Perfectionism can be a blessing and a curse. It promotes sharpened analytical skills, the ability to catch errors, high efficiency, high standards, and the desire to tackle more challenges. Conversely, it can spark crippling anxiety, fear of failure, and severe indecisiveness. Sometimes my perfectionism causes temporary blues, triggering periods where I struggle to regain positivity and motivation. Every morning before I get out of bed, I mentally evaluate all of my priorities and commitments just to function throughout the day. My personal achievements comprise a huge chunk of my self-esteem, probably because I’ve always been an overachiever and a competitor. From a young age, I was praised by my parents and teachers for my work ethic, which only encouraged me to go harder. It wasn’t until college that I discovered I wasn’t alone in being a perfectionist. When I read the book “Becoming” by Michelle Obama, she revealed that she too, struggled with overachieving and abiding by a self-imposed set of expectations. I finally had to admit that an excess of those “perfect” qualities can ultimately cause my downfall.
One saying I’ve frequently heard is that your biggest adversary (and supporter) is yourself. As I type this, I’m still subconsciously running over what I’ve finished and what needs to be done. Sometimes I feel like the most organized/unorganized person ever. I have so many thoughts racing through my head that just as I focus on one, it slips away and another emerges. My mind is so warped that the smallest things transform into a challenge, from writing a weekly schedule to remembering to eat (yes I know it’s terribly unhealthy, shame on me)! Another bad habit I adopted is inadvertently trying to mold my surroundings (and some people) according to my criteria, not realizing that it’s detrimental and counterproductive.
Not to go into great detail, but I’ve had many hospital stints while I was in college, mainly due to ailments that were self-induced. I indirectly contributed to my own health problems. I would pull all-nighters and skip meals because I had a paper to write or an exam tomorrow. During the semester, I often failed to complete a daily workout routine or spend time with friends because I was absorbed in my work. Don’t get me wrong, academics are important, but my health and social life suffered. I was actually hindering my own success by overworking. Yes, I might’ve aced my media ethics exam, or presented a well-written paper on Plato’s philosophy, but at what expense? I was later confined to bed rest for a week, everyone was worried about me, and I accumulated hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars in hospital bills, which placed a financial burden on me and my parents.
On Instagram, I was scrolling through the comments under my mental health post. If you guys haven’t read it, the post basically reminds my followers to take a 15-30 minute break from work (ironic right?). I even write a blurb underneath where I mention the benefits, such as rejuvenation, shortened recovery times, and preventing stress. One commenter wrote a piece of advice and it’s so true. They said life is an enjoyable journey and we can’t have a positive impact on others if we’re not taking care of ourselves. When I look back at my college experience, yes I have some fun memories, but I also have memories of stress, pain, and exhaustion, partially due to the unnecessary pressures that I enforced upon myself. I had to learn the hard way that there’s nothing wrong with having standards, especially for yourself, but make sure you’re not letting your perfectionism run wild to the point where you can’t even measure up to your own codes. It should be manageable, not impossible.
Although I’m still a work in progress, here’s 15 ways to end neurotic perfectionism! I took a few points from some insightful articles and elaborated on them (they’re located at the bottom of this post), others I came up with myself.
- Recognize that you’re a perfectionist (I know, it’s hard to face the brutal truth).
- Be grateful, things can always be worse: Thank God for what you do have and focus on the positive. For all my religious people, He will never leave you, nor forsake you.
- Establish a work-life balance: This is a cliché recommendation but remember, you’re human not a machine.
- Invest in a planner: You might already be doing this since you’re a perfectionist, but wipe out that mental to-do list and put it on paper. Make sure to break your tasks into reasonable chunks. Don’t overextend yourself.
- Identify your standards, evaluate if they’re too much, and adjust them: This applies to work and personal life. My college counselor once told me that you can’t mold people to your liking. Just because you have a certain set of rules and requirements, doesn’t mean everyone’s going to live by those same principles. Check yourself if your expectations are unreasonable or excessive. If you can’t compromise your standards and values, accept the fact that the person (or situation) isn’t going to change, then decide if that’s someone (or something) you want in your inner circle.
- Detach from social media: This can also contribute to your perfectionist tendencies. Take a break once in a while. I’ve had to do this on multiple occasions. Sometimes you find yourself indirectly comparing your life to others. As the saying goes, “don’t compare your behind-the-scenes to someone else’s highlight reel.” Social media isn’t always reality.
- Failure is okay: My favorite movie is “Meet The Robinsons” because it teaches that failure can be just as savory as success. When you achieve your goal, it’s even more rewarding when you recall the amount of time and effort it took to get there.
- Spend time with friends: Talk to them, they can be dealing with similar problems. The biggest mistake you can make during times of distress is choosing self-isolation.
- Shut up your inner critic sometimes: He or she can be a Debbie downer. There’s a difference between personally assessing areas you could use improvement on and degrading yourself.
- Challenge your inner critic: Ask yourself why do you have these standards? Present counter arguments if these standards seem absurd.
- Limit Multitasking: Multitasking is the playground of chaos. The quality of your work usually decreases if you bite off more than you can chew.
- Exercise: Go outside and get some fresh air for a bit (don’t be a couch potato like me).
- Watch your favorite YouTubers to take your mind off things: Mine are Eloho and LovelyTi! Taking some personal time isn’t wasted time, it can help you mentally recharge.
- Move on from said project and come back to it: You don’t want your brain to turn into mush.
- REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT PERFECT: This is self-explanatory. Life happens, situations happen and you can’t always control them. It’s unpredictable and that’s fine. Always living life by a checklist is boring.
More articles to save you from excessive perfectionism. Yay!
https://www.inc.com/matthew-jones/perfectionist-10-ways-to-stop-being-your-own-worst-enemy.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/hbr.org/amp/2019/04/how-to-manage-your-perfectionism
https://www.positivityblog.com/perfectionism-habits/
https://www.anxietycanada.com/articles/how-to-overcome-perfectionism/
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