Losing Perfectionism to Embrace Living and Doing

Published August 6, 2024 by Zencare Team and written by Matthew G. Mandelbaum, PhD

Have you ever wanted to be a part of an exclusive club that is seemingly prestigious and costs a fortune? Perfectionism is just the sort of club.

Many people experience perfectionism, but not always to the extent that it becomes seriously problematic. But for some, perfectionism can affect relationships, participation at work or school, or other usual daily activities. There is an ongoing debate among researchers about whether some level of perfectionism can actually be helpful at times. Some experts have differentiated perfectionism from the desire to excel. They suggest that the desire to excel can be helpful, motivating people to perform well and achieve, whereas perfectionism is usually more problematic.

In this article we’ll dive into what perfectionism is, how to navigate it and provide some tools to help you on your journey of self-improvement.

a person looking at themselves in the mirror

Are you in the Perfectionist Club?

Perfectionism can be seen as a function of three domains and corresponding subdomains:

Chart showing perfectionism as a function of three domains and corresponding subdomains

Can you see yourself in any of these domains? Many of us have been there. Many people have a combination of these factors.

If you can see yourself in the table above, you’re not alone.  

Does the experience of perfectionism feel yucky? Yes? Here may be why.

Hewitt’s research has led to the understanding how perfectionism leads to the following challenges:

Chart showing Hewitt’s research on how perfectionism leads to certain challenges

Have you experienced any of these? Not so much fun is it?

The process of perfectionism removes our energy away from solving problems and being in the world. To move beyond perfectionism, we need to integrate internal and external resources, within ourselves and within the world to make our lives better to achieve success.  

The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. — Babe Ruth

If we don’t unite, we undermine ourselves.

Perfectionism is like the Netflix show The Mole. While working hard as a team to win, someone in your crew is undermining the experience and taking money out of the pot.  This team can be within yourself or in your groups in the world.

As an intelligent and sensitive person, you deserve to utilize skill to live a good life.

Tools for navigating perfectionism

Drawing on Mindfulness Skills from Dialectical Behavior Therapy, we can learn how to:

We learn to see what is instead of what should be so that we can guide our decision-making, acting, and being.

Applying DBT Tools

Now, I invite you to utilize these tools to evaluate the following story adapted by this author from Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.  

In a ceramics class, the professor divides the students into two rooms.

In one room, the class is judged on quality, in the second they are judged by quantity.

The quality room needs only to make one perfect pot and the quantity room would be evaluated by the weight of all pots made.

Before continuing, ask yourself which group would you like to be in?  Which group do you gravitate towards?  Who do you think did better?  Which group do you suppose were able to use the above tools?

At the time of grading, the highest quality group was made by the quantity group who learned from their experience and continued making pots while making mistakes.  The quality group were stuck on the theories of perfection and analysis that led to their demise.  

Were you surprised with the outcome? Would you switch groups now knowing the outcome? How can we move to the second group more often?

We may be able to lose the need for perfectionism when we see how it is ineffective and expensive.  

Consider how these quotes support the outcome:

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence —Vince Lombardi  

Have no fear of perfection — you'll never reach it. — Salvador Dali

It's not about finding relevance or perfection or imperfection in objects, but it's that you can accept yourself and then go out and accept others. — Jeff Koons

Self-improvement and losing perfectionism

What would you do to improve yourself while losing perfectionism?

Ask yourself:

  1. Can we increase our understanding of nuance to be mindful of situations and know how to proceed?
  2. Can we define contextualized situations where we replace perfectionism with viable alternatives to have success?
  3. Can we relate to this example to feel validated in our own experience?

To do so:

The answers to replacing perfectionism with effectiveness may lie in seeking to understand nuance and context when using mindfulness in achievement and in living.

Perfectionism has an either/or component. It is this or that. Such a debate stops the capacity for development and may inhibit humanism.  Moving away from perfection would allow for a both/and solution, where understanding parts of a system and the system as a whole allows for richer solutions.  

Decisions are made on considering various perspectives, and developing an understanding of what makes sense in the present moment.

The understanding of choices involves comprehending subjective valuations of situations and the real world context. For example, if we both went to Starbucks, you decide your favorite drink. I chose my favorite drink. My favorite drink is not necessarily yours and that’s ok, even desirable, loving and perhaps better than perfect, because we have achieved enjoyment.  

In fact, mixing mindfulness and preferences can provide understanding, nuance and context to lead to a richer capacity to make decisions, create, and produce.  

Replacing perfectionism with context and nuance may be a step in the right direction that may lead to liberation and exploration.

Whether you have a current membership or an honorary membership to the perfectionist club, your membership need not be permanent or life-long. Give yourself permission to ease out of the club.  Learn, wonder, be curious and make a mark on your life to honor the fact that you don’t know everything and that is ok.  Your interaction with the world can lead to discoveries not yet thought of (which makes sense because they are called discoveries).  

If you are seeking ways to add to your capacities to live in the moment and make progress to your hopes and dreams, therapy might be the answer.  Find the right match for where you are today, not where you were or where you want to be.  Engage in the process of becoming. You deserve it.

Dr. Matthew G. Mandelbaum, PhD is a licensed psychologist with authority to practice in 43 states. He works with highly-intelligent, highly-sensitive people.

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