Being a perfectionist can sometimes really be a struggle. The constant pressure on myself, the unrealistic standards, never thinking something is good enough, and the inability to receive compliments since in my opinion I always could have done better. Oh, and then there is the procrastination; constantly putting things off until I drive myself crazy, all because achieving that perfection seems like such a huge mountain to climb.
If you can relate, keep reading…
‘Perfectionism’ is a term that is coined often in daily life and people claim to be a perfectionist all the time. What exactly is it though? Here’s one definition:
‘Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high-performance standards, accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.’[1]
This definition in itself is not perfect though (pun intended), because there is an important distinction to be made between someone who simply strives for excellence and someone that is a perfectionist. People that strive for excellence can still be satisfied with something that is excellent, but not perfect. They focus on success and what they have accomplished.
The perfectionist, However, will never be happy unless something is absolutely perfect. Even if they only made one minor mistake and the rest is perfect, they feel like they have failed. Everyone else might think they did an excellent job and compliment them for it, and others might not even have noticed the mistake, but that is all meaningless because they themselves know that they have failed.
Thus, perfectionists have a negative orientation: instead of focussing on success, perfectionists are most focused on avoiding failure. With this mindset, they are always looking for faults instead of successes… and as every perfectionist knows, there are always faults to find and therefore we will never be satisfied.
More on this distinction later, but it sounds like a pretty self-defeating way to live huh? Yeah, I know, but it’s still something many people struggle with.
Here are a few further characteristics that will help you figure out whether you truly are a perfectionist:
- You find faults in everything you do
- You put pressure on yourself to achieve unrealistically high standards
- You can’t acknowledge success
- You’re not very good at receiving compliments
- You tend to procrastinate
- You spend way more time on tasks than you should because you try to perfect everything
- You are extremely hard on yourself and are busy thinking about what you could have or should have done differently all the time
- You obsessively focus on end results
- You always criticize yourself but get defensive when someone else criticizes you
There is a good chance that you recognise yourself in at least a few of these things, so you probably are at least partly a perfectionist (is that even possible? To imperfectly be a perfectionist?!?). Now, you might be wondering if it really is a bad thing to be a perfectionist, because why would there be anything wrong with striving for perfection, avoiding failure, and being self-critical?
Is Perfectionism Really that bad?
Well, this comes back to the distinction between people that strive for excellence and people that demand perfection. I’d say being high-achieving can be a good thing, while perfectionism usually is quite destructive. Let’s delve into that a little further.
Some people think of themselves as perfectionists when really, they are just high achievers. They have high standards for themselves and others, and always strive to do their best. They are organized, conscientious, and are persistent when the going gets tough. They are punctual and always meet or exceed expectations, be it at work, school or other. However, unlike perfectionists, they don’t feel like a complete failure when they don’t quite meet their goals.
Being a high achiever is great. It motivates you to do well and will help you to distinguish yourself in your field. Furthermore, the focus is on the positive and successes. This is all very healthy and admirable. Some people refer to this as ‘adaptive perfectionism’ though, so in that sense, perfectionism can be positive I suppose. I wouldn’t call them ‘real perfectionists’ though.
When it comes to true perfectionists (also referred to as maladaptive perfectionism), the story is different. As mentioned earlier, perfectionists have a negative focus: faults. They are always looking for faults and are incredibly competent at always finding some. This means they can never achieve their goal of perfection.
The result is that, contrary to high achievers, perfectionists often have low self-esteem. They are always self-critical and every time they find a fault it confirms their failure. Even when they do something close to perfect, it means that they have failed.
The irony is that perfectionists can’t really take criticism from others because it indicates failure and they get defensive, while high achievers see criticism as crucial information and an opportunity to grow. This is related to the fear of failure. High achievers don’t fear failure so much because they know that it will be an opportunity for growth. Perfectionists can’t stand the idea of failure and fear it greatly.
One result of this fear is that perfectionists often put things off until the last minute. Even though it might sound paradoxical that perfectionists tend to procrastinate, perfectionism and procrastination go hand in hand. The thought of doing something imperfectly can be so overwhelming that it immobilizes perfectionists and they simply can’t do anything anymore (boy have I had experiences with this, especially when writing. I’d be just staring at my screen for hours without getting a word on paper).
Perfectionist set impossible goals and tend to just focus on the results instead of the process. A high achiever can enjoy the process, while a perfectionist usually can’t because his or her eye is only on the goal of perfection. One side effect of not really being able to enjoy the process of learning and growing is that perfectionists can be unpleasant to work with.
Besides, the whole concept of perfection is a bit crazy. It is an abstraction that does not exist in reality. Nothing in this world is perfect, so to demand it is like trying to get to the end of a never-ending tunnel. So, if you are a perfectionist, you’re pretty delusional when it comes to reality, which in my opinion is never a good thing.
In short, perfectionists are pretty delusional, insecure, they get less done, and they are more stressed out. Doesn’t seem like a good deal. Simply be a high achiever instead and learn to work and grow from your faults and enjoy that process!
That’s all easier said than done though, and a story usually drives the point home way better than simply talking about it.
The Story That Will Change Your View
This story originates from the YouTube famous Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahm [2]. I first heard this story years ago and it changed my life. It completely shifted how I look at things and was a great help with my perfectionist tendencies. Still, whenever I tend to slip into perfectionism I think of this story and it usually helps me to look at things differently.
He has told this story in his dharma talks on YouTube, but he has also written it down in his enlightening book Opening the Door of Your Heart. In the book, the story is called ‘Two bad bricks’. It goes like this:
‘It may look easy to lay a brick: just a dollop of mortar underneath, a little tap here, a little tap there. When I began laying bricks, I’d tap one corner down to make it level and another corner would go up. So, I’d tap that corner down then the brick would move out of line. After I’d nudged it back into line, the first corner would be too high again. You try it!
Ajahn Brahm ‘two bad bricks’ in Opening the Door of your Heart [3]
Being a monk, I had patience and as much time as I needed. I made sure every single brick was perfect, no matter how long it took. Eventually, I completed my first brick wall and stood back to admire it. It was only then that I noticed – oh no! – I’d missed two bricks. All the other bricks were nicely in line, but these two were inclined at an angle. They looked terrible. They spoiled the whole wall. They ruined it.
By then, the cement mortar was too hard for the bricks to be taken out, so I asked the abbot if I could knock the wall down and start over again – or, even better, blow it up. I’d made a mess of it and I was very embarrassed. The abbot said no, the wall had to stay.
When I showed our first visitors around our fledgeling monastery, I always tried to avoid taking them past my brick wall. I hated anyone seeing it. Then one day, some three or four months after I finished it, I was walking with a visitor and he saw the wall.
‘That’s a nice wall,’ he casually remarked. ‘Sir,’ I replied in surprise, ‘have you left your glasses in your car? Are you visually impaired? Can’t you see those two bad bricks which spoil the whole wall?’
What he said next changed my whole view of that wall, of myself, and of many other aspects of life. He said, ‘Yes. I can see those two bad bricks. But I can also see the 998 good bricks as well.’
I was stunned. For the first time in over three months, I could see other bricks in that wall apart from the two mistakes. Above, below, to the left and to the right of the bad bricks were good bricks, perfect bricks. Moreover, the perfect bricks were many, many more than the two bad bricks.
Before, my eyes would focus exclusively on my two mistakes; I was blind to everything else. That was why I couldn’t bear looking at that wall, or having others see it. That was why I wanted to destroy it. Now that I could see the good bricks, the wall didn’t look so bad after all. It was, as the visitor had said, ‘a nice brick wall’. It’s still there now, twenty years later, but I’ve forgotten exactly where those bad bricks are. I literally cannot see those mistakes anymore. […]
I have told this anecdote many times. After one occasion, a builder came up to me and told me a professional secret. ‘We builders always make mistakes,’ he said, ‘but we tell our clients that it is ‘an original feature’ with no other house in the neighbourhood like it. And then we charge them a couple of thousand dollars extra!’
So the ‘unique features’ in your house probably started out as a mistake. In the same way. What you might take to be mistakes in yourself, in your partner, or in life in general, can become ‘unique features’, enriching your time here, once you stop focusing on them exclusively.
This story is incredibly relevant in a time where divorce seems to be the standard rather than the exception.
How many marriages or relationships end because all people can see are a couple of ‘bad bricks’ in their partner?
Moreover, how many people become depressed or even commit suicide because all they can see are their own two ‘bad bricks’?[4]
Whether we only see the bad couple of bricks in ourselves or in others, it is important to take a step back and actually see reality for what it is: there are way more good bricks, even perfect bricks, than bad bricks.
Unfortunately, many people only see the bad bricks, and like the monk, want to destroy a perfectly good wall; in the worst case, they actually end up blowing it up altogether. They delete or quit a project they were working on, they end a relationship, or worse, they commit suicide. However, there are perfect bricks to the left, to the right, above, and below the two bad bricks and we can choose to focus on those.
Better yet, don’t just focus on the good bricks but like the builder, try to see the ‘bad bricks’ as ‘original features’ and use them to increase the perceived value of our self, of others, and of the things we do, and if it concerns work, make sure to charge a little extra for your imperfections!
Did you like this story?
Check out Ajahn Brahm’s book Opening the Door of Your Heart. It is a book full of more insightful stories that will change your life!
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Notes
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology)
[2] Check out his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/BuddhistSocietyWA
[3] First Chapter ‘Two Bad Bricks’ in Ajahn Brahm, (2011), Opening the Door of Your Heart. Australia: Hachette Australia.
[4] According to the American Psychological Association, since the 1980s perfectionism has increased significantly among young people (Curran, T., & Hill, A. P. (2017). Perfectionism Is Increasing Over Time: A Meta-Analysis of Birth Cohort Differences From 1989 to 2016. Psychological Bulletin.). This probably has something to do with the (social) media and the constant exposure to perceived ‘perfect’ lives and bodies. Furthermore, perfectionism contributes to stress and has been linked with an increased chance of suicidal tendencies (Smith, M. M., Sherry, S. B., Chen, S., Saklofske, D. H., Mushquash, C., Flett, G. L., & Hewitt, P. L. (2018). The perniciousness of perfectionism: A meta‐analytic review of the perfectionism–suicide relationship. Journal of Personality, 86(3), 522-542. doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12333).
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