Perfectionism can be a strongly held belief and a powerful driving force. It makes people continuously strive for improvement, and it makes damaging monsters of inner critics. Perfectionism leads to procrastination, paralysis, brutal self-punishment, and astonishing achievements that may go uncelebrated. Perfectionism can be considered a good thing and a bad thing, with confusion and contradiction never far away. In this piece I’ll pin my colours to the mast of perfectionism as generally being unhelpful. But perhaps I would say that, as an imperfectionist. (Although I tinkered with this post for much longer than I wanted, so maybe not).
Perfectionism blights the productivity of businesspeople and creatives, artists, writers. You have produced a piece of work you’re generally fine with, but you can always find the flaw, you can always edit. You always know the imperfection is there, and it makes you uneasy. You can't fully release it. There are nerves about sending it to your manager, distributing it to the team, putting it our there into the digital world, where it can be judged and criticised forever. Is it good enough? Will it be embarrassing, wrong, or somehow offensive? Maybe it's safer to just hold fire for now, get another opinion.
These things can cripple us.
Does 'perfect' really exist?
Your perfect is not my perfect, and mine is not yours. So does ‘perfect’ even really exist? Or, is it enough for perfect to exist for us and us alone? I don't really like the word 'perfect' on a basic level, just as I don't like the words 'normal' or 'talent'. They are reductive and lazy and if you look at them hard for a few moments, they fall over. Factors of control and failure are relevant stakeholders when it comes to perfectionism. If you are openly being a perfectionist with something, you are likely keeping a strong hold on your control, and you are fearing the exposure that comes with your precious baby being out of your control: failure, criticism, any perceived weakness, inaccuracy or imperfection.
Such fears can lead to inertia, stuckness, or over-deliberation, or the mismanagement of time. I’ll just read the document through one last time, at 3am, after reading it 17 times already. It can lead to nothing actually happening or being produced at all, and subsequent guilt and shame around that inhibition or stagnation.
Other perfectionist ideas
Much has been written and produced about perfectionism. Countless books and podcasts are available and easily searchable wherever you get your books and podcasts. One author of a perfectionist book, psychiatrist and self-proclaimed perfectionist Katherine Morgan Schafler, strongly embraces perfectionism, devising a model of five types of perfectionist. It’s certainly possible to see perfectionism as a framework upon which to build many psychological theories and ideas. There are many psychological frameworks available.
Another author, Damon Zahariades, promotes The Joy of Imperfection, and 18 Simple Steps to Silencing The Inner Critic. (I’m never sure our inner critics can be completely silenced forever, but it’s a lovely idea). Another nice idea of Zahariades is to begin daily micro-habits, in a bid to challenge that perfectionist inertia.
Letting go of perfectionism
To challenge perfectionistic tendencies, a process of learning to let go is useful:
Accept imperfection as a route to completing a project
Consider a more long-term perspective on learning or growth
Hear constructive feedback without a side order of threat
Criticism, judgement and rejection are not terminally wounding
You can choose whether to accept it, or not, publicly or privately
So perhaps it is not really that painful to share a sketchy photo on Instagram. New parents are faced with accepting failure as they learn the complex and humbling plumbing project that is a tiny baby. Bodily fluids will fly and leak and stink and get on your hands. When you begin a new job, or a hobby, a sport, or start dating, you are faced with failure and awkwardness in a bid to improve. It is part of the process.
Good enough
One of those now very dated but still often cited psychological terms is the “good enough mother” which was first used by Donald Winnicott in 1953. The British pediatrician and psychoanalyst used the term to address the perfectionist anxiety of new mothers, and describe mothers who were appropriately attuned to their child’s needs and able to make necessary adjustments, despite being ~gasp~ imperfect. This idea of ‘good enough’ can of course be extended to many things, to ourselves and the jobs we are doing. 'Good enough' can be powerful, and comforting.
It might be argued that perfectionistic tendencies can never be fully changed, so rooted are they in early attachment. And nor should they be if they are considered as overall positive driving forces. This is an individual judgement. Because they can be motivating and help in developing towards our best possible self. But those early roots in ‘enoughness’, could be explored, as well as any detrimental behaviours and habits they promote. Internalised shame around not being enough as a person can promote so-called perfectionism.
I often ponder the parental relationships of professional athletes, the early discipline involved in the journey to becoming an elite sportsperson, how parents might introject their own dreams in their children, how winning can sometimes appear to feel empty, when it should be the pinnacle. Consider the interview of golfer Scottie Scheffler, questioning the fulfilment he gets from golf, a sport demanding of individual perfectionism. To repeatedly set ourselves impossibly high bars, and punish ourselves for failing or not trying, or not succeeding well enough, feels to me like an unhealthy approach.
