РУС
It’s absolutely useless at this stage in your life, with all of the shit piled up in your closet, to walk around and try to kid yourself about your perfection.
– Swami Rudrananda
Being a perfectionist, i.e. a person who strives to do everything “perfectly”, I started wondering to what extent perfectionism was helping or hindering the achievement of goals in my life.
At first glance, the pursuit of perfection is a wonderful thing. Perfectionism indicates the presence of an inner motivation and pushes us toward development; it keeps us from freezing in place. It is common for us, perfectionists, to readily admit that we are perfectionists – this quality is considered to be on the whole positive in our culture, and we are readily willing to recognize some of our minor flaws. If at a workshop one would ask the question: “Who here is a perfectionist?”, many hands are usually seen to rise.
However, the pursuit of perfection can also become a serious obstacle to achieving goals. When faced with failures, perfectionists worry a lot more; their self-esteem tends to plummet just from an awareness of the mistakes that had been made. In the end, their achievements come at a high price. As the English actor and screenwriter John Cheese beautifully put it:
The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people’s respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this “perfectionism” is likely to stimulate the production of better work, it doesn’t, unfortunately, go hand in hand with a relaxed and happy attitude to life.
Worse yet, the pain felt from mistakes made can lead to a false belief that the most important thing in life is to eliminate mistakes, that making mistakes is bad. Perfectionists evaluate success in life according to the principle: “less mistakes is more success“. As a result, they avoid situations in which they can make a mistake, and having made a mistake, they deny it in every possible way. Thus internal motivation unexpectedly leads to stagnation. In psychology this is termed “neurotic perfectionism.”
The essence of neurotic perfectionism can be expressed in one sentence:
We choose to be right and not to be happy.
The desire to be right may be reflected by different degrees of obstinacy:
(a) The refusal to admit mistakes even to oneself (“I am always right”);
(b) Admitting an error, but refusing to admit one’s weaknesses, which were what caused the error (“yes, I was wrong, but, in general, I am just fine, it was an accident”);
(c) Admitting mistakes and weaknesses to oneself, but not to others. The reasoning behind this type of behavior is clear – “If the mistakes are seen only by myself, that is half the trouble, but if others see them, then – oh, the horror!!!”
According to psychologists, neurotic perfectionism often derives from childhood experiences. The chances of becoming a perfectionist are higher for children who have been faced with:
* detachment – this is when the parents do not give the child sufficient warmth, love and emotional support (showing detachment and indirect criticism – as opposed to direct criticism);
* conditional love – this is when the parents show their love depending on the results of the child’s activity, which they themselves evaluate. The parent shows that he/she is satisfied with the child only if the child has achieved something, or has spent a lot of time on something;
* high expectations – this is when the parents (with the best of intentions) set a very high standard for the child. The child’s task is then to meet their hopes and expectations, and often also to do what the parents themselves could not do (to achieve what the parents could not achieve);
* hindered separation – this is when the parents cannot accept the natural separation of children as they grow up, and approve of their behavior only if the children remain dependent on the parents. Often, this type of parent has problems in their “adult” relationships, and the relationship with the child compensates for the insufficiency of these other relationships.
Naturally, children of perfectionist parents have a higher chance of becoming perfectionists. They inherit the sins of their fathers, so to speak.
One of the most severe manifestations of perfectionism is the desire for defeat. Of course, at the conscious level, the perfectionist does not seek defeat. However, upon having barely achieved something and then wanting to improve the result, he/she sets higher and higher goals, raising the bar higher and higher. Sooner or later (sometimes immediately), he/she sets the bar so high that it cannot be met. The result is defeat, and in life it often manifests in not just the failure to take on another height, but also the destruction of the results of previous hard work.
This resembles the way a weightlifter might increase and increase the weight being lifted until he gets injured. Then, with this injury, he can no longer take on even the weight which he could handle with ease initially.
So what is a perfectionist to do?
Perfectionism is a great motivator if used correctly. It’s just that one needs to understand that the meaning of life is not to eliminate mistakes. The meaning of life is just the opposite: it is to make mistakes, and then to notice and correct them. To correct those personality traits that led to an error. Mistakes are a natural, normal part of the learning process in life. It is likewise impossible to learn how to play chess without losing some matches, or to learn how to box without getting hit. The more we make mistakes, the more our weaknesses surface. Weaknesses cannot be corrected while they remain invisible.
Acknowledging one’s mistakes and searching for constructive criticism are practical ways of making neurotic perfectionism useful. Another useful mehod is to practice outsourcing (a perfectionist usually tries to do everything themselves, because others will not do things as well), and also searching for (and not in any way avoiding) situations where one may bare one’s imperfections.
If we do not just understand this intellectually, but also deep inside ourselves, then perfectionism becomes perfectly appropriate. It turns into perfectionism in correcting mistakes and oneself.
Specifically oneself, and not others ?. Alas, for many perfectionists it is characteristic to notice the lack of perfection in the world around them and especially in those who are close. But this approach is the first sign of imperfection.
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
– Joseph Addison, 18th century
But what about the desire for defeat? This desire is the result of incorrect beliefs. It is necessary to learn to set goals clearly, to determine the criteria for achieving success and the price of its achievement.
And the day will come!
