What You Don’t Know about Being a Perfectionist (and How to Stop)

Stop trying to be the perfect person. You’re not Superman or Wonder Woman. It’s time we normalize being mediocre because success doesn’t always mean happiness. In fact, the drive of being perfect all the time can kill you. We’re gonna have to stop being a perfectionist someday.

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What kind of perfectionist are you?

Every perfectionist has their own motivation that explains why they want to overachieve all the time. A study conducted across three decades identified three types of perfectionists, succinctly explained by Evolve Treatment Centers.

Self-oriented perfectionists find the desire to become perfect from within themselves. Usually, this translates to a higher level of productivity and career growth.

Other-oriented perfectionists are those who expect other people to be perfect. They’re the type to judge too harshly because they have high standards for everyone else. Basically, this is the groupmate that chooses to do everything themselves rather than assign tasks to others.

Socially-prescribed perfectionists are those who feel a pressure to perform better because of other people’s expectations, and as a result, are prone to getting anxiety and depression. Unfortunately, being pressured by external factors puts them at a higher risk of self-harm.

What are the downsides to being a perfectionist?

You might have identified yourself as a self-oriented perfectionist and thought: a higher level of productivity and career growth? There’s nothing wrong with that.

Unfortunately, you’re not off the hook. No matter what kind of perfectionist you are, thinking like one is generally associated with suicidal thoughts, anxiety, and depression. That’s because of the voice in your head telling you that you’re not good enough. Being a perfectionist is an endless train of thought where you never feel a sense of self-adequacy. Or when you do, it’s just temporary.

When it comes to work, be prepared for major burnout and stress. While it’s true that perfectionists are more motivated, they also work way longer hours. “Get a life, ya workaholic,” said the voice in your head as you willingly open a new Google Docs tab.

You want to know something really interesting though? In a study by Harvard Business Review, they saw no correlation between perfectionism and performance. This means that the people who put in extra work to make sure everything is in tip-top shape don’t necessarily perform better. As the popular adage goes: work smart, not hard.

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Is it possible to stop being a perfectionist? Definitely, but we can’t change our behavior overnight.  The last thing we want to do is trying to be perfect at not being a perfectionist.

But here are small reminders that we could give for zoomers who can’t help but overachieve:

Motivate yourself the right way.

When you start to constantly doubt yourself and your abilities, it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate your “why”. There’s a fine line between healthy motivation and toxic overachievement.

Your motivation should be the reason you get up in the morning and look forward to living life. It’s something that should make you happy, as opposed to something you dread. For example, going through a school or work week because there’s a big party on Friday night is motivation. Doing it just because you don’t want a grade lower than a B+ is something that just stresses you out.

Imagine yourself in that situation: you’re on your desk at 3 AM anxiously overstudying all the reviewers and slides for midterms. Then you start to break down because the test is in a few hours, and you start to doubt that you’re ever gonna get a grade higher than a B+. All this, while someone who just wants to go to that Friday night party is probably asleep having studied the right amount… not stressing.

When you pick out your reason for doing something, make sure that it will not cause additional anxiety. Having a positive source of motivation is important for you to stop being a perfectionist.

Be realistic.

When your goals start becoming unrealistic, you should re-align them to be more achievable. For example, when we don’t reach our goals in a certain time, we tend to overcompensate by working a hundred times harder in one big burst. By the end of the day, we’re too exhausted for life.

There’s a reason why they say life is not a sprint, but a marathon. You’re not supposed to rush through the process because if you do, you’re just gonna end up being the loser.

I thought time would be a great example for this piece of advice because that’s where we usually fall short when setting our SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic & time-bound) goals. Yes, you can be a CEO of a hundred million-peso company but you can’t give up when you’re just a month in.

Just remember to be honest with yourself when evaluating your capabilities in relation to your goal. And by the way, don’t feel like you’re settling when you adjust or scale down your goal to something more achievable. It’s perfectly normal!

Trust others to take the lead.

You could stop being a perfectionist by not trying to fix everything yourself. It’s just impossible!

We talked about how being a perfectionist could lead to intense burnout. Well, it could be a byproduct of wanting to solve every issue that pops up, and having a hand in every single decision that’s made. But sometimes, you just have to step away and pass the baton to other people.

I know how hard it could be to do that especially if they have let you down before. I’ve been in that position; I get you.

Although, it’s important to realize that not everyone is at their 100% all the time. Maybe they were just off their game during that time they “broke your trust” when you had delegated a task to them. Try to understand that, and look at the things that they’ve done right. ‘Cause that probably outweighs all the shortcomings that they have.

Learn to trust others, and build genuine connections with other people to foster that trust. It’s time you learned the value of teamwork.

Besides, who’s to say your version of perfect is the only version of perfect? You might just be making things worse putting your hands where they shouldn’t be.

Learn to prioritize.

Human beings in general have a lot of goals they want to achieve. However, everyday life is already so draining that we can’t do everything that we set out to do.

If you’re one of the people that believes you can be everything that you want to be, then make sure you’re not tiring yourself out. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you’ll have to make a ton of compromises to not go through life like a walking zombie.

In that case, it’s important to know what you need to do, what you really want to do, what you just want to do, and what you can cut from your life completely.

When you don’t do this, something’s gonna give eventually and mess everything up, domino effect-style. It’s better to avoid going through all that in the first place by determining what goals can wait and what cannot.

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Don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t really “stop being a perfectionist”. I mean for most of us, we’ve seen good results in our lives from dreaming big.

But the important thing is to not lean too hard into a toxic mindset where it becomes normal to beat yourself up over being “just okay”. While being excellent is impressive, being okay will suffice a lot of times. Know when to turn on the perfectionist switch, but always remember to turn it off!

Are you anxious over graduating and need some advice on that too? Read our article on lessons for college graduates. Don’t forget to follow us @ZoomersCornerPH on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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Featured Image: Anna Shvets on Pexels