Be aware from Celes: Hey everybody, how are you doing? 🤗 I’m at the moment revisiting and updating the classics at PE, beginning with the perfectionism collection. In immediately’s submit, I share why being a perfectionist will not be so good and my expertise as a perfectionist. Subsequent up, I’ll be writing a information on gently overcome perfectionism. Keep tuned.
That is half 1 of a 3-part collection on perfectionism: why being a perfectionist isn’t so good and overcome perfectionism.
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Are you a perfectionist? Do you usually search to attain perfection in the whole lot you do? Do you’re feeling a necessity to enhance each single factor you do to the state of perfection, even on the expense of your well-being?
A perfectionist is somebody who strives for perfection and units extraordinarily excessive requirements for themselves. They’ve a robust need to satisfy or exceed these requirements in each side of their life, whether or not it’s work, relationships, or private achievements.
In psychology, perfectionism is a persona trait characterised by “an individual’s striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high-performance requirements, accompanied by overly vital self-evaluations and considerations relating to others’ evaluations.”[1]
To a perfectionist, something lower than good is unacceptable.
10 Indicators You Are a Perfectionist
Perfectionism can manifest in numerous methods, and people who have it usually exhibit sure behaviors. Listed here are 10 indicators you’re a perfectionist:
- You might have extraordinarily excessive requirements. You might have very excessive targets and requirements for no matter you got down to do. Generally, they stress you out. You might spend many late nights and sacrifice sleep simply to attain them.
- You’re very vital of errors. You dislike errors or errors as they counsel imperfection — everytime you see a mistake, you’re the first to right it. Simply figuring out that there’s a mistake that hasn’t been mounted but irks you.
- You might have an all-or-nothing mindset. That is often known as black-and-white pondering. Both you do one thing to the very best degree otherwise you don’t do it in any respect. You additionally are inclined to see issues in extremes — if one thing isn’t accomplished completely, which means it’s a catastrophe. There isn’t any in-between.
- You’re extraordinarily meticulous and have a really excessive consideration to element. You give attention to the smallest particulars of a activity simply to make sure that the whole lot is in place. You see errors when others don’t see any.
- You’re extremely self-critical, even over little issues. Every time one thing goes incorrect, you grow to be actually laborious on your self, questioning why you couldn’t have accomplished it higher and why you made that mistake.
- You mull over outcomes that don’t end up as deliberate, questioning if issues may have been completely different should you simply did X or Y. You additionally spend fairly a little bit of time analyzing and second-guessing selections and actions after they had been made, questioning should you had made the only option.
- You procrastinate simply to do issues on the “proper” second, or since you wish to do issues to the very best degree. You typically postpone duties as a result of the situations aren’t good otherwise you don’t really feel like you are able to do them completely.
- You might have issue delegating to others. You discover it laborious to delegate duties to others as you’re feeling that they’ll’t do them in addition to you.
- You grow to be defensive towards criticism and have a worry of failure, as they counsel that you just didn’t do issues properly or that one thing is incorrect with you.
- You spend an immense period of time perfecting issues, even past wholesome limits. Perfection is the tip purpose. You usually sacrifice sleep, relaxation, and private time simply to carry your work to the very best degree. To you, it’s all a part of attaining the purpose.
Do you see these traits in your self? How in regards to the folks round you?
My Expertise With Perfectionism
I was fairly a neurotic perfectionist after I was youthful. In reality, all the ten traits would match me to a tee! I’m nonetheless fairly a perfectionist immediately, although I’ve realized to dial down the detrimental features of my perfectionism (extra partially 2).
An enormous a part of my perfectionism is my innate drive and need to be the perfect I may be. I at all times really feel that once we do one thing, we should always do our greatest with out compromising or giving excuses.
The second purpose is my upbringing and the schooling system I grew up in. I grew up in Singapore within the Nineteen Eighties-2000s, and the tradition and society then had an excessive fixation on conformity and adhering to an excessive definition of perfection.
This was notably so in my major faculty, the place we had been informed to be the perfect and to intention for the perfect — something much less was not acceptable. I used to be in the perfect class and when it got here to exams and exams, we had been taught to intention for 100/100 (a worthy purpose), however made to really feel insufficient and that we didn’t do properly sufficient once we obtained lower than that. We’d be punished, reprimanded, and shamed once we made little errors.
When it comes to conduct, we had been made to comply with many strict, dogmatic guidelines like solely being permitted to put on plain, single-colored watches (solely black, white, gray, or blue was allowed), or that we may solely have particular hairstyles and never have any hair touching or masking our faces. It was questionable as to how these guidelines helped us grow to be higher human beings. No conforming meant being singled out, shamed, and punished in entrance of different college students.
It didn’t assist that I’m a extremely delicate individual (HSP) with a robust sensitivity to stimuli, one thing I solely realized wasn’t frequent to everybody after I grew up. This meant that I’d expertise these feelings, directions, and guidelines on a really private and intense degree.
These elements made me intention for the very best commonplace and be very meticulous in the whole lot I do — i.e., a perfectionist. This conduct prolonged to my research, company job, enterprise, and relationships.
Examples of Perfectionism in My Life
Making Web sites
For instance, after I began creating web sites as an adolescent (as a interest), I’d spend late nights, sleeping simply 1-2 hours some days, tweaking my websites to perfection. This included the content material, graphics, and proper right down to the HTML syntax.
My websites needed to look nice at each decision and on each browser; the content material I produced needed to meet the very best conceivable commonplace. I used to be continuously making little edits like tiny one-pixel modifications and was very specific about how the whole lot seemed. It was an unbending, private commonplace that I had set for myself.
Such efforts paid off, as my web sites obtained over half one million pageviews a month. My guests may acknowledge the standard of my work in comparison with others.
Gaming
Then as an avid gamer, I used to be at all times perfecting my playthroughs in every sport. As a child, my brother would criticize me if I made errors that resulted within the character’s demise. 😑 This taught me to be very exact in how I executed every transfer and in attaining 100% perfection.
I fondly keep in mind how I broke all the highest scores in Loopy Taxi (a racing sport) and accomplished each bonus problem (a few of which had been insanely troublesome). I performed King of Fighters ’95 for months, perfected my attacking methods primarily based on the opponent, and gained it many instances on the hardest issue. In whole, I accomplished over 100 video games, from RPG to motion to racing video games, throughout my childhood!
In college, I usually took over undertaking work as a result of teammates slipping on their duties or simply to enhance the general commonplace. I spent plenty of time perfecting the output, proper right down to the nitty-gritty. If it was a presentation, the whole lot needed to have a constant look and theme, together with matching font sorts, font sizes, and colours. If it was a report, all of the content material and formatting needed to be seamless.
Regardless that it was on the expense of my time and relaxation, although I ended up doing way more work than different teammates, the tip end result was price it as we might get the perfect grade.
Then with my work at PE, I’m very meticulous in regards to the content material I create. For instance, with every course, I spend many months creating and refining my course supplies earlier than launching it. After I conduct a stay course, I’d spend one other few months bettering it primarily based on the individuals’ suggestions for that run.
I’m at all times totally enhancing each article, podcast, and video earlier than it will get revealed. Even then, I proceed to tweak and enhance my content material after that. Maybe that is why many readers respect my materials and share it; academics and professors alike use my materials as a part of their course curriculum.
The Outcome
Being a neurotic perfectionist helped me obtain immense outcomes and grow to be an overachiever in each space of my life. It helped me do properly at school, carry out properly in my company job, and excel in lots of objectives and tasks.
Nevertheless, as I grew older, I spotted that neurotic perfectionism has its damaging results as I share within the subsequent a part of the collection. Keep tuned.
To You
Are you a perfectionist? Are you able to determine with any of the indicators? What do you suppose is the reason for your perfectionist conduct? Let me know within the feedback part.
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That is half 1 of a 3-part collection on perfectionism: why being a perfectionist isn’t so good and overcome perfectionism.