Is Perfectionism a Superpower or an Enemy?

(5/10) This story forms the fifth part of a 10-part article series, exploring the messy intersection between pursuing happiness and how perfectionism holds us back. Subscribe to The Hard Truth to be notified of the next release.

She shakes her head to herself and notices she had drifted off from where she was working away at her desk. The last few weeks, she has been working on this big project that she was specifically given by her manager. She likes to think it’s because she has always done an exceptional job on the projects in the past, and this one was an important one for the company. Deep down, she is excited because she thinks, if she does a great job on this project, she might be up for a promotion.

As she clicks the send button, she smirks to herself and feels a sense of pride how much she’s nailed this piece of work.

Days later, she is in her one-to-one meeting with her manager. Her manager says Thanks so much for sending through the project work, you’ve done a great job at getting it started, however the brief has changed, so do you mind if we go through it now with just some thoughts I have?

She can feel herself shift in her seat, Yeah, sure.

As her manager goes through the feedback, she can feel the discomfort in her belly rise through her. You’re a fool thinking you did a great job. Clearly the feedback shows you didn’t. How do you expect to get a promotion one day if you cannot even get this right? She begins to berate herself.

Hmm? Her thoughts are interrupted by her manager looking at with an inquiring face. Sorry, yes, yes, the comma should be added there. Thank you.

She continues to hear the thoughts, toppling over one another, ignoring the fact that the brief changed but feeling like the feedback is instead a reflection of her and her abilities.

Jessica?, her manager interrupts her thoughts again. I was just saying you’ve done a great job, and sorry again that the brief had changed.

As she closes her eyes to get up and leaves the office, she can hear her mind tell her… don’t be a fool, you were never going to do good enough anyway.?

Perfectionism is one of those terms we hear often, and normally we hear in an awkward self-deprecating way, but really someone might be trying to gloat, “Oh, I am just such a perfectionist”, usually trying to justify spending longer on something than we needed to and justifying why they are so ‘pedantic’.

A common place we also hear it is in the beloved job interview. After all, who doesn’t love the answer to ‘what is your main development area?’, ‘well, you know I am your classic perfectionist!’, giggling to yourself, hoping that deep down the hiring manager will love to hire someone who doesn’t make mistakes.?

For years, I was guilty of this answer, and even though my answer in interviews hasn’t changed, the meaning of that answer has.

I always thought my perfectionism was good for me. I thought the perfectionism only made me good at what I do, it made me avoid mistakes, take extra care checking everything multiple times, looking good for the company I worked for. I thought it only helped me push myself harder and produce great outcomes.

But, over the years, I’ve learned that it is my perfectionism that can also hold me back. Most of the time, it hasn’t even been a conscious thought though – but it is the subtle feeling of discomfort when something wasn’t ‘perfect’ that I might have ended up withdrawing, self-sabotaging or not persisting through the discomfort of the imperfectness. I couldn’t hear feedback from managers unless I had additional time to process, and any feedback would perpetuate on my mind for weeks.

After every talk or workshop, even if I got glowing feedback, I would spend weeks telling myself it wasn’t good enough.

Unlike what many people think, it is not the case that you’re either a perfectionist or not a perfectionist, as though there are only two categories of where you could fall. Instead, like many constructs in psychology, perfectionism operates along a continuum where you might be low or high in perfectionism (or somewhere in between!), which can also change based on the context.

When we think about what perfectionism is, we typically think of those who simply want everything to be perfect, all the ducks lined up with no errors – we cannot blame ourselves for this as it is in the name, after all!

But this is a misconception of perfectionism - it isn’t simply about getting things right all the time. There are plenty of people with healthy levels of perfectionism, who have high goals and aim to strive high, and, in turn, don’t like to make mistakes. But it is the evaluation of these mistakes that make the difference.

The important distinction is that a term we refer to as maladaptive perfectionism, when our self-worth is attached to the success of that goal and the prevalence of errors.

Someone who has adaptive levels of perfectionism strives for the goal, but when they don’t achieve it, although they still may feel a negative emotional response, it doesn’t affect their overall sense of self-worth.

While, for someone who is high in maladaptive perfectionism, their self-worth is tied to the outcomes of their goals. Not only is the self-worth contingent on only achieving a goal, but it is the need for continuous achievement.

?In this way, we can have a love hate relationship with perfectionism.

?As someone once said along my travels, “perfectionism can be your superpower, but it can also be your biggest enemy”.

The discomfort of not getting things 100% right becomes so uncomfortable for someone with high levels of maladaptive perfectionism, they might end up giving up before they even try, or they try so hard that they push themselves to being unwell.

What I’ve learned is that perfectionism isn’t the problem, maladaptive perfectionism is.

In a world we celebrate big wins, we avoid making errors, we choose what other people can see about us on social media, we create a perception not only for ourselves but for those around us, that we are invincible and that failure isn’t an option.

Nowadays, I like to ask myself, does the extra 5% of effort matter? For a long time, I would get to a point of borderline ‘break down’ when creating a piece of work because I would spend hours on that last 5% of the project, then in reality, nobody would have noticed.

These are some of the questions I reflected on that we can think, in any given moment, whether the perfectionism is helping you or hindering you…

• Do you struggle to try new things in the fear that you won’t be very good at it straight away, worried what others might think?
• Do you feel uncomfortable when you make a mistake and hear yourself say generalised statements about your sense of self? E.g., Gosh, I am useless.
• Do you disproportionately focus on negative feedback, even when you also received positive feedback?
• Do you provide yourself with external reasons for why you did a good job, but then criticise yourself internally when you didn’t do a good job?
• Do you feel a sense of failure when you don't do something perfectly, and spend unnecessary amounts of time thinking about it?

It is OK to be high in perfectionism, it is OK to want to do a really good job and meet your goals with minimal errors, but if your sense of self is dependent on the success of those goals, then it might be time to start think about the price you’re paying for your perfectionism to hang around.

Being high in perfectionism and having a maladaptive relationship with success isn’t something that might easily noticed. But, when we do not address the unhelpful perfectionism, we may end letting our bodies and minds take the toll…and this is where we see the hard fall from perfectionism...

Subscribe to the series to learn more about maladaptive perfectionism in the next article and strategies to overcome it.

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