Emotional Support Sisters

“C’s get degrees.”

I heard this phrase when I was in college. And it felt like blasphemy. 

I mean, yes, it may well be true that for some degrees you don’t need to get A’s and

B’s. But I can tell you that this mindset goes against everything my brain says is right and good.

It feels fundamentally flawed to aim for anything other than the best. 

As a result, you better believe I was one of those straight A, 4.0 GPA, honor students in high school. I never got below an A-¹ on ANY of my report cards from kindergarten to graduating from college. I got a 32 on the ACT and considered taking it again to try to get a better score². In college I didn’t quite manage a 4.0 GPA. I got a 3.982 GPA, because I had two A-. And you know what? It still irks me that I didn’t graduate Summa Cum Laude. I was so close. I wasn’t satisfied unless I had phenomenal scores.

In my academic life, I have always been a high achiever. It doesn’t stop there, though. I have applied those same expectations for and of myself in just about every³ area of my life for as long as I can remember. 

In case you were wondering, yes, I do deal with anxiety, depression, and OCD. How’d you guess?

Last week I wrote about toxic positivity. This week I want to touch on toxic perfectionism.

What brings perfectionism to the high-falutin title of toxic perfectionism?

One aspect is the scope. If I aim for perfection when I am painting a room, that’s probably okay. It’ll motivate me to put in the extra time and effort necessary to make the end result look really nice. It drives me to pay attention to details, and sometimes that is essential for the task at hand. If I aim for perfection in my schoolwork, finances, relationships, hobbies, morality, housework, nutrition, appearance, and everything else under the sun, all the time, I’m going to have some problems.

Scope ties into the next feature, which is whether the behavior is adaptive or maladaptive. A surgeon meticulously scrubbing their hands prior to surgery is an adaptive behavior. That same meticulous scrubbing is going to be maladaptive when it interferes with day-to-day life and when it causes harm to your hands from excessive washing.

The third point about toxic perfectionism is the motivation, as it differs from non-toxic perfectionism.

It seems there is an elusive breed of human who tend toward perfectionism because they are motivated by the satisfaction of a job well done and a desire to improve. At least, so I’ve heard. It may turn out to be a myth.

Whether that particular unicorn exists or not, that’s certainly not my motivation. Which is why my perfectionism falls squarely in the toxic category.

Toxic perfectionism is motivated primarily by fear. Fear of failure. Fear of criticism. Fear of being wrong. Fear of being looked down on. Fear of what lacking perfection might indicate about me. Fear of hurting someone else. 

The specific fears may vary from person to person, but it still remains rooted in fear.

This may seem like a silly question, but why is toxic perfectionism bad? I mean, it feels weird to say that we shouldn’t encourage people to do the best they can in all aspects of their life. What am I supposed to do instead? “Bye Honey, have a mediocre day at work. I hope you screw up.” That doesn’t seem right. And that’s because it isn’t. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Why is toxic perfectionism bad?

Obviously, one of the problems accompanying toxic perfectionism is the fear and anxiety that both causes and results from toxic perfectionism. Living in fear is kind of a poopy way to live. Trust me. Toxic perfectionism can also lead to depression, which is another obvious result. If I believe that I am only acceptable if I don’t make any mistakes, then I’m only going to feel like a worthwhile human being every once in a while, and it’s going to be fleeting. The rest of the time I’ll be excessively self-critical, feel a buttload of guilt, and view myself as having no value. That’s another pretty poopy way to live. Trust me. 

Most people who struggle with toxic perfectionism apply the unrealistically high standards to themselves and to those around them. When others inevitably fail to meet the unmeetable standards, this can affect relationships. I’m not just talking about close, personal relationships either. Relationships with coworkers, fellow students, other drivers on the road, and even the random cashier helping you check out at the store can be affected. While we generally don’t care about those relationships quite as much as sibling, parent, spouse, etc. type relationships, having a tiff with every person you meet is going to impact your overall quality of life. Add to that the very real possibility of alienating your dear loved ones, and you can see why this is a problem.

I said that I was a high achiever academically. It isn’t quite as cut and dry as that. Because of toxic perfectionism, I avoided hard things. I avoided things that might challenge me. I avoided things that I could potentially fail at. That aspect of toxic perfectionism is sometimes overlooked. In conjunction with guilt, anxiety, and depression, toxic perfectionism can cause issues with avoidance and procrastination. And by that I mean both putting things off until later and putting things off until never. 

Oh boy. I am very definitely fully aware of the impact that can have on a person’s life. 

Here are a few examples:

• I don’t want to start cleaning the bathroom because I’m going to want to clean it until “it shines like the top of the Chrysler Building⁴”. That’s going to take a lot of time and effort. And if I don’t have the time or energy to invest in it, I don’t want to do it at all.
• Picking up hobbies or developing skills is hard because if I don’t do it right within my first couple of tries, I get discouraged and give up. Even if I just think that I won’t be able to pick it up quickly, I may not try it in the first place.
• I chose classes that I felt confident I could do well in. I didn’t risk the possibility of struggling with my classwork. 
• As I sit at my desk and look around the room, I can see at least a dozen⁵ things I would like to do or take care of but I haven’t done so yet because I’m too overwhelmed by what it would take to complete the task to my standard.

It is hard to find a balance between “do your best” and “only the best is good enough”. At least, it is for me. The desire to perform to the highest degree possible is not an inherently bad thing. It can be a really good thing. Positivity can also be a very good thing. Until it becomes toxic. What do I do to find that balance?

Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.

I have not found that balance. 

Nevertheless: I am trying, and I am getting better at it. At not letting perfectionism stop me. At not letting perfectionism make me feel like a crap human being. I am learning to accept the mistakes I make and I’m learning to accept the risk of possibly making a mistake. 

First and foremost: I am a Christian⁶. My religion and my belief are an integral part of who I am. I admit: some of my toxic perfectionism stems from the religious culture I have grown up in. In the past decade, I have more and more recognized how my faith in Jesus Christ helps me escape that toxicity. Yes, I want to be righteous and I want to avoid sin. And I know that I’ll mess up. And I know that God knows that I know that I’ll mess up. We both know that I will make mistakes and sin and drop the ball in all sorts of ways. It is so much easier to have compassion for myself, to forgive myself for making mistakes, when I know that’s what Christ does. I believe that no matter how badly I screw up, through His grace anything can be put right. That security is pivotal to helping me conquer toxic perfectionism.

There are a couple of secular things that have helped me as well. The first is simply identifying what is going on. I recognize the mental dialogue/monologue⁷ that goes on for what it is: toxic perfectionism. Here are some more examples pulled straight from my own experience:

• “I have to organize the room. If there are still things I don’t know where to put them when I’m done, then that means I have failed. So I need to know exactly what I’m going to do with everything before I start.” 
• “I want to learn to be more confident. But I can’t think of anything worse than being accused of having more confidence than my skill/knowledge/ability warrants, so I’ll keep being/acting insecure to avoid that happening.” 
• “I have yet to finish the painting of a hummingbird that I started pre-COVID because I can’t get the feet right. If the feet don’t look right then the whole painting is crap.” 
• “I can’t leave at the same time as someone else because then they will see me driving and will judge me if I make any mistakes.”

I’m learning to engage with those thoughts beyond “failure is scary so no”. I’m asking myself things like: “What would likely⁸ happen if I made a mistake?” “What would it look like if I did this thing because I wanted to rather than because I fear what will happen if I don’t do it?” “Is it okay if I’m not very good at it?” “If I were talking to my best friend, what would I tell her?⁹”

The other thing that has helped me is a bit of advice. I am deeply reluctant to ever offer this as advice, because it’s not going to be helpful for everyone. In fact, for some people, it might be very, very, VERY bad advice. I am not liable for the choices you make after receiving my advice.

That being said, it has been a life changer for me.

Most of us have heard the adage, “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”

That advice fuels my toxic perfectionism.

The advice I am now passing on to you, dear reader¹⁰, with great trepidation, is this:

If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly.

Hold up! Before you throw your device out the window, hear me out. 

If something is worth doing, and the need to do it well is preventing you from even attempting it, then know that doing it poorly is better than leaving it undone. 

The bathroom? Clorox wipes are fine.

Going to that social gathering? Yeah, I’ll probably feel a little silly when I make mistakes, but at least I will have done something to fulfill the basic human need for some social interaction.

The hummingbird painting? I may never get around to fixing the feet. That doesn’t mean it has to sit in my closet.

Exercise goals? Exercising once a week for 20 minutes is better than exercising no times a week for 30 minutes.

I forgot to not eat before surgery? Actually, that’s an example of where this advice does not apply. Do not eat before surgery or you might die. For reals.

The blog post doesn’t flow as nicely as I would like it to? Writing a less than stellar post is okay, because at least I got something written. And whether it helps someone else or not, it helps me.

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Footnotes

1. Specific assignments may have had lower grades than that, but the cumulative grade on the report card was never lower than an A-. ↩︎
2. My parents helped me recognize that there was no need for me to retake the ACT, so I didn’t. ↩︎
3. I say “just about every”, but only because I’m sure there have been some exceptions. I just don’t remember them. ↩︎
4. Name that movie! ↩︎
5. Initially,  I wrote “dozens of things”, but then I counted to make sure I wasn’t exaggerating. “Dozens” is an exaggeration. “At least a dozen” is not an exaggeration. ↩︎
6. While religion is an integral part of who I am, I know that is not true for everyone. If advice relating to faith isn’t your cup of tea, I don’t have a problem with that. I hope you don’t have a problem that it is my cup of tea. ↩︎
7. I know I’m technically talking to myself, but sometimes it feels more like a dialogue between two (or more) different parts of me. ↩︎
8. Notice I  ask what is likely to happen, not what could possibly happen. Those are two very different questions. ↩︎
9. I am  grateful that my particular breed of toxic perfectionism does not lead me to demand perfection from others. Not because I’ve conquered that particular demon, but because that demon generally leaves me alone. ↩︎
10. Name that book! ↩︎