4 Tips to Make Peace with Drive-Yourself-Crazy Perfectionism

My friend Naomi and I were doing our weekly walk on River Rd in Titusville. As we often do, we were reflecting on our lives and learning. Till she said something that stopped me in my sneakers. 

“And I don’t have to be perfect!”

“Woah! I love that!” Her honest, vulnerable owning of how her perfectionism had impacted her relationships and her life, had me thinking for days. Oh, how my perfectionist-self has caused me and my loved ones such unnecessary suffering! Our conversation gave me pause to look deeper at the many faces of perfectionism in my life, its cost, its gifts (as surprising as that sounds) and the opportunity…to grow.

First, the Gift of Perfectionism

Being a perfectionist may be what you or a loved one has needed to do to survive or gain acceptance as a child. It also may help you to reach high levels of accomplishment in your work or pursuing your creative passions.

In my home, I grew up with a bipolar mom and a perfectionist dad. Because of my mother’s illness, she didn’t give much attention to details in anything she did, nor did she teach me the skills other moms taught their girls. This led me to look for “the right way” to do things outside of my home. I became resourceful and receptive at finding learning all around me. The downside though was that I believed there was a “right way,” to do things (which my adult self knows is totally false.) I was constantly comparing myself to others and coming up short.

My dad on the other hand corrected my grammar until he was in his late 80’s. Talk about opposites!  Yet his expectations that I communicate well inspired me to love writing and to have the deep fulfillment of writing my book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good. And though personal growth books weren’t something he’d read, I’m sure he’s smiling down on me from Heaven.

While perfectionism can spur us on to work up to our highest potential, it can come at great cost.

The Cost of Perfectionism

The definition from psychology tells a lot: A perfectionist is someone who strives for flawlessness and sets excessively high standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concern regarding others’ evaluations of oneself. To a perfectionist, anything that’s less than perfect is unacceptable.

Does that sound anything like you or someone you love or work with? I confess, it is so me.

The cost of perfection as you can see from the definition, and probably know in your gut as I do, is it can guide us to set ridiculously unrealistic expectations of ourselves. Ooh, the countless times I’ve been hard on myself—brutally critical, for not having mastered something new…yesterday. Or for making a mistake…or saying something that may have hurt someone’s feelings…or not being as good as someone else, or not anticipating something I should have…Those are my perfectionist triggers (at least the ones I’m aware of). How about you? What are your triggers that unleash a tirade of self-criticism for not measuring up?

When I was writing my book, I came across some research that has had a profound impact on my awareness of the damage my perfectionist-self causes. And even better it’s given me a healing tool, I hope will help you, too.

Dr. Kristin Neff in her book, Self-Compassion, says it’s human to make mistakes and be imperfect. It’s not just us, but everyone who is imperfect. Because we’re human. What freedom that’s given me!

“It is a beautiful experience being with ourselves at a level of complete acceptance. When that begins to happen, when you give up resistance and needing to be perfect, a peace will come over you as you have never known. ”

— Ruth Fishel

Since then, I’ve become a detective in search of noticing when I get down on myself for unrealistic expectations and reframing my response with more acceptance. If I forget something, (isn’t that awful) I will hear myself say in a judgy voice, “Gail, uh, you made a mistake! Why didn’t you think of that?” “Mistake” became a signal word for me to replace what I was saying with kindness and acceptance. “It’s OK Gail. You’re human. Next time you’ll do better.”

Your 4 Takeaway Tips

1.     Eliminate the word “perfect” from your vocabulary! Just using the word keeps us hooked to the unrealistically achievable. While you’re at it eliminate “should,” too. “Should” is not a choice but can feel like an expectation of what a perfect person would do.

2.     Strive to be human instead of perfect. Embrace your fallible humanity with kindness and self-compassion.  Try saying, “It’s OK, you’re human. You’ll do better next time.”

3.     Become a detective of your own perfectionism. Discover your trigger experiences that lead you to be self-critical and have unrealistic expectations. Then reframe those statements with kindness and acceptance.

4.     Be a good enoughist as my friend Jamie wisely suggested in her book, Less Stress Life. When it’s not important that something be just so, accept it as good enough!

I love coaching people on embracing their humanity and being kinder to themselves. Contact me at gail@uppcoach.com for a free one-hour session to explore some new possibilities to be kinder to yourself. And go to my website www.uppcoach.com to learn more and read reviews about my coaching. Wishing you greater ease and self-acceptance!

I love nothing more than speaking to groups about how to develop a positive mindset; ways to improve their relationships and connections at home or work; and how to create a balanced life you love. You can contact me for more information about talks and workshops at gail@theaffirmingway.com.

Be Your Own Cheerleader: Dealing with Negative Self-Talk

I am so guilty of beating myself up needlessly with negative self-talk. In my book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good, I wrote about my negative self-talk habit in the past tense. But, the slow-down of forward movement in my life, thanks to Covid-19, has brought my old, familiar, undermining voice back.

I first became aware of her (my negative voice) again, during a conversation with a friend who’s a life coach.

My Negative Self-Talk

Jamie was telling me a story about coaching someone with a self-defeatist attitude and it was as if my phone alarm was chiming. “I can’t believe you just said that! Gus and I do puzzles after dinner every night. When I’m working on a section that’s hard, I say things like, ’The piece must be missing. I can’t do this, it’s too hard!’’

“How could you reframe that statement?” she asked.

I knew what she was getting at. I had available to me broader, more positive ways of looking at this minor difficulty. “I could say something like, ‘Hang in there. You eventually always connect the pieces.’”

“How does that statement feel compared to the other?”

“Empowered.” Yes. I could see how the words I say to myself could fuel or fizzle my power.

Feeling more discouraged than usual, my ears were perked to listen for any other self-defeatist talk.

A few days later, I began researching bloggers who wrote about similar subjects to me. I hoped to find someone with a large following who might invite me to be a guest blogger. The ones that appealed to me had from 80,000-100,000 followers.

OMG! To have that many followers! They’re in a different universe than me.

And there she was. My old comparing-self-to-others voice. I was intimidated by the disparity between their number of followers and mine, and went right to putting myself down. So mean of me!

So…

Take a Positive Action

In a kind, compassionate voice that I’d offer anyone else, I say to myself, “I am so sorry, Gailie, for speaking to you that way. You are hard-working and capable, you’ve accomplished many other goals, and you will do this, too!”

Through years of living with my nasty self-talk voice, I’ve developed my own inner cheerleader to soothe and uplift myself. I know she may sound very rah rah, but isn’t that what cheerleaders do?

The way my process works, once I have awareness, I instinctively work at shifting my perspective. Sometimes encouraging self-talk is all I need to make the inner change, but often I turn to my inner circle of people who help me see things from a larger more positive perspective.

Shift Your Point of View

Thanks to Covid-19 (I know it’s hard to imagine it has some silver linings), my husband, Gus and I have dinner and talk every night on our deck taking in the beauty of the pines, our silver maple, and the slowly setting sun lighting up our grass a neon green. Sipping chilled sauvignon blanc I say,

“Honey, you know that ‘I’ll never find the puzzle piece’ thing I say every night, well today I noticed that attitude is spreading. I found two bloggers who I’d like to reach out to as a guest blogger, but they have something like 100,000 followers. No way they’d be interested in me.”

“The sky is falling!”

“Aw, come on. I don’t catastrophize like I used to.”

“How long have those bloggers been at it?”

I grabbed my iphone and googled their histories. “One has been at it for thirteen years and the other ten.”

“See! Developing a following takes time. It’s like expecting a fifth grader to write a college thesis. Give yourself a break and be patient, Gailie. You’ll get there.”

Gus gave me perspective, and I could have kissed his feet. I felt all kinds of things: permission to be a beginner, undeserving of self-putdowns, reigning in of my expectations of my number of blog readers. And if Gussie didn’t help me see the bigger picture, I would have called my sister or my closest friend.

Your Takeaways

• Listen to the things you say to yourself. If you catch yourself speaking negatively, know that it is in your power to change the message.

• Take a positive action and respond to your negative self-talk in a kind, compassionate voice. Encourage yourself and remind yourself of past successes as I did. Become your own cheerleader!

• Shift to a broader more positive perspective by speaking to someone you can rely on for that, or by self-reflection or journaling. Another possibility is to turn to a good book, such as Infinite Possibilities by Michael Dooley.

• Develop an affirmation to repeat each time you encounter the situation that gave rise to the negative self-talk. With puzzles I now say: Hang in there, in time you always connect the pieces.” With blogging I say: Be patient. Developing a following takes time. You’re making a difference person by person.” I really repeat these phrases to myself and feel much more confident.

Why not let these Covid-19 times be an impetus to shift your self-talk to the positive side!

If you like what you read here, check out my award-winning book available on Amazon that can help you have more fulfilling connections with everyone in your life:

The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good