Perfectionism is often mistaken for ‘being perfect’ or ‘doing something perfectly’. Many people assume that it must be a good thing.Other people think of being a perfectionist as being something negative and embarrassing. So is it a good or a bad thing?
Perfectionism involves putting pressure on ourselves to meet high standards unrelenting standards which then powerfully influences the way we think about ourselves and our sense of self worth. Researchers have shown that parts of perfectionism are helpful, and parts are unhelpful. This post is to help you identify and work on the unhelpful parts, so that you get satisfaction from your achievements and lead a more fulfilling life.
This will involve setting appropriate goals and standards for yourself, making it more likely you’ll achieve your goals and experience a sense of fulfilment, rather than feeling frustrated and blaming yourself all the time for not getting things‘perfect’. There is a big difference between the healthy and helpful pursuit of excellence and the unhealthy and unhelpful striving for perfection.This unhelpful striving for perfection can lead to a range of negative consequences.
Examples of the negative consequences of perfectionism include:
- Low self-esteem. Because a perfectionist never feels “good enough” about personal performance, feelings of being a “failure” or a “loser” with a lessening of self-confidence and self-esteem may result.
- Guilt. Because a perfectionist never feels good about the way responsibility has been handled in life (by himself or others) a sense of shame, self-recrimination and guilt may result.
- Pessimism. Since a perfectionist is convinced that it will be extremely difficult to achieve an ideal goal, he can easily become discouraged, fatalistic, disheartened and pessimistic about future efforts to reach a goal.
- Depression. Needing always to be perfect, yet recognizing that it is impossible to achieve such a goal, a perfectionist runs the risk of feeling depressed.
- Rigidity. Needing to have everything in one’s life perfect or “just so” can lead a perfectionist to an extreme case of being inflexible, non-spontaneous and rigid.
- Obsessiveness. Being in need of an excessive amount of order, pattern or structure in life can lead a perfectionist to become nit-picky, finicky or obsessive in an effort to maintain a certain order.
- Compulsive behaviour Over-indulgence or the compulsive use of alcohol, drugs, gambling, food, shopping, sex, smoking, risk-taking or novelty, is often used to medicate a perfectionist who feels like a failure or loser for never being able to be “good enough” in life.
- Lack of motivation. Believing that the goal of change will never be able to be ideally or perfectly achieved can often give a perfectionist a lack of motivation to attempt change in the first place, or to persevere if change has already begun.
- Immobilization. Because a perfectionist is often burdened with an extreme fear of failure, the person can become immobilized. With no energy, effort or creative juices applied to rectify, improve or change the problem behaviour in the person’s life, he becomes stagnant.
- Lack of belief in self. Knowing that one will never be able to achieve an idyllic goal can lead a perfectionist to lose the belief that he will ever be able to improve his life significantly.
↧
The negative consequences of perfectionism
↧