Perfectionism: what is it, good or bad. Why and how to deal with perfectionism

What is perfectionism

Perfectionism is the desire to follow high standards of activity, independently put forward demands for personality and activity. As a rule, these requirements are excessively high, and the person himself is convinced of the possibility of achieving the best, the ideal. Moreover, he is not only convinced of the possibility of achieving the best, but also believes that he is obliged to achieve the best.

The term “perfectionism” comes from the Latin perfectus, which literally translates as “absolute perfection.” Perfection becomes the goal of human life.

In Russian psychology, people started talking about the problem of perfectionism not so long ago - at the beginning of the 21st century. Since then, researchers have been able to establish a connection between perfectionism and depressive tendencies.

This article deals with neurotic perfectionism, which is characterized by:

• The individual’s preoccupation with the shortcomings of himself and his activities, his own mistakes. Moving forward due to fear of failure or disappointment of others, and not for the sake of the need to achieve goals and development.
• Uncertainty about the result (product) of activity, its quality.
• The importance of parents’ assessments and expectations at any age (researchers are convinced that it is parents who serve as the source of perfectionism).

How to get rid of perfectionism? Practical recommendations

Attention to self-criticism

First of all, it is important to take clear control of your inner critic, who is constantly dissatisfied with your work.
Learn to restrain it, especially in those moments when you make mistakes, since failure to do this will only lead to aggravation of your fears of failure and the very phenomenon of perfectionism. In this aspect, perfectionism can be described as an attempt to avoid failure from mistakes and criticism, but there is no real movement towards the goal.

Create new standards and expectations

It is your personal expectations and standards that you set for yourself that lay the foundation for your subsequent decisions and behavior.
Thus, when standards are too high, perfectionism immediately manifests itself. For this reason, you need to reset your expectations for yourself to a more realistic level, giving yourself more freedom and flexibility to move forward. Of course, you need to have a high standard of expectations if you want to succeed, but if your self-esteem suffers and you experience frequent stress, then you are doing something wrong. And due to the already real requirements for yourself, you should set realistically achievable goals for yourself that will motivate you, and not drive you into even greater stress and apathy. At the same time, do not forget to set clear time frames so as not to stretch out the completion of assigned tasks indefinitely and get rid of perfectionism.

Analyze expenses and benefits

If, in the process of performing any work, you realize that you are stretching the deadlines for its completion, ask you the following questions for the sake of self-analysis:

• Does this behavior really help me?
• Does this behavior cause me pain?
• Is it theoretically capable of causing pain to others?
• What are the consequences of not completing this task in the short term?
• What will be the long-term consequences?

Take the time to objectively evaluate yourself, your own behavior and the impact it has on your life.

Assess reality objectively

Various unrealistic expectations perfectly fuel your perfectionism.
Therefore, it is important to distinguish them from realistic ones in time. It's a good idea to write out your unrealistic expectations on a separate piece of paper and use it as a reminder of your thinking patterns. Unrealistic aspirations:

• Write a serious article in 1 hour.
• Work three jobs at the same time.
• Run in the morning, despite a leg injury.

Realistic aspirations:

• Set aside 2 to 5 hours of work to write an article.
• Learn to earn more by improving your skills.
• Skip the workout if your leg hurts, but treat it.

Give yourself permission to show weakness

In particularly difficult moments in life and when perfectionism occurs, allow yourself to spend the day completely not thinking about business, or allow yourself not to do serious work and not feel guilty. However, you can arrange such spontaneous weekends for yourself only occasionally and in really difficult moments without indulging your laziness. This will allow you to recharge, relax your nervous system and get to work with renewed vigor.

Shift in Perspective

In the fight against perfectionism, it would be appropriate to memorize the following affirmations and repeat them periodically.

• It is normal for every person to make mistakes.
• You should not be upset about a mistake, but rather learn valuable experience from it in order to prevent this from happening in the future.
• Having any errors does not make me incompetent.

Of course, various mistakes and omissions can slow down your progress towards your goal, but with the right approach they only contribute to your growth.

Focus on what's important

Speaking about perfectionism, it is always worth remembering Pareto's law - 80% of efforts give you 20% of results, when 20% of actions lead you to 80% of success.
That is, determine in your activities exactly those 20% of actions that most contribute to your movement forward and bring those same 80% of results. Focus on them, and only then pay attention to the little things. Applying even a few of these recommendations will allow you to get rid of perfectionism and increase your productivity. Good luck!

Author: Alexey Piven

Signs of perfectionism

Domestic psychologists N. G. Garanyan, A. B. Kholmogorova and T. Yu. Yudeeva identified the following signs of perfectionism:

• inflated performance standards and inflated claims that do not correspond to individual capabilities;
• the same high demands and expectations for other people;
• the belief that others have high expectations for the individual;
• constant comparison of oneself with other people, mostly successful in presenting the personality itself;
• the principle of life and activity “all or nothing”;
• ignoring one’s own successes, focusing on the individual’s failures.

Researchers note that perfectionism is a disease of the 21st century.

Reasons for perfectionism

In psychoanalytic theory, there are several points of view regarding the causes of perfectionism. Thus, S. Freud believed that the desire for perfection is caused by the repression of drives. K. Jung considered this an innate property, a manifestation of selfhood. A. Adler also considered the desire for perfection to be a natural phenomenon, a stimulus without which life is not possible. But these opinions are more likely to relate to healthy perfectionism, rather than pathological.

Self-improvement is necessary for every person, but when this trait is emphasized, life turns into existence. With a neurotic need for perfection, the image of the ideal self predominates, that is, a distortion of the personality’s self-concept occurs.

The tendency towards perfectionism is formed in preschool and primary school age. Prerequisites for formation - features of family upbringing. Only children in the family or first-born children often become perfectionists. In addition, children whose parents:

• overly critical and demanding;
• set high expectations and standards of behavior, use indirect criticism;
• do not express approval or express it conditionally, inconsistently;
• They themselves suffer from perfectionism and teach this behavior by personal example.

A prerequisite for perfectionism is the need to achieve parental love, praising the child exclusively for achievements. As a result, the child learns to avoid criticism and disapproval and to do everything to be loved. The future perfectionist grows up with the conviction that it is impossible to make mistakes, fear, anxiety, and uncertainty. The child lacks support, a sense of security, and support.

Thus, we can distinguish 2 interrelated main reasons for perfectionism:

• Unsatisfied need for love. Inside a person lives a childish attitude: “if I am perfect, I try and do everything perfectly, then my parents will love me.”
• Lack of self-esteem. A person constantly proves something to himself, tries to rise in his own eyes, begin to love and respect himself.

Effort Distribution and Perfectionism at Pixar Animation Studios

If you decide to bring something to perfection, then first distribute your efforts perfectly.

Remember the 80/20 rule. It says:

80% of the result often comes from just 20% of the effort.

We, as perfectionists, are often very lousy at recognizing fundamental things at the level of:

• personalities
• organizations

Ed Catmull, co-creator of Pixar Animation Studios and author of Genius Inc., writes:

There is a phenomenon that the producers at Pixar Animation Studios call the amazingly darkened penny. This is due to the fact that the artists who work on our films are so concerned with every detail that they can sometimes spend days and weeks working on something that amounts to a penny lying around that you will never notice!

Monsters, Inc.
A great example of this phenomenon occurs in Monsters, Inc. when Mike and Sulley first bring Boo to their place. There's a 3 second shot of a stack of CDs that Boo knocks over. Even if it's only 3 seconds, even if you only notice a few CD covers, the artists at Pixar Animation Studios took the time to draw the cover for each box. And there are about a hundred of them.

Catmull's main emphasis is on describing the production process:

Because the production unfolds gradually, our people have to work on scenes without knowing the context for them. Therefore, they work them super hard to be sure. It gets worse when our unrealistically high standards lead them to conclude that more is always better.

This is something perfectionists often struggle with. But the truth is usually the opposite. Often doing less is more. Therefore, be critical of your work.

Try to recognize the critical 20% (the fundamental smallness) and spend less time obsessing over the 80% that is not particularly significant.

80/20 rule

Types of perfectionism

Perfectionism can be healthy, promoting personal development, and pathological (neurotic). In the first case, a person sets realistic, but difficult goals for himself, achieves them and experiences satisfaction from overcoming difficulties. With neurotic perfectionism, a person does not take into account his own potential and capabilities at all, self-improvement becomes a goal, not a method, goals are inadequate. A neurotic perfectionist never experiences satisfaction from the results of his work, because he always believes that he could have done better.

Healthy perfectionism is characterized by:

• An active life position of the individual, confidence in the ability to cope with stress.
• Considering threats and difficulties as opportunities and new paths for development.
• High ability to adapt to new conditions, ability to take risks, accept life changes.
• Feeling of happiness and satisfaction with life.
• A positive outlook on the future, the desire to achieve goals.
• Adequate self-esteem, acceptance of one’s strengths and weaknesses, capabilities and limitations.
• Independence, focus on one’s own beliefs, confidence, independence in choosing a life path.
• Personal development, a sense of personal growth and self-realization.
• Energy and cheerfulness.

Pathological perfectionism is characterized by:

• Lack of self-confidence, loss of self-control in difficult life situations.
• Helplessness and lack of independence, retreat in situations of uncertainty or threat.
• Running away from problems, inability to learn from difficulties, negative perception of obstacles.
• A feeling of meaninglessness in life, dissatisfaction with it.
• A feeling of hopelessness about the future, a negative attitude towards the past, the absence of a single time thread.
• Disappointment in oneself, dissatisfaction with oneself, lack of acceptance of oneself.
• Denial of participation in one's own life, belief in fate and predestination, focus on the assessment of others.
• An obsession with the idea of ​​perfection, a feeling of stagnation in personal development.
• Apathy, exhaustion, fatigue, feeling of depletion of personal resources.

In turn, unhealthy perfectionism can be:

1. Personally oriented. All the individual’s demands are directed towards himself. A person has an internal motivation for self-improvement, high personal standards, a tendency to set unattainable or difficult to achieve goals, increased self-criticism and self-control, reflection, turning into self-flagellation. A perfectionist of this type is intolerant of his own failures and shortcomings and is prone to self-blame.
2. Externally oriented. This type of personality is able to accept its shortcomings, but does not forgive others for mistakes and imperfections. He is demanding of those around him, sets high standards, and tends to create and focus on ideal images, for example, the image of an ideal woman.
3. Socially assigned perfectionism. A person of this type is convinced that others expect great success from him and will not tolerate failure. To avoid negative evaluation and criticism, a person is obliged to meet social standards, even if they seem impossible.

How to destroy the perfectionist within you

Raise self-esteem

Perfectionists are often people who underestimate themselves. Due to lack of self-confidence, they constantly look back at others: it is important to them what they will say about them and how they will be evaluated. Moreover, they certainly expect praise and the highest assessment and try their best to earn it.

Recognizing the priority of other people's opinions and the right of others to evaluate, criticize or approve of their actions, perfectionists themselves belittle their own dignity and underestimate their role in both personal and public life. And even perfectly done work does not add authority to them.

So, we are working on self-esteem. There are hypnotic techniques that allow an insecure person to correct his behavior. However, their effect is temporary. A person has the power to change his own idea of ​​his personal qualities and role in this life, concentrating on the strengths for which he is loved and appreciated, successes in life and situations when he was proud of himself.

Recognize your right to make mistakes

You need to allow yourself to make mistakes, because “only those who do nothing make no mistakes.” There is no professional who would become one without making a series of mistakes. The English writer Richard Aldington, considered a great expert on the human psyche, addressed us: “Live and make mistakes. Don’t think that you can be perfect—it’s impossible.” As the saying goes, “Don’t shoot the pianist. He plays as best he can."

Many famous people perceived mistakes not as failure, but as new opportunities, and therefore were not afraid to make them. American Alan Lakein, a time management specialist, in his book “The Art of Keeping Up” proves with examples that people who make mistakes save time because they do not spend it weighing all the pros and cons for fear of making mistakes. Practical steps help them understand what works and what doesn’t. If you are afraid of falling, you will never take the first step.

When the famous inventor Thomas Edison was 67 years old - an age when many people give up because “it’s time” - the factory he owned was completely burned down. The costs exceeded the insurance many times over. But the next morning he gathered his friends and told them: “The fire destroyed our mistakes, and now we have a great opportunity to start all over again.” We give ourselves the mental attitude to accept our own mistakes as an inevitable part of our life. But let's not forget to learn from them. After all, mistakes can be stupid - made through negligence, carelessness, and reasonable - for example, those that occurred during an experiment. About the latter, the famous Bill Gates said: “I prefer to hire people who have made mistakes. This speaks to their ability to take risks.”

Perfectionism: good or bad

Perfectionism is the result of a destructive authoritarian style of family education, in which:

• high expectations are placed on the child, including the fulfillment of the unfulfilled dreams of the parents;
• parents forbid the child to make his own mistakes and repeat their mistakes;
• require regular improvement of achievements.

In the future, all the actions of a perfectionist will be aimed at achieving the highest results in order to feel their own importance and receive love.

As a child, a child receives first place in all competitions and studies with excellent marks. Receives approval and feels important. Such patterns of behavior are reinforced and continue into adulthood. However, as soon as a person faces life’s difficulties and does not receive recognition, he experiences severe frustration. A repeated state of frustration develops into stress, which often ends in distress. Distress is a source of psychological disorders and psychosomatic diseases.

So is it good to be a perfectionist? I think no. By the way, it is a mistake to consider perfectionists as ideal workers. Yes, they often become workaholics, fulfilling their own responsibilities and those of others, but they are demanding not only of themselves. If someone’s actions do not fit into the perfectionist’s system, then conflict cannot be avoided.

How to cure perfectionism with a psychologist: therapy

Fear of a perfectionist
Treating perfectionism on your own is quite difficult, because to do this you need to constantly adhere to the recommendations of a psychologist. However, you will not find any other way. If you turn to a psychologist with your problem, then he, of course, will have different methods of work. First of all, he will conduct psychoanalysis and only then prescribe therapy. As a rule, it is aimed at changing thinking and behavior. Moreover, a specialist will definitely select a relaxation technique, because a perfectionist constantly experiences tension.

How and why to fight

There is no need to strive to get rid of perfectionism. Its healthy appearance is necessary. It is worth fighting against neurotic perfectionism, as it has a destructive effect on the personality. The constant stress inherent in a perfectionist is not good for anyone.

The correction of perfectionism must be entrusted to a psychotherapist, since only he can find out the true reasons. If this is not yet possible, then try to independently control the manifestations of the desire for perfection:

• Determine your strengths and weaknesses, ask your friends for help if you yourself are at a loss. Make a list.
• Develop rationalism, learn to evaluate yourself correctly. Again, turn to your loved ones for help. If it fails, consider if there are any known cases where something similar has been done successfully by any person. Maybe the task is impossible for a person to accomplish?
• Always set boundaries and conditions for completing work, deadlines. This will allow you not to get hung up on details and not prolong the task. Make an agreement with yourself that if you have some free time, you will work on the details.
• Learn to make a plan, highlight the main thing. Do this exercise daily, take on any situations and tasks.
• Learn to accept mistakes and see the benefit in them. Study information about how the mistakes of scientists allowed them to build a career, or what unfortunate situations famous people found themselves in and how it ended. Mistakes are experience, learning, a condition for further progress. Allow them to be done to yourself and others.
• Set feasible goals that create a situation of success and increase self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Choose one area or activity in which you will assert yourself.
• Reveal yourself and become yourself, forget about idols and ideals. Why would you copy someone?
• Force yourself to switch and be distracted from little things. It will help to focus on the time it takes to complete the work.

To acquire healthy perfectionism, you need to accept and love yourself, forgive childhood grievances, and get rid of childhood traumas. It is important to stop striving for love and self-respect, you need to work on your self-esteem and self-concept. You need to focus on the Real Self.

Moderation is needed in everything, including self-development. There is no limit to perfection, but in this pursuit you may not notice life itself, you may not have time to enjoy it. Self-improvement is a way to achieve goals, not the goal itself. You set a goal and understand what you need to learn to achieve it. And when the goal is self-improvement, then you grab everything without noticing your own interests, needs, abilities, and opportunities. Each person has a unique set of individual personal qualities. Accordingly, everyone’s achievements are different and unique.

The best - or none

Actually, there is one plus: perfectionism forces a person to study, work, train “through not wanting” - in general, not to stand still. Most of the outstanding athletes, artists, and scientists possessed this quality, and it was this that allowed them to achieve success in their activities. Alexander the Great dreamed of conquering the whole world - and who knows, if not for his death at 32, what would the political map look like now?

The prototype of the main character of the film “The Devil Wears Prada” is Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of the American edition of Vogue magazine, who is recognized as one of the most influential figures in the world of modern fashion. Striving to achieve perfection in everything, she also became famous for her extremely tough leadership style. Ulyana Lopatkina, a famous ballerina, on the day of her performance, always dances her part from start to finish at rehearsal, without giving herself any concessions.

But you have to pay for everything: Lopatkina more than once lay on the operating table, treating injured legs and back, and Anna Wintour just can’t improve her personal life.