The dark side of perfectionism. The hidden costs you need to know

Discover the dark side of perfectionism, its hidden costs, and why it's not worth it. Learn practical solutions to break free so you can be your true self.

*This is the written version of 'its not you' podcast episode 48

One of the very specific memories that I have is sitting at my desk in my bedroom at home. I was about twelve years old.

My dad had given me government papers to fill out, and this was so I could get my own Social Insurance card. Which in the UK I believe is called National Insurance number, and in the US is Social Security number, I believe.

In any case, I got VERY. SPECIFIC. orders. "Do not write outside of the lines."

Well, I wrote outside of the lines.

It wasn't intentional. I remember I used to have - like a lot of kids - really big handwriting. I wrote outside the lines and my dad beat the shit out of me. I'll just cut to the chase.

So I believe that along with a whole lot of other small, incremental things (well, that wasn't small), that wasn't small, but a lot of other things were. That caused me to be a perfectionist.

Because we learned from a very young age, if we don't do something right, there are severe consequences. And one of the offshoots of behavior is perfectionism.

Perfectionists have learned that we are rewarded with approval and love when we get everything right.

And when we don't, we get that anxiety or disappointment from our parents, which we immediately interpret as rejection or punishment.

And this is often because our parents are also perfectionists.

So let's break this down a little bit. If I'm a perfectionist, my underlying goal is to be loved and accepted.
I'm trying to avoid pain and go toward pleasure, so I will do whatever it takes to gain acceptance.

And that also applies to your parents. Which means they're also insecure and looking for acceptance. And that translates to things like social acceptance, status, and inner, inner self-assuredness.

So the parent's self-esteem is contingent on the child's behavior. In the mind of a perfectionistic parent, if the child behaves badly, they internalize it. They make it about them, and they say things to themselves like, "This shows how bad of a mother I am (or father)."

They then end up dumping that self-criticism onto the child. And then when the child needs reassurances or support or guidance from the parent, the parent reacts angrily, or with disappointment.

And not with love that the child needs at that time. Then that floods the child with shame. So, for instance, let's say your child is in a school play and they did poorly. They know within themselves that they did poorly.

So after the play, they come to you for comfort and security and a safe place to fall from their embarrassment. And what they get from you is cold, heartless disapproval that they think is about them.

But it's really about their parents. Their parents who are wondering how many people that witness that is going to laugh at them.

So rather than being there for you or for the child because you need love, comfort and support, they're making it all about them. And then, it comes out at you.

They're projecting their own insecurities onto you as if it's your job to make them feel good. This all signals to the child that who they are isn't enough.

And no matter what they do isn't good enough. And this is one of the probably main causes for that inner dialog that we have, for why we feel unworthy.

I mean, it makes sense, does it not? If you are a child feeling like you're doing your best and you can't get that approval from your perfectionist parents, then it really does seem like no matter how hard I try, nothing is good enough. So there must be something wrong with me.

But it's not you.

It's the expectation of the parents.

They expected you to be perfect so their world or their social group wouldn't see that they are not perfect.

Thus begins the point at which we start losing our true selves. When we spend all of our days trying to fit in, do the right thing so we may not be excluded, rejected, judged, ridiculed. And instead gain love and acceptance.

Worse yet, you live your entire adult life trying to please your parents. Foregoing your own joy, fulfillment, happiness, peace of mind, and everyday saying to yourself, I don't know who I am anymore.

So it won't be a surprise to you then, that mood disorders are quite prevalent with perfectionists.

Depression, anxiety, OCD tendencies, performance anxiety, social anxiety.

And I'm sure the list doesn't stop there.

Now, let's look at perfectionism from a few different angles.

One, you're not just pleasing your parents anymore. If you have perfectionism, chances are you're going through life - because of these disorders I just mentioned - you're trying to please everybody.
Which means everybody has control over you and your mood and your decisions and the way you live your life. Everybody but you.

Most perfectionists outwardly express that they're a perfectionist, as if it's some kind of a badge of honor.

But what you don't understand is whether consciously or unconsciously, people take advantage of that. I did. And for me, honestly, it was unconscious. And looking back, I don't feel good about it at all.

I would hire people who were perfectionists. Why? Because their work had to be perfect. And that meant, to me, it meant it had to be perfect for my expectations.

So I never did this, but I could literally have somebody go over something eight times until it met my expectations. And a perfectionist wouldn't say a word because their esteem is dependent upon doing a good job for me (or whoever they're working for).

And of course, me being a perfectionist, everything had to also be just so. So the employee is working with their own perfectionism and then getting hammered with the employer's perfectionism.

You became a perfectionist as a protective measure to feel a sense of security, safety, love and acceptance.

But as an adult, it's the exact opposite.
You're getting used, abused, taken advantage of, and discarded because nobody's going to think of you a second time.

Unless, of course, they want your services. They'll tell all their friends about you because they know to what lengths you'll go to to make them happy at the expense of your own happiness and well being. You become a target. Let's just call it what it is. You become a target.

"Oh, go hire her. Go hire him. They'll do whatever you want." Sure, you'll come across as a nice guy or the nice gal. Underneath all that...eventually you're going to feel anger and resentment, and sooner or later, you're going to blow.

Which brings me to point number two. When you blow, it will have nothing to do with them. This is all about you and your stuff. And what it all comes down to is your inability to just be your true self, to say and do what you want without fear of repercussions.

And again, the reason you fear repercussions is because it's still that young child brain that is running the show right now. Your nervous system is still drawing upon those young memories of actions equal consequence.

To recap, if you are a perfectionist and you're really honest with yourself, you will see that when you get angry at other people, it isn't about them at all.
It's about what's going on inside of you and your frustration within yourself for not being able to be true to yourself and your true desires.

And your parents are the same, or whoever instilled this in you is the same. They have not been honest with themselves, therefore, they have not gone in and dealt with their inner demons.

They had you there to change who you were, to distract themselves from what was going on inside.

So now that you know this, where do you go from here?

With perfectionism comes an internal dialog which keeps us trapped in a negative loop.

And ultimately frozen in fear when we do try to make advances toward something different, toward being our true selves.

As mentioned earlier, it could be, "What's wrong with me? Why is nothing I ever do good enough?"

It could even be - if you're afraid to say, be your true self in front of your friends - you try to be that perfect friend.

"Well, what if I'm my true self and not perfect? And what if my friends reject me?Then I'll be isolated, alone.
What if I stand up to my mother and she gets angry and doesn't want to see me again?"

So these are loops going around and around and around in your head, keeping you trapped in perfectionism.

So the first thing to do is to slay your inner demon.

The first thing I'm going to suggest to slay your inner demon is to bring your awareness to what it is you're actually saying to yourself.

Which means you're going to need to slow yourself down so you can hear and track them. When you do this and you start to see what you're saying to yourself, you might feel inclined to beat yourself up for having these thoughts.

Don't go there. First of all, no one is going to see them. And second of all, everybody has them.

It's just that not everybody wants to admit it. Everybody has negative thoughts like yours. It doesn't matter what your thoughts are, everybody has them to one degree or another.

So please be easy on yourself.

This is a natural occurrence for me. Now, I do this often, but I still miss some because I'm distracted with other things. But I'll tell you, one of the best times to track your thoughts is when you're feeling really low.

I started doing that, and every now and again I get really down and instead of allowing myself to stay there, spiral deeper, I start tracking my thoughts and literally writing them down as I'm in that state.

So not only does it prevent me from going deeper, it makes me aware of what is causing that state in the first place.

I'm not suggesting you wait until you're in a really depressive state, but if you find yourself there, it is a beautiful time to start unraveling what got you there in the first place.

The next thing I'm going to suggest is finding something that you enjoy, something that's pleasurable for you to interrupt the pattern between when you get that thought and waiting... okay...you're stopping the negative pattern right there in its tracks.

And you're going to replace it with something that brings you joy, something that you love. Maybe you love horseback riding.

You get the negative thought and immediately you bring upon the image in your mind of riding a horse you're taking on, then all of the experience of you riding the horse, thus interrupting the negative pattern and overriding all of the sensations you get from the negative pattern.

So two things to start. One, track your negative thoughts and write them down. Two, keep a list of all the things that bring you joy, whether it's dancing, singing, taking a road trip, hanging out with specific people, the peace you feel at the beach, cuddling with your dog.

Whatever it is that brings you pleasure and joy. You want to replace that negative thinking with one of those things you're going to write down.

Now. It's going to, like everything, take practice. If you're a music lover and you're quite savvy, you could create a playlist - - if you don't have, one of your favorite upbeat songs. And the minute you have a thought, click on your music and start blasting that upbeat music in place of that thought.

Now, I say savvy because while that is a really good way to do it, it's also very clunky. So again, create a list of things that really bring you joy. And because you've taken the time to write down your negative thoughts, you are now aware of them.

And you'll be more apt to spot them before they start looping. When you spot them, you replace that negative thought with the memory of something pleasurable for you, and you loop that intentionally in your mind to replace that negative thought.
And what this does is it interrupts your previous response.

There's a space between hearing something and action.

And you're in that space putting something pleasurable for you, which interrupts your reaction. Now, if we're, in this case, we're talking about our inner thoughts, and you're stopping the looping of those thoughts.

So you're stopping the spiraling into potentially a depression or anxiety or stress. And because you're replacing it with something pleasurable, this means that your output will be pleasurable. At the very least, neutral.

Because you're neutralizing the negative emotions associated with the negative thoughts. And once you practice this enough, you'll start to see that you do, in fact, have control over your thoughts.

So let's try something. Right now, I want you to think about something that really pisses you off and just focus on it just for a few seconds. Bring up a memory of something that's really got your goat right now.

Okay. Just notice how it feels in your body and even where you feel it. Feel where you feel that angst in your body. Now, I want you to think about a really pleasant thought, one of your favorite memories, or something that makes you feel giddy or joyful.

Go ahead and do that now.

Now, in that instant, you were able to switch from something negative to something positive. You made that decision to bring in a different thought.
So all you have to do now is what I've laid out for you is just to gain control of the thoughts - to become aware - I should say, of the thoughts that are coming in. And then you step in and you replace them with something better.

This will help you from stopping reacting, whether you're in a situation with someone where you want to react.

This will help you from going into a spiral if you're in a battle with your inner demon.

And this will also curb your perfectionism. Because once you get a handle on the negative thinking, that's keeping you stuck from moving forward, because everything has to be perfect, it's going to dial down the inner dialog that's also keeping you stuck and second guessing yourself.

Now, earlier on, I mentioned I'm going to give you two things to help you transition out of perfectionism. And this one, compassion.

Compassion for yourself and for those in your life who are perfectionists, who don't understand what you understand now.
Because now that you know the root of it, the symptoms of it, now that you know that the reason for your perfectionism is not because you're a flawed soul. You're not.

And most likely, neither are they. So when you look at yourself now with compassion, ease and grace, now that you know what you know, perhaps you can look at others who suffer with perfectionism with that same compassion, ease and grace.

The difference here is you now know what caused it. They don't. They're still working with old mental programs. And depending on who they are, even if you told them what you just learned, they might not even listen.

And that's okay too, because you've heard the old saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. They're not ready.

I want to cover one more thing. When you show someone compassion, that does not mean you're giving them the go to abuse you. It's exactly the opposite. When you have compassion for someone, you soften.

And oftentimes they feel that because that's an exchange of energy, and they soften as well. But if not when you soften, you soften your judgment, but your resolve stays firm, which means you will stop judging them and being and feeling harsh towards them.

Because now that you know what you know, and now that you know that they don't know what you know, it's kind of hard not to feel a little bit a compassion.

Especially since you may have been guilty of doing the same thing as what they have been doing.

But compassion does not mean complacency. It means you're no longer judging them because you have compassion for where they're at, and also because they don't know what you now know.

But your resolve to never allow this to happen to you again becomes stronger.

And you won't have to do a thing.