefully I will be more successful next time.’). One exception is depression, where externalization is encouraged, as depressed people usually take too much responsibility for bad events.

How to become a flexible optimist:

As there are clearly pros and cons to optimism, the key is to learn the skill of flexible optimism, so that you can choose to be optimistic whenever needed but be pessimistic when caution is asked for.¹

• As a general rule, moderate optimism should be used when the cost of a failure in a particular situation is not very high, which applies to the vast majority of situations in our daily lives. This could also be described as the expectation that the will manage to get through the day without accomplishing everything we want but probably the most important things; that we will not get everything we want but most things we need; that even when things don’t turn out 100%, that they will at least get better.⁴ But if a situation can have far reaching consequences, then a measured pessimistic approach is likely to be more helpful.¹
• Specific situations in which to use moderate optimism:¹
• When you are trying to achieve something (professional or private accomplishment).
• When you are worried about not feeling well about something (e.g. if you are struggling with depression or are finding it difficult to keep up your morale).
• When you are struggling with chronic illness.
• When you want to lead or inspire others.
• Specific situation when NOT to use optimism:¹
• When you are taking precautions for facing a truly risky and uncertain future.
• When making decisions at work or in private life which may have far reaching consequences.
• When initially talking to people who are facing significant hardship or problems, although you may be able to provide some hope and cautious optimism at a later point once you have established connection and trust. 
• Learning an optimistic thinking style:
• The key to optimism is to adapt our thinking style. As pessimistic thoughts are often extreme, exaggerated and self-punitive, the first step is to learn to dispute and replace these thoughts with less extreme and balanced thoughts.² It may help to do this in a structured way and in writing, particularly when facing a difficult situation.
• For example, we can bring to mind a specific problem/failure and identify our associated thoughts and current (pessimistic) interpretation. Then, we can critically examine our current thoughts, look for evidence for and against them, and replace them with more balanced and less exaggerated statements. It has been shown that this cognitive restructuring technique is a life skill, which can be learned.^1,7

In summary, optimism and pessimism can both be helpful when mastering different life situations and they are, to a degree, a choice we make. The secret is to know in which circumstances to apply a more optimistic or pessimistic mindset in order to try and get the best of both worlds. There is a great quote by the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, summing up flexible optimism as a general approach to life: ‘Prepare for the worst; expect the best; take what comes.’ 

Preview: Next week we will finally start a short series of posts all around the topic of work and happiness.

References and further reading:

1. Seligman MEP. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Vintage Books; New York. 2006.

2. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Blackwell Publishing; Oxford, UK. 2008.

3. Fredrickson B. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research to Release Your Inner Optimist and Thrive. Oneworld Publications; Oxford, England. 2010.

4. Lyubomirsky S. The Myths of Happiness: What should make you happy but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy but does. Penguin Books; New York. 2013.

5. Seligman MEP. Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- and How to Achieve Them. Nicholas Brealey Publishing; London, UK. 2011.

6. Nettle D. Personality: What makes you the way you are. Oxford University Press; New York. 2007.

7. Pittman CM, Karle EM: Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to use the neuroscience of fear to end anxiety, panic & worry. New Harbinger Publications; Oakland. 2015.

If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting the campaign under Just Giving. Of course it is also great if you choose to support another charity or do a practical good deed, but it would be nice if you could let me know that you have done this because you felt inspired by this campaign. Please also feel free to share this post and let me know if you have any constructive feedback- good or bad! 

View and Save as PDF

Follow the Blog- http://followthegoodlifecampaign.blogspot.co.uk

Donations- https://www.justgiving.com/teams/thegoodlifecampaign

Donations are in aid of the International Rescue Committee and the World Veterinary Service