hey there everybody and welcome to this presentation on 10 tips
to address perfectionism and find balance i'm your host dr donnelly snipes
what does perfectionism look like well it can look like different things for different people for
many people perfectionism is all-consuming when they start to do something they end up focusing
on it and having that laser focus so to speak but it keeps them from being able to engage in other
areas of their life they may not get as much sleep they may not go to the gym they may not spend time
with friends and family they are doing and focused on their task for an extended period of time
now having a laser focus is not necessarily bad but when you have that laser focus and it
starts negatively impacting other areas of your life where you start neglecting
other areas of your life for an extended period then it starts to become a problem
people who are perfectionistic may feel like they're never done they keep working they keep
revising they're revising the 15th revision in order to try to get it just a little bit better
and there's definitely something to be said for taking pride in your work
but given the principle of diminishing returns at a certain point it's worth calling it you know
the amount of energy it's going to take to get from being 98 perfect to a hundred percent perfect
may not be worth all of the time and energy people who have perfectionistic tendencies
often have difficulty getting started because they are so overwhelmed by the anxiety that
comes along with feeling like anything that they do has to be perfect that they may be paralyzed
a lot of people who have perfectionistic tendencies also tend to impose conditions
of self-worth on themselves if they don't perceive themselves as perfect they perceive
themselves as completely imperfect and we're going to talk about extreme language in a minute
but it's important to recognize if you are imposing conditions of worth on yourself
and finally people who are perfectionistic are often self-conscious they
may feel like other people are evaluating them
as harshly as they're evaluating themselves they may feel guilty if they do something
that's not absolutely perfect because they feel like they have let other people down
so perfectionism has a lot of different presentations depending on the person
how does perfectionism impact people well we'll use the pacer method to examine that
physically perfectionism often keeps people in a state of high anxiety
or it keeps them from getting enough sleep so they're getting worn down they are neglecting
their physical health and they are staying anxious and agitated and restless affectively when people
are perfectionistic a lot of times it is hard for them to relax because they always think that
they need to be working on improving something perfecting something so it's hard for them to
relax and enjoy themselves it's hard for them to do anything that is recreational because it
becomes competitive whether it's video games or golf or tennis or running or even going to the gym
instead of being able to enjoy something for what it is they feel like they have to be perfect at it
cognitively perfectionists have difficulty focusing and i know that sounds counterintuitive
but when they become so immersed in whatever it is that they're trying to perfect sometimes they
can get overwhelmed and when they're overwhelmed it's hard to think clearly when they're anxious
when any of us are anxious and we've got a bunch of adrenaline coursing through our our system it
can be hard to make good decisions it can be hard to think clearly and think creatively and flexibly
so cognitively perfectionism actually tends to work against people
environmentally when people are perfectionistic a lot of times they have difficulty
creating an environment that's warm and welcoming and invite other people to be there
to be supportive so a lot of times environmentally their place their their personal environment is
filled with tension it's filled with stress and it's often filled with whatever they
happen to be focusing on at that moment now some people can be perfectionistic
in terms of their environment housekeeping they may keep it so you could do not literally but
figuratively you could do surgery on their kitchen floor but it is important to recognize that
people's environment when they're perfectionistic does get impacted and relationally when people are
perfectionistic as i mentioned on the last slide a lot of times they attach conditions of worth
to their perfection so if they feel imperfect they may feel unworthy they may have a low
self-esteem they may have difficulty connecting with others because they feel guilty if they are
less than perfect they may be too exhausted from their perfectionistic strivings to engage with
other people and nurture those relationships so perfectionism can also have a negative impact
on relationships and of course people can be perfectionistic in their relationships
too and feel like if this relationship is not perfect then it's not worth doing
there are a lot of issues that may contribute to people developing a
sense of perfectionism but we're going to talk about 10 tips to address perfectionism
first explore and address your fears and judgments about imperfection if you're imperfect what are
you afraid is going to happen are you afraid that people will abandon you if you make a mistake
are you afraid that people will reject you if you are less than perfect or if what you do is less
than perfect what messages did you receive from your family from your teachers from your culture
when you were growing up about the need to be perfect and about the folly of imperfection and
do you agree with those messages or not when you examine those messages think to yourself is this
something that i want to pass on to my children is this something that i would tell a child and
figure out if those beliefs if those mores are actually helpful or hurtful number two and i say
this in a lot of my videos because it is a huge component of the pacer method define your rich
and meaningful life know what it is you want out of life because once you know what your goal is
then you can more effectively identify ways to use your energy in a meaningful fashion to move
towards those goals which takes us to committing to purposeful action once you define your rich and
meaningful life what you really hope to have what you want then committing your energy to
moving towards those goals is your energy better spent revising this project or this report for
the 17th time or is it better spent turning it in after the 15th revision and going and
spending time with your kids or spending time with your family or going to the gym and taking care
of your health what is a more effective use of your time and energy in the big scheme of things
number four and i alluded to this earlier recognize the principle of diminishing returns
we can try so hard to be perfect but once you get up there into that you know 85 90 95
area it becomes much much harder to improve anymore so it's easy to improve you know
from zero to 50 and then from 50 to 75 isn't too bad but then once you start getting into
those you know that upper end of perfection um it becomes much harder for every percentage better
that you get you have to exert exponentially more energy is it worth it is it worth it to
stay up all night revising this again to get from 98 perfect to 100 perfect
explore differences in self other expectations
a lot of times people who are perfectionistic hold themselves to this standard that's way up here
but they don't hold anybody else to that standard they will make excuses for other people they
accept other people for being imperfect but they don't accept themselves so it's important
to examine are you being unreasonable with yourself compared to what you expect out of others
number six examine what you hope to achieve with perfectionism and alternate ways to meet that need
what are you hoping we already talked about what your fears are but if you're hoping to
achieve acceptance if you're hoping to achieve love if you're hoping to achieve
you know financial independence whatever it is with perfectionism
are there alternate ways to meet that need that allow you to use your energy
to enhance every area of your life instead of having to devote all of your energy and all of
your time every single day to that one sliver of what is important in your rich and meaningful life
number seven differentiate behaviors from the person
differentiate behaviors from the person i know i said that twice because it's important
when i make a mistake i made a mistake it doesn't mean i am a mistake it means i made a mistake
it's a behavior it's something i did when i fall when i you know do whatever i do that is imperfect
that is a behavior that is not who i am that is a behavior and a moment in time
could i have done it more perfectly at another moment in time well maybe
but that issue whatever it was that i failed at was a behavior that i did at that moment in time
now i may look at it and figure out ways that i could improve that behavior like studying
for a final exam you know how could i improve that in the future so i do better on my exam
but that doesn't mean that i'm stupid or a bad student that means that day that weekend
i did not engage in the best study behaviors or i did not do my best
work that doesn't have an impact on who i am as a person number eight restructure extreme language
and this is really important perfectionists tend to be very extreme
i always fail or i never succeed at this or i must get it perfect or nothing less than the best
and it's really important to examine the impact of language like that you know number one is it
even possible and number two you know assuming it's possible um what are the the limits on that
can you do something perfectly we just got out of or finished watching the olympics and yes people
can do things perfectly they can get a 10. it doesn't mean they're going to get a 10 every time
they execute that routine it means at that point in time they gotta attend we can strive to do it
we can strive to improve but it's not realistic to expect that humans are going to be able to do
anything a hundred percent perfect a hundred percent of the time so restructuring extreme
language is really important number nine set achievable goals instead of saying i must get
straight 100s in every single class this semester saying my goal is to try to get
all a's this semester this was something i worked on with my daughter
when she started college because she would push it past that point of diminishing returns
it wasn't okay just to get any old a she wanted an a plus in every class and you know we had
to have this talk about the fact that at the end of the day when anybody's evaluating your
transcript in college at least an a is 4.0 if it's an a plus or if it's an a or if it's an a minus
it's still a 4.0 on a 4.0 scale i know that's not exactly how it is in in high school these days
but it's important to recognize you know is there any benefit to pushing it and continuing to try to
enhance something that's really already reached its maximal maximal benefit for me so that
those achievable goals are really important what is it that you need to do and you know what is i
hate to say it but what is the bare minimum you know and if you're a perfectionist your
bare minimum is probably going to be way up there but what is the minimum that you need to do and
when you reach that it's important to be able to step back and evaluate and go okay
i've gotten this done now is it more important to go to my kids soccer game or go to the gym
or go home and actually get some sleep tonight or more important to revise it at least one more time
and that's really what we're talking about here um is choosing the most effective way
to use your energy to create a rich and meaningful life as you define it
and number ten you know i talked about we're going to address perfectionism to find balance
well find a balanced buddy and what i mean by that is somebody who can
you can rely on to ask you questions like i was just saying is it worth your energy is it worth
your time to revise that one more time or is your energy better spent doing something else
they're not telling you what to do but they're encouraging you to step back and
objectively evaluate the benefits of perfectionism at that point and time