A Perfection of Perfectionists

Perfectionists are very hard on themselves, often suffering from low self esteem. They often feel angry at themselves, experiencing shame or disgust or guilt for not living up to the unrealistic expectations they have of themselves. Unfortunately, perfectionists often expect everyone around them to be perfect too. It's no wonder that free-floating hostility permeates perfectionism.

The perfectionist fears success, because this leads others to expect future successes. Considering the low self esteem that characterizes perfectionists, this responsibility is a frightening one. That's why perfectionists are often procrastinators. They put off the start or end of a project, because they fear that the finished product won't meet their characteristically high standards. They wait until the last minute to start the job, and use the late start to excuse an inferior final result.

This was Ken's way. He was always late, finishing projects at the last minute and feeling frustrated. ``I know I could have done better than this, but I needed more time.'' he'd say. His perfectionism caused the procrastination that cost him valuable time. And if he did start a project early enough, he got stuck so long at doing one part of it ``just right'' that he always blew the schedule anyway.

Ken needed to adopt the attitude that helped psychologist Albert Ellis to be such a prolific author, in spite of a heavy professional schedule. Ellis explained that he simply refused to spend unreasonable time and effort in re-writing to make the product perfect. There is a balance, he said, between wanting to do the best job and using the time available most productively.

Try these remedies for perfectionism:

1. Stay in the moment to minimize worry about the next time and give yourself plenty of time for whatever you tackle.

2. Use cognitive reframing to establish more realistic expectations

3. Relax to quiet the anxiety that can energize your sense of time pressure, self punishing, guilt and embarrassment

4. Set goals that establish realistic criteria so you can base your success on a reasonable, planned level of performance

5. Practice systematic desensitization, in which you imagine situations where you allow yourself a less than perfect performance. Relax during the imagery and say to yourself, ``I can do a pretty good job (perfect or not) and I'll start now, rather than avoid doing a job at all, or procrastinating until a poor job is inevitable so I have to make an excuse that I didn't have enough time left to do it.'' Base your performance evaluation on the time available for the project and say to yourself,``This is the best I can do with the time, energy and resources open to me.''

-Rob Keal-