If you constantly criticize yourself, scold; You are often upset that things don’t turn out the way you would like; most likely, you set excessive demands for yourself. Inflated demands on oneself smoothly flow into exaggerated expectations from others.
This is how the traits of a perfectionist appear, for whom it is important to achieve an “ideal” result. However, the problem is that ideal is a subjective and relative concept. In pursuit of perfection, you may never achieve it.
In this article:
Possible reasons for excessive demands on yourself Pros of excessive demands on yourself Disadvantages of being too demanding on yourself How to get rid of excessive demands on yourself Where does being demanding of others come from How not to demand too much from others
Possible reasons for excessive demands on yourself
Photo by Nandi Gustian: Pexels
The mindset in which you constantly strive for everything ideal is not formed by chance. The development of this behavior pattern is influenced by a number of factors:
- Features of temperament and character.
Excessive demands as a personality trait that accompanies a person throughout his life. A pessimistic attitude, a tendency to self-digging and self-criticism do not allow a person to be calm about everything that happens.
- Constant criticism from parents.
In childhood, a child perceives everything at face value. If parents rarely praise their child, and criticism arises as a method of education, the pattern “I’m not good enough” is formed.
Criticizing children is not only useless, but even destructive. Subsequently, it will be difficult for them to adequately assess themselves and their abilities. Even if they are good at something, they will think that they could do even better.
- Parents often used comparison.
Perhaps the parents made comparisons with themselves in childhood: “When I was little, I easily coped with this task.” Another situation is a comparison with another child: “Aunt Vera’s Masha is so good, she makes you better.”
Such phrases can both “kill” a child’s desire to do something and lead to a desperate desire to prove to everyone that you are worth something.
- Excessive control on the part of parents.
Let’s say mom herself likes everything to be “perfect.” Such people constantly control everything. Regulating your child’s actions, the endless desire to protect him from all kinds of difficulties, leads to the child’s fear of difficulties arising.
Limitation of actions, inability to fully develop, provoke self-doubt, which later develops into anxiety and excessive demands on oneself.
- Low self-esteem.
Low self-esteem gives rise to pickiness and fear of not being able to cope with the task. Insecure people are critical of everything they do. Even when in society, it seems to him that others only notice his shortcomings.
Unfortunately, this is how the psyche of such people works; they always think that he is not good enough. Their lives pass in this struggle and pursuit of perfection.
Musts in psychology - questions for work
Ask yourself questions:
- how does it follow from what you want that it should be so?
- Is there a law of nature or society according to which it should be this way?
- Are there any facts that prove the truth of your belief?
- Are there facts that refute this belief?
Review and question your personal rules or expectations that contain words such as “should,” “must,” or “should do this.” Please remember that there are always exceptions and special circumstances.
It can be annoying when people act contrary to your expectations or values. But your personal values may quite naturally not be of interest to others. It is important to allow for the possibility of mistakes, to recognize the uniqueness of everyone, and to replace shoulds with wishes in relationships with others.
Work on your thinking and it will become more rational and adaptive. These efforts will definitely pay off, because only a stable nervous system will help you cope with the stress and difficulties that are present in everyone’s life.
How to get rid of excessive demands on yourself
Achieving great results is a good and worthy goal, but if your life has turned into an eternal struggle for the impeccable execution of every, even the most minimal activity, you should think about whether this is harming you.
If you clearly understand that anxiety and fear of not becoming perfect paralyzes you and prevents you from living a normal life, you should recognize your problem and begin the path to getting rid of it. What specifically should you change?
- Understand that the concept of perfection and correctness is relative.
All restrictions are only in your head. Every person has the right to make mistakes. In fact, mistakes help you develop and improve your abilities. Give me permission to do something wrong. Allow yourself to be free to make decisions.
- Other people's opinions should not bother you.
As a rule, the fear of making a mistake lies in the fear of being judged. A person is afraid of appearing to people as not perfect, not correct. Understand that your life is your personal value. You cannot rely on the opinions of other people, they have their own destiny.
- Learn to value freedom.
Freedom of choice, freedom of decision, individuality and uniqueness of opinion and desires - all these phenomena should be given significance and value. Life is so fleeting that there is a risk of spending it trying to please everyone around you and meeting standards and rules.
- Look for support within yourself.
Gratitude to yourself for every result and the ability to praise for every achievement, as well as for courage even in the event of a negative outcome, will help you understand that the value is within you - it is yourself. Only health, harmony and tranquility are more valuable.
- Manage your life yourself.
Inflated demands on oneself are directly dependent on the result. It turns out that the state, mood and feeling of happiness are in the power of self-evaluation. You must become the mistress of life yourself and manage everything, regardless of the circumstances.
The Difference Between Healthy Striving for Perfection and Unhealthy Pressure
The first thing you need to understand is that not all perfectionism is harmful. This desire motivates a person to achieve more and acts as the engine of his life. And everyone is convinced: the more you try, the more you get.
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A person who is inclined to do everything 100% has a more flexible psyche. This means that if he is given a difficult task or the implementation of an existing project reaches a dead end, he does not give up immediately, but tries to find a way out, and the best one. According to Jessica Prior, all stars of modern sports necessarily have this trait.
Modern athletes generally have to overcome themselves and circumstances all the time and strive for the best. Otherwise, a more promising person will take over the contract, and someone else will set the world record. People who devote themselves to sports have one very correct skill: they are able to make a mistake, learn the right lesson from it, and then forget about its existence.
But unhealthy perfectionism, on the contrary, forces a person to set unattainably high goals. At the same time, every mistake seems fatal and insurmountable. And if the goal is not achieved exactly as originally intended, then it seems that the task has not been completed.
Jessica Prior argues that such people lack the ability to react flexibly to what is happening, as a result of which they begin to make even higher demands on themselves and others.
According to statistics, such fixation on unattainable goals further increases the risk of making a mistake. Each mistake causes standards to rise again, and the whole thing becomes a painful and destructive cycle.
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This type of perfectionism is easy to diagnose. If you have thoughts like: “I entered the right department, but at a provincial university, not in Moscow” or “I got married very quickly, but my husband could have been richer.” And in general, the motto of such people is: “It could be better.”
Along with this comes fixation on mistakes, self-criticism, shame, anxiety, and fear of failure. For some people, this even results in the inability to start work and sabotage of tasks given to themselves. All these gloomy thoughts and feelings destroy personal integrity, causing depression, neuroses, appetite disorders and even suicide attempts.
If you thought this was about you, then there are some recommendations on how to get out of this disastrous circle.
Where does demand for others come from?
Almost always, pickiness towards others is a consequence of being demanding of yourself. To be more precise, these are inseparable parts of one whole. A person who is accustomed to doing everything “perfectly” will expect the same impeccable performance from another person.
Upbringing and parental behavior patterns also play a role in the formation of such a trait. If parents overly cared for, controlled, expected clear and unquestioning obedience from the child, growing up, this pattern will be used in their own family as an example to follow.
Allow yourself to be a little imperfect
Concentrate and find that area of your life where a small deviation from perfection will not destroy everything you hold dear. If in one area you can and even should strive to be a standard (for example, in your profession), then in others do not consciously correct minor errors and shortcomings. Leave the shortcomings and learn to treat them with a light heart.
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For example, if you are a highly qualified neurosurgeon, then allow yourself to be a so-so cook and not a very good organizer of children's parties.
How not to demand too much from others
People around you don’t like to live up to other people’s expectations. Therefore, when you demand specific actions and results from them, you encounter misunderstandings and conflicts. To maintain a warm and harmonious relationship, it is worth understanding some points:
- The other person doesn't have to live up to your standards.
He is a separate person, with personal desires, ideas, thoughts and goals. An attempt to subordinate him to your demands can end in discord and a break in the relationship. Even if you manage to convince a person that your intentions are good, he is not able to become happy in the position imposed on him by you.
And your standards of correctness and perfection may be oppositely diametrical. Therefore, it is worth giving freedom to loved ones, giving them the opportunity to make decisions on their own.
- We are so different - that’s what makes our life wonderful.
How boring and cloying it would be if we were all the same. The imperfection of the world, the uniqueness of people, makes our reality especially beautiful. You should learn to treat any situation with special wisdom.
All mistakes and imperfections are our useful experience that can teach us something more and help us move forward. Accept them with gratitude and love and then you will learn to perceive yourself and others, as well as appreciate human uniqueness.
Who suffers most from perfectionism?
For those whose birth year was after the cherished numbers of 2000 (they are also called the millennial generation), the desire to do everything perfectly is especially relevant. The desire to look brilliant, earn a lot of money and set an example of passionate love drives such people into depression. Some researchers even believe that this contributes to an increase in suicide rates. Jessica Prior, an expert on perfectionism, has developed a way to show that your desire for perfection is off the charts and is already affecting the nervous system negatively. She also developed ways to reduce this constant excitement and desire for something more.
From people
Psychologists classify inflated expectations as cognitive disorders, which implies behavioral deviations and abnormal mental activity.
Subjects suffering from this illness do not know how to enjoy life, the final result of work, or the achievement of small goals. Such behavior forms negative personality traits, such as envy, constant dissatisfaction, irritability. In addition, such individuals suffer from insomnia, are in constant stress, they are consumed by anxiety, they strive to control everything and everyone.
People make excessive demands not only on themselves, colleagues, management or life in general, but also on loved ones. For example, parents’ inflated expectations from their children lead to the disappearance of individuality in their offspring. Children will want what the older generation wants, they will like what their parents like. Children are deprived of their own needs.
Parental high expectations are characterized by two aspects. On the one hand, they are a motivational factor, a driver of children’s development, contributing to the realization of children’s potential. On the other hand, when they become excessive, they become a source of sustainable stress for children who are looking for parental approval. The problem with high expectations is that they provoke feelings of guilt in children for parental dissatisfaction. The result will be low self-esteem of the child, various complexes, and increased anxiety.
High expectations in relationships also have a negative impact on relationships, simply killing them. People expect endless love, but are disappointed. They are ready to give everything to their partner, demanding similar actions in return, but the partner simply cannot live up to a non-existent ideal. After all, he is a person who has his own set of talents, qualities, potential, desires, needs and ideas about ideal relationships.
Treatment. Psychotherapy
Perfectionism should be combated with the help of psychotherapy (interpersonal, aimed at regulating interpersonal relationships, and cognitive-behavioral, aimed at eliminating phobias), and drug treatment.
This syndrome is such a destructive personal factor that it can reduce the effectiveness of all forms of therapy, so in some cases placebo therapy is used to overcome the disorder.
If people were completely devoid of perfectionism, they would lose the motivation to develop and achieve something new.
But if the line between healthy determination and pathological desire to achieve perfection is blurred, this becomes a real problem for a person and can cause anxiety, stress, depression, and emotional disorders.
Norm and pathology
There are two types of perfectionism:
- Healthy
- characterized by the presence of leadership qualities, high activity, efficiency, and strong motivation. At the same time, a person adequately assesses his capabilities and plans to achieve real goals; - Pathological
(neurotic) - begins when a person begins to feel the fear of doing something wrong. The idea of becoming better than everyone completely consumes him, as a result of which he is never satisfied with himself or those around him. The pursuit of attention and recognition, the achievement of a certain standard set for oneself, turns into self-torture.
Celebrate every achievement
This will significantly reduce the negative consequences of having to strain all the time and perform everything in the best possible way. And it’s very simple to do this: be here and now, notice that you have passed another milestone in achieving your goal. Then each stage passed will become valuable in itself. Whereas someone who only focuses on the end goal misses all these points that they consider trivial compared to the big end result.
How we fall into the trap of perfectionism
People succumb to perfectionistic tendencies for many different reasons, some of which we will explore below.
Competitive working conditions
In some situations, perfectionism is a direct consequence of the influence of the environment.
In other words, if you work in a team where members expect excellence from others, then you will most likely begin to demand excellence (from yourself and others). Laura Hamill describes this situation as follows: “Perfectionism can be reinforced by the climate in an organization if its norms, values and beliefs are characterized by fear of making mistakes and mistrust. Individual employees may have perfectionistic tendencies, and team pressure can reinforce this.”
Self-esteem and individuality
Perfectionism isn't always the result of team pressure or an overly demanding boss—some people's personality traits make them inherently more prone to perfectionism.
“Perfectionism itself is not considered a personality trait in psychology, but it is closely related to one of the five core traits: neuroticism. People high in neuroticism tend to experience negative emotions, such as anxiety, much more often than others,” says Baker. — “Anxiety is one of the many causes of perfectionism. A person high in neuroticism is more likely to become anxious, which in turn may be associated with perfectionistic issues.”
“Perfectionism can be reinforced by an organization's climate if its norms, values, and beliefs are characterized by fear of making mistakes and mistrust.” — Laura Hamill
Fear of failure
Another reason why problems with perfectionism may arise is a deep-seated fear of failure and how a person reacts to it.
People who are afraid of failure, as well as those who, from their own failures, conclude that they themselves are failed individuals
, are more likely to face the problem of perfectionism.
Baker explains it this way: “If a person has the attitude that not doing a perfect job is a failure, and he sees this as an indicator of his own worth, then the instinct of self-preservation of such a person will push him to strive for excellence.”
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