Perfectionism: Introduction

What is it?
Perfectionism can be described as a personality trait that is characterized by a person's relentless striving for flawlessness, setting of very high performance standards, overly critical self-evaluations, and concerns about judgement from others evaluations. 

Perfectionism is not in itself bad as there are positive aspects, such as, high motivation to reach goals and satisfaction from achieving them.  However, in it's maladaptive form, perfectionism can cause individuals to set unrealistic goals and has them measure their self-worth by productivity or accomplishment.  This can lead to a decrease in self-esteem, feeling of failure, disappointment, sadness, and deep feelings of unworthiness.

What does maladaptive perfectionism look like?

• No room for mistakes
• All-or-nothing approach.  Either you do it perfectly or you don't do it at all. 
• Its all about the end result instead of the effort put forth 
• Extremely hard on yourself.  You bully yourself if something goes wrong.
• You become very sad when you do not achieve your goals.  You use a lot of " what if" statements and assume it must be your fault 
• Set very very high standards for yourself
• Procrastination, as you can start something until the timing is perfect
• Constantly spot mistakes when others do not see any
• Spend too much time trying to make something "perfect"

How does it affect us?

Having overly high personal standards and critical self-evaluations characteristic of unhealthy perfectionism can lead to a host of negative outcomes.  Notably, perfectionism is associated with various mental health concerns including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and eating disorders, as well as general distress. Perfectionism also takes a toll on our physical health, and has also been

associated with fatigue, insomnia, and chronic headaches.

Unhealthy perfectionists tend to exhibit fixed mindsets, or a belief that one is born with a specific, amount of talent and intelligence. This can lead to the avoidance of making mistakes because they tend to interpret failure as an indication that they have reached their maximum potential. They view effort as a weakness, and as a result, they fear failure and are unwilling to persist in difficult tasks.

So….

How can parents help their children with perfectionism? And what can kids do to challenge their own struggles with perfectionism?

You will have to wait for tomorrow’s post! 😊