SYSK TRENDING - Why Perfectionism Isn’t Perfect

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1:28Being a perfectionist sounds like a good thing. You have high standards. You pay attention to details. You want things done right. What could be wrong with that? Well, quite a lot. Perfectionism can make you procrastinate, obsess over mistakes, avoid risks, and make it difficult to enjoy your own success. In fact, perfectionists may actually accomplish less because they're so worried about getting everything right. That's why today's SYSK trending topic is why perfectionism isn't perfect. So, where does perfectionism come from? And how do you stop chasing perfect without lowering your standards?

2:11Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo is a psychologist and author who has studied perfectionism extensively. She's here to explain why trying to be perfect may be holding you back. And we'll get to my conversation with her right after this. I imagine most of us shop for clothes online, at least some of the time. And there's always that little mystery. Is what shows up at your door actually going to look like what you think you ordered? We've all had that experience. I know my wife has ordered dresses that look beautiful in the pictures. But when they arrived, not so beautiful. Cheap looking, disappointing. And that's one of the reasons we've become such big fans of Quince.

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4:12Perfectionist. It's one of those words that seems to have some good qualities and some bad qualities. I mean, if you're going to do something, why not do it right? Why not do it perfectly? On the other hand, the world isn't perfect. We aren't perfect. And having that standard that everything must be perfect can be a heavy burden to bear. Whether you are or are not a perfectionist, or maybe you even know a perfectionist, I think you're going to enjoy hearing clinical psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo and what she has to say on the topic of perfectionism. She is author of the book, Better Than Perfect, Seven Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and Create a Life You Love.

4:56Hi, Elizabeth. Welcome. Thanks so much. It's great to be here. So what is perfectionism? How do you define it? What's your definition? So a lot of people think of perfectionism are those people who have a really neat junk drawer where everything is categorized. But the way that I view perfectionism is much broader. It's an all-or-nothing mentality. Something's perfect or it's a failure. It's right or it's wrong. It's the way that I think things should be or wrong. And that all-or-nothing mentality can really get in the way of our relationships, of our health, and of our functioning in the world.

5:32Because we expect so much. Because we expect so much of others and ourselves. So, you know, a lot of people say to me, well, I'm not really a perfectionist. I know someone who is, but it's not me. And then I ask them to take the Better Than Perfect quiz. And when they do that, they are often amazed at how much perfectionism does play a role in their lives. As a matter of fact, when Better Than Perfect first came out, I did a media tour, and one of the interviews was on the Today Show. and I had about five producers who were working on the segment, and the head producer pulled me aside and said, just so you know, we all, except for one person, denied being perfectionist until we took your quiz, and all of us scored really high.

6:14So a lot of times it's not even something that we are aware of because our society is very all or nothing. We are very, you made one mistake, so you're a failure kind of mentality, and so a lot of us have internalized that. So help me figure out if I'm a perfectionist or not. What's in that quiz? Help me know. Well, I mean, everything from you think in terms of all or nothing. I had one cookie and messed up my diet. I might as well have the whole plate. You know, that kind of all or nothing. Are you a procrastinator? So people who put things off tend to be perfectionistic. Oh, it's going to be boring.

6:51It's going to be hard. I don't know how to do it, so I'm not even going to start. Maybe the perfectionism comes in your work. You made a presentation. You had a conversation with someone. And all you can focus on is that one little mistake that you made. You replay it over and over and over. What you should have said, what you shouldn't have said. I call that pressing on a bruise. It doesn't feel good. But a lot of times we do that to replay it. That's perfectionistic thinking. So what's the difference, though, between being a perfectionist and just wanting to do well and wanting to learn from your mistakes and wanting to get it right the next time?

7:28I mean, where's the line? So that second thing that you just described is what I call being better than perfect. A perfectionist thinks in all or nothing terms. Again, something's perfect or it's a failure, but then they take it one step further. If it's a failure, then I'm a failure. They personalize their failures. They personalize their mistakes. And perfectionism is actually perpetuated, a lot of alliteration there, is actually perpetuated by a fear of failure. People often say, oh, I'm not a perfectionist. I don't think I'm perfect. No perfectionist thinks they're perfect. A perfectionist is so fearful of failure that they are going to do whatever they can to prevent it from happening.

8:06A lot of this, I would imagine, has to do with that little voice inside your head that is constantly telling you, not only do you need to be perfect, but in fact you suck at everything. Yes. It's that inner critic. And here's the thing. I don't think everyone realizes that every single person has an inner critic. Sometimes it may be silent. Sometimes it may be screaming in your ear. But we all have an inner critic. And the thing about perfectionism or inner critic is when we are at a low level of stress, when things are going pretty well, that inner critic isn't so loud. Or even if they're speaking to us, we can rationalize it.

8:44Oh, come on. I don't suck. I just made a mistake. We can keep that open mentality. mentality. But as stress levels start to increase, that's when we go from seeing everything, putting everything in perspective, to focusing on the negative. In psychology, we call it negative filtering. So focusing almost exclusively on the negative. And this is why someone, a very rational individual, can say, no, no, I know it doesn't have to be perfect. It's okay if I made a mistake. But when stress levels are high, we personalize it. It becomes more overbearing for us. Do you find that people are perfectionist in one or a few areas of their life and maybe not so much in others?

9:26Yes, definitely. There are definitely areas, for some people it's their health. So maybe they're very regimented with their eating or their workouts. For some people it's their work. So they're very meticulous. They're the micromanager. So even if they have delegated a responsibility off to someone else, They are going to double-check and triple-check and quadruple-check to make sure that those people are doing it. But they may not have that mentality in other areas of their life. And it really goes into our self-worth. How we view ourselves, our worthiness, plays an impact on every single interaction and every single interpretation that we have.

10:07And I like to differentiate between conditional self-worth based on conditions and unconditional self-worth. So conditional self-worth means I believe in myself if. I believe in myself if people agree with me. I believe in myself if I look a certain way, if I have a certain amount of money. I believe in myself if I do things correctly. And that conditional self-worth is very taxing because you're constantly scanning the environment to determine how you're going to view yourself. And when stress levels get higher, we tend to pull into that more, be more conditional in terms of our self-worth. The goal is unconditional self-worth.

10:45And unconditional self-worth means you believe in yourself regardless. Not in a narcissistic, I'm better than everyone else sort of way. That's actually very conditional self-worth. But unconditional self-worth is really based on your values and your core and who you are so that you feel good about yourself and you know you can keep getting better. And that way, mistakes aren't viewed as personal problems with who you are, but just, okay, that was an error. I really messed up there. How can I move on from this? We're talking about perfectionism, and my guest is Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo. She is author of the book Better Than Perfect, Seven Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and Create a Life You Love.

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12:57So go to shopbeam.com slash sysk now. That's shopbeam.com slash sysk. This episode is sponsored by Vinted. You know, I remember interviewing an organizing expert who offered this really clever trick for figuring out which clothes you should get rid of. You go to your closet and you look at the clothes hanging there. And chances are the ones toward the middle are the clothes you wear most often. But the clothes pushed way over to the left or the right. Some of those you probably haven't worn in years. And yet there they hang, taking up space. But here's the thing. You could turn those clothes into money.

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14:20You might be surprised. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. With no seller fees, you keep every dollar you earn. That's Vinted, V-I-N-T-E-D. So, Elizabeth, it would seem to me that people, it's the human nature for people to make comparisons, and people need evidence that, you know, if you and your brother start out the same, and he's doing really great, and everything you try sucks, it's hard to get up and go, I can unconditionally love myself, because you now have evidence that you're not doing as well as maybe you should be, or maybe you thought you'd be. The evidence is flying right in your face that you've failed.

15:07Again, it's the difference between failed and failure. Did I not be as successful as I wanted to be? Yeah, but that doesn't mean that I suck as a human being. And you're right. As a society, we base our worth on conditions. Look at social media. I feel good about myself if I get at least 100 likes or comparing ourselves to other people, but all of that is very conditional. And just because it is common in our society doesn't mean it's very helpful. The goal is to have unconditional self-worth. You'd be like, I'm good regardless. And when you have that unconditional self-worth, it actually doesn't make you lazy and sitting around eating bonbons.

15:45I'm okay, so I don't have to do anything. it allows us to be our true selves. It allows us to really pursue our passions and our purpose in a more meaningful way. Yeah, but it's one thing that I understand, you know, getting likes or not getting likes on Facebook. But if you've lost your job, you can't find another one, you can't pay the mortgage, you can't buy your kid stuff. This isn't likes on Facebook. This is real life stuff that hurts and is hard to pop through and say, but I love myself, I'm still doing great. Because you're not doing great. Well, that's two different things. Love myself internally, doing great externally.

16:20I work a lot with people who've lost their job, and that is an unbelievable blow to a lot of people. A lot of people define themselves. Who am I? I am my job. And so when you lose that, there's a whole sense of loss of identity. I am nothing. But when you can really look and cultivate who you are on something much deeper, it's not that those external events don't hurt. It's not that they aren't difficult. but it's not an attack. It's not an attack on who you are as an individual. And if you can have unconditional self-worth when going through something like that, then what happens is you're not saying, it's not being delusional.

16:59My life's great even though I can't pay the mortgage and my kids are mad at me because I can't buy them presents. It's really, okay, I believe in myself. I'm going through a tough time right now. I know I can get through this even though it sucks right now. Yeah. I mean, because part of life, you know, we know that life is up and down. And so you, I always tell my clients, if you're feeling, and if you're really, really down spot, if you wait long enough, things will get better. Unfortunately, the same can be said when we're, when we're kind of on cloud nine, that, that, you know, inevitably something is going to happen.

17:31When we look at the characteristics of true success, things like resiliency, perseverance, grit are really important. And those really require a belief in yourself. Again, not in a delusional way, everything's perfect, but in the sense of, okay, it sucks now and I can get through this. I can handle this. Maybe not by myself. Maybe I need to get some help in terms of coaching or help in terms of social support or whatever it is, but I can do this. So Elizabeth, what do you think the difference is between those people who look at adversity and see the silver lining and know things will get better.

18:09And those people who say, I suck, my life sucks, I can't deal with this, and really have a problem. Well, yeah, I want to take a step back because I will tell you, usually people, even those people in that first group who are the resilient ones, fall back into, I suck, I can never do this. So it's not an all or nothing thing. A lot of times we're dancing between those two. But one of the key characteristics and the differentiators is that sense of self-worth. Am I worth it? Because if we base our worth on conditions, I'm only good if I have a job, I'm only good and believe in myself if my kids, you know, I can pay for their presents or I can pay for the mortgage, then when you don't have that, it can really spiral into, you know, anything from, you know, just feeling down to clinical depression where you truly can't.

19:00You can't get out of bed. You can't put in your job application. And, you know, a lot of times that's what happens. So the goal then is to say, how can I feel good about myself? How can I take a step in, one step in the right direction to get me back on this road? And what is that? What is that one step do you think that's easy for people to do that might start to give them that sense of control and sense that, you know, that they're doing better? Well, it's a different step for everyone. I will say one of the things to remember when you're in a really tough place and it feels like you have no control is to look at, I talk about there are two different strategies to dealing with a problem.

19:41There's problem focused, changing the problem itself. So if you're unemployed, it's getting a job. But then there's emotion focused, which is changing your emotional reaction to it. and so and some of that is that what we call cognitive restriction changing what you're saying to yourself but another part of that is stress management so we talked before about how when our stress level is high we tend to think in more negative ways so if you think of us if your of your stress level is going from zero to ten zero is no stress at all you just got off the massage table life is great ten is the most stressed you've ever been if it's if you're feeling angry you're screaming if you're feeling anxious you're having a panic attack usually Luckily, we're not at 10 a whole lot of time, and we're not at zero a whole lot of time.

20:25We're somewhere in between. When we're at a seven or higher, I call it the red zone. We aren't thinking rationally. It seems like we are, but we're not. We go from using our frontal lobe in lower levels of stress, which is this beautiful structure in the front part of our brain that differentiates us from other animals. It allows us to engage in problem solving and executive functioning and perspective taking and seeing all different perspectives. When our stress level goes up into that red zone, seven and higher, we move from using that frontal lobe to using our limbic system. Limbic system is a part of your brain that is emotionally based.

21:01So I feel lousy, so my life sucks. And then you can only focus on that. So one of the things to do, which sounds ridiculous maybe to some, is to take steps to reduce that stress to get you out of the red zone. I always tell my coaching clients, if your stress level is higher than a 7, 7 or higher, don't let anything out of your mouth because that's when you say something that you're going to later regret. And don't put anything in your mouth because that's when Ben and Jerry's therapy tends to happen. But if you are at a 7 or higher, what we have to realize is you are not thinking straight. So even if you're dealing with the death of a loved one, even if you're dealing with a horrible diagnosis, you want to say, what is my stress level and what can I do to get it out of the red zone?

21:47because that is when your brain will start to function in a way where you could start to make positive changes. So what does that mean? Well, I mean, you can do deep breathing. You can do relaxation. Usually when you're that elevated at stress, it's hard to do. The best thing to do is to change your state, to move your body, jumping on a bed, going for a walk, dancing to a song that you like, anything that you can do to move your body, jumping jacks, doing two minutes of push-ups, whatever it is. While it may seem like, how is this going to help me get a job? what it does is it gets your brain functioning in a way that you can start to problem-solve and to take those problem-focused approaches to change the situation.

22:27Lastly, when it comes to perfectionism, where does it typically come from? Do you find that perfectionists are the children of perfectionists? Where does that behavior begin, typically? It typically begins in our childhood. and it could be, you know, when you look at perfectionists, sometimes it's the parents who are the perfectionists without realizing they were the perfectionists. So, ugh, you got a 97, what happened to the other three points? Or it could be, oh, you got an A, I'm so proud of you, and then the child starts to associate, you know, getting the 100 % or doing really well with their self-worth.

23:04And so they strive to keep going for that. I have to be perfect in order for people to love me. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, and parents do that with the best of intentions, and yet it can backfire. And that's what's so important to remember. They do it with the best intentions. I can't tell you how many clients I've had who talk about parents, especially dads. I'm just thinking of a couple of male clients with whom I've worked, and their fathers are really hard on them. And, you know, they were jerks, but, you know, they were usually using harsher words than that about their father. But when you take a step back and look at why was your parent acting like that, usually your parent just wanted what was best for you.

23:46They wanted you to be successful. They wanted you to be maybe more successful than they were. Their approach may not have been the best in terms of motivating you to do that. But if you can take a step back and really reinterpret what they wanted from you, it can help change your mindset. So, you know, we talked about better than perfect. and I have a book called Better Than Perfect, and there are seven strategies in there. The first one is called Postmortem Your Past, which means look at your past. When did this perfectionism develop? What rules did you come up with for you? I have to be perfect in order for people to like me.

24:19I can't make a mistake. You know, I had to be the number one on the sports team in order to be successful, in order for my parents to give me a thumbs up or even give me any attention at all. Look at those events and see how you can reinterpret them to be more helpful to you. Good advice. Almost perfect. Beyond perfect. Clinical psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Lombardo has been my guest. She's author of the book Better Than Perfect, Seven Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and Create a Life You Love. And there is a direct link to her book on Amazon in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Elizabeth.

24:58Thank you, Mike. I appreciate being here. And that does it for this SYSK Trending episode. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thank you for listening today to Something You Should Know.