The Paralysis of Perfectionism

(First published 3/11/2020)

In our culture, as in many cultures, we tend to see perfectionism as an enviable trait. Doesn’t it mean that we have high standards, that we’ll settle for nothing less than excellence? Well, sure. But the dark aspect of perfectionism is that it doesn’t stop there.

Perfectionism isn’t about being perfect – not really. It’s not about striving for the best possible result and being gratified when we reach it. It’s really just an endless spinning on a hamster wheel to get to an unachievable destination. Because perfectionism is really all about the feeling that what we create or produce will NEVER be perfect – that no matter how exceptional it is, it will never be enough. 

Perfectionism sets an unrealistically high performance standard, and confuses the inability to meet it with mediocrity.

I used to have a manager who was proud to proclaim that she was a perfectionist. I’m sure she thought her impossibly high standards were something to be admired. We spent many evenings at the office working and reworking one paragraph or even one sentence to death, often ending up with the original one. Our team won awards for our work, yet after the accolades, back in the privacy of her office, our boss would focus on the small things that “went wrong.”

I began to have anxiety about doing my work, knowing that no matter how good it might be, or how much praise my clients might give me, it wouldn’t measure up to what my boss wanted. There was no joy in doing my work, I became anxious about it, and eventually, I no longer had it in me to even try.

Perfectionism does that to others who must work with the perfectionist. But it also impacts the perfectionist, herself. In my boss’ case, the late nights, early mornings, and constant roiling of cortisol in her system have impacted her health with migraines, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea (when she does try to sleep). It has also impacted the turnover on the team she leads. She talks about these consequences as evidence of her hard work and perfectionism.

We can leave a perfectionist manager, and we can avoid others who are toxic perfectionists, but what about when we ourselves are perfectionists about our work? Perfectionism damages our creative well-being by immobilizing creativity and sucking the joy out of it.

None of us is immune, from time to time, from having a perfectionist bent toward our creative work. When we do:

• Creating feels like a chore because of the stress of producing something perfect. No matter how fabulous our creation is, it never quite measures up, or it always needs just one more thing to make it better.

• We don’t allow room for exploring possibilities, for seeing the beauty in a mistake, for allowing others to enjoy experiencing our work even if it doesn’t turn out how we had envisioned. We may even scoff at someone who praises our work.

• There’s so much pressure to perform to an impossible standard that creating makes us grumpy or anxious instead of happy or fulfilled.

• We derive our worth from how well or how poorly others receive what we create (or how we they’ll receive it).

• We become prisoners of our own self-criticism and all-or-nothing thinking.  

• All we can see in a finished piece is what’s wrong with it. Or we simply aren’t able to finish a piece for the same reason.

We can’t just “snap out of” perfectionism, but we can begin to help our brains be receptive to other ways of thinking about our work. We can tame the perfectionist and keep her from ravaging our creativity. Here are a few small ways to start:

• Approach creative work with the mind of a beginner. Sometimes, our expertise, knowledge, and previous experience (and pride) get in the way of our receiving a fresh new take on our work.  

  
  

• When we receive praise, really receive it. Instead of dismissing positive feedback, listen to the reasons why the observer liked our work. When we scoff at a compliment, what we’re really saying is, “Silly novice. You don’t know enough about this, or you wouldn’t be enjoying it.”

• Ask ourselves what it would feel like if we could accept even five percent less perfection in our work? Imagine the possibilities for our creative work if we viewed a “mistake” as a new creative direction.

Creativity thrives on the allowing of possibilities and the exploration of detours. It blooms from the relaxing of the mind so that the imagination can run free and a little wild. Perfectionism smothers the joy of the process and robs us of these opportunities.