n. the tendency to demand of others or of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, in excess of what is required by the situation. It is associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health problems.
Source: APA Dictionary of Psychology
Striving for perfection is encouraged in many areas of our life today. We are constantly bombarded with captions such as ‘the perfect morning routine’, ‘perfect diet plan’, ‘perfect abs’. However, is it realistically possible to become flawless and achieve the unrealistic standards?
Social media has created a world in which everyone seems ecstatic. We are shown pictures of models, who are society’s standard of perfection, but the images are not real; they are airbrushed. Many people only chose to post when they are at their best. Why would they want to expose their weak traits to the rest of the world? It is unreasonable to compare yourself to all the supermodels and influencers online as only one part of their life is shown, not the whole truth.
There seems to be a correlation between perfectionism and eating disorders. However, the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. Studies have shown that people with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa tend to have higher levels of perfectionism than people who don’t have eating disorders.[1] Although so far it is unclear whether one causes the other or not.
Perfectionism can cause a person to become obsessed with their weight, diet, exercise routine to portray the ‘perfect’ image to the world. A person might set himself a goal for the perfect weight, but when they finally reach the number, they are still not satisfied. This starts a vicious circle of dieting which in the process brings a lot of stress, sadness, and anxiety.
What are the signs of perfectionism?
Perfectionists have some behavioral traits that they seem to posses in order to keep up with the flawless lifestyle.
- All or Nothing thinking
Perfectionists don’t accept anything less than perfect. ‘Almost perfect’ is seen as a failure. When perfectionists feel like they won’t be able to complete a task perfectly, they won’t take it on.
- Goal driven
The end product or result is seen as the most important part of the process. All the progress make throughout the completion of the task is discounted.
- Being highly critical
Perfectionists have very demanding standards for themselves which others might consider absurd. Some standards aren’t even reasonable. When perfectionists complete a task, they discount everything good that they achieved and focus only on the imperfections. ‘I should’ve done better’. This also links to self-esteem. If perfectionists feel like they didn’t achieve the set goal, they feel like a failure and are very critical of themselves. They self-worth depends on what they accomplished.
- No place for mistakes
Perfectionists don’t allow themselves to make mistakes.
“I am very understanding that other people can make mistakes, but I can’t”
- Procrastination
This might seem paradoxical, but perfectionists tend to procrastinate quite often. Due to the fear of failure, people postpone the task as they don’t believe that they can complete it perfectly.
Perfectionism doesn’t necessarily have to be present in all areas of our lives. It can occur in some, but not the others. For example:
- Academic work
- Career
- Physical activity
- Neatness in environment and surroundings
- Relationships and friendships
- Physical appearance
- Hygiene and health
What are the ways to cope with perfectionism
Always striving to be perfect can be mentally draining and cause depression or burn outs.
One of the most common treatments for perfectionism is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). This therapy technique aims to change people’s thought pattern. CBT rests on the assumption that the way people think and interpret life’s events affects how they behave and feel. Treatment helps to change current thoughts of the patient that prevent them from being happy. CBT challenges and alters cognitive distortions and develops coping strategies that target solving problems faced by the individual.
Cognitive distortions are habitual ways of thinking that are often inaccurate or negatively based.
These include:
- Overgeneralizing everything
‘nothing good ever happens’, ‘everything is awful’
- Disqualifying the positive
Discounting the good things that have happened
- Magnification (catastrophization) or minimization
Blowing things out of proportion, of inappropriately shrinking somehting to make it seem less important
- Mental filter
Only paying attention to certain types of evidence: noticing only failures but not seeing the successes
- Jumping to conclusions
o Mind reading (imagining we know what others are thinking)
o Fortune telling (predicting the future)
- Emotional reasoning
Assuming that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true: I feel embarrassed I must be an idiot
During therapy people try to unlearn their negative reactions to events and develop healthier responses. Therapists will ask the patience to describe the troubling situation and the emotions felt after the event happened. Afterwards patient will be encouraged to ask himself whether his view of a situation is based on fact or on an inaccurate perception of what's going on. This step can be very difficult as it consists of seeing beyond longstanding ways of thinking that have become a habit. The therapists will help the patient to come up with a reasonable response to the situation and analyze whether the original reaction was sensible. As the therapy process goes on, the therapist may ask to do homework — activities, tracking emotions, journaling or practices that build on what was learned during regular therapy sessions — and encourage the patient to apply what was learned in daily life. This should encourage patience to manage their problems and replace the old, negative way of thinking with a positive one. With time the patient should no longer be negatively impacted by all the problems which occurred due the distorted way of thinking.
Treating perfectionism can help people to recover from eating disorders. Researchers have found that in some patience with eating disorders during the recovery process perfectionistic symptoms were reduced to levels similar to those found in people without eating disorders. [2] Perfectionism is considered to be one of the four key factors that maintain eating disorders.[3] Targeting it can help individuals to recover.
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