359 - Don't Overcome Your Perfectionism! Why Your High Standards Make You A Star

0:00In this episode, you'll hear some adult language. So if you've got little ones around, grab your headphones now. The goal is to be able to make room for all of your human experiences and not be reactive. Yes. And choose to kind of respond from a place of as much love and patience as you can muster. Yeah. In the moment. it.

0:29Hey, it's Marie Forleo and welcome to another episode of the Marie Forleo podcast, the place to be to create a frigging business and life you love. And I'm so excited about today's show. So I don't know if you have ever identified as being a perfectionist, right? I certainly have. And if you've ever been shamed for it or told you need to lower your standards or you're too much or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The conversation we're having today is from probably one of the first people who's ever made me feel hopeful and excited and grateful about my natural traits, and I cannot wait for you to hear this conversation.

1:00Catherine Morgan Schaffler is a psychotherapist, writer, speaker, and former on-site therapist at Google. She trained at the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, and the Association for Spirituality and Psychotherapy in New York City. Her book, The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, is available wherever books are sold. Catherine, I love your book. So I have to tell you the story of how I got to it. So I get a lot of books, right, sent to my house. And most of them are sent from publishers or whomever, and they're not necessarily requested. And I remember one weekend I was home by myself.

1:39Josh wasn't there. And so I'm going through like this huge stack of mail and your book was included. and there was something in it because I wasn't aware of the book. You know what I mean? I wasn't necessarily expecting it. And so I sat down at my desk and I was like, I feel like I really need to read this. Like this, what a cool title. And so I started reading it. I was like, oh, wow. I was like, I have never heard anyone talk about perfectionism in this way. And so I'm into it. I'm into it. And then all of a sudden you mentioned me in the book. I was like, wait, what? And it was such a cool moment.

2:11And it made me like laugh out loud. And it really gave me so much relief. And like, it made me want to get up and cheer because I feel like so much of my life and so much of the messaging that we've received culturally, especially as a woman, is you're so much, you have such high standards, calm it down, lower it down, and been made to feel like I'm wrong for being like, you know, the wonderful creative maniac that I am. and you are the first person really that made me feel like, oh my God, like who I am and what I am naturally is like a superpower and not this defect. So thank you. That's such an incredible story.

2:52I don't know if that means you didn't get the email that I wrote to you, which I'll send you. I may not have. Yes. You'll get a kick out of it. Yes, yes, yes. Because yes, you are such a dynamic person and I put you in the book because you're such a great example of someone who takes their ambition and really broadcasts it in a way that gives other people license to do the same. It certainly has had that effect on me. And so it's such a full circle moment to be here with you. Yeah. And I chose this. I see that. This is very purposeful. And I remember when Erin was showing me all the potential looks of, I was like, I want that sweatshirt right now.

3:29So you write, part of the urging to stamp out perfectionism in women arises because perfectionism is powerful energy. And then I'm smashing together sentences from another section and I have this bolded. Do not allow your ambition to be pathologized. Refuse to apologize for or disguise your insatiable desire to excel. Reject the notion that you need to be fixed. Reclaim your perfection now. Yes. Yes. Like hell to the frigging yes. Whatever you want to say, comment on that. all you. Well, I mean, you can't be a perfectionist without being ambitious. And you can't be an ambitious woman without being expected to make your ambition palatable in some way or straight up hide it or lie about it.

4:19Women who seek power and influence are seen as power hungry. And men who do the same are seen as alpha males. And there's just all of these double standards that, to be honest with you, felt so outdated. When I was writing the book, I had these moments of like, do I still need to include this? Is this still relevant? Because I feel like we've been talking about this enough to where maybe we've poked enough holes in it that it doesn't need to be brought up again. And then something would happen in the news or in some other way that would make me be like, nope, we still have to address all of these ways that gender performance is communicated to us as women and men and non-binary people, this is how you should behave.

5:05And this is how you should not behave. And to your point, women are constantly told in a thousand ways, you're doing too much. Pull back. Unless you're operating in a realm that is not in competition with men, which is why someone like a Martha Stewart or a Marie Kondo, we can say, They're such a perfectionist, and it's wonderful, and let's celebrate them and syndicate them. Because if you look at Martha Stewart's company, it's based on archetypal homemaker interests, right? So it's like wedding palettes, brunch in a pinch, all of this stuff which is publicly acceptable for women to be ambitious about.

5:45And in those instances, it's like more power to her. But then when you have someone like a Serena Williams, for example, who is assertively staking claim to what she wants and doesn't hide any of it and in fact attracts attention in what she wears and some of the things that she says, she's penalized for it in so many ways, not just emotionally but also actually literal penalties in her games for doing things that men before her and probably after her. will do to a degree that is so much more intense in a negative way and not be penalized at all. Yeah. I mean, your book is so good. I also just want to say, I said this when you came in to the studio, you're a phenomenal writer.

6:33So like this is your first book? Thank you. Yes. Was it difficult? Yes. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. And I've done some very hard things. And I think what made it hard was that the other hard things I've done, I mean, I talk about being sick in the book. Yeah, I want to go there next. Yeah. A lot. Those hard things you just had to do. And that's been the experience with a lot of difficulty and challenge in my life of like, well, I got to do it. And so you just do it. This is like, I don't have to write a book. And I think that's what's so good and hard about writing a book is because it's really, you have to rise to the occasion of yourself.

7:14A self that you know about in your mind and an idea that you know about in your mind, but that other people don't necessarily know that version. So it's like nothing bad's going to happen if you don't do it in the same way that if you don't attend to your health or whatever, there is this little consequence. But some things you just have to do. Yeah. The reason I always bring this up is because I read this stat and I believe it's true. Up to 80 % of the population feels like they have a book in them. And most people don't ever actually write the book and get it out. So as a writer myself, I remember everything is figureoutable, my last book, like not that it almost killed me.

7:53That's very dramatic to say, but I struggled. You know what I mean? I was on the struggle bus and I always love talking to writers because I'm curious. I'm always curious about everyone's process. So hard. Yeah. It's really, really hard, but you are a beautiful writer and I really hope that you continue to write because it's a very unique voice that you have. And I read a lot.

8:13Let's go to how your own journey helped you start to realize how attached you were to this sense of control. And that with the diagnosis, you were like, oh, you really saw yourself. And I'll just say at the same time, I feel like as a young person growing up and even in my early 20s and stuff, trying to control things, oh my God, that was like the label I wore all the time. That's what the other thing that attracted me about your subtitle was, oh, losing control. Yeah. Yes, please. Yeah. It's so cliche and the cliche of this of it still bothers me that I didn't realize how much control I had or was trying to hold onto until I lost it.

8:56Um, because I didn't experience it as being controlling in the moment. I experienced it as being responsible, as being driven, as being disciplined. Like a leader. You're taking care of everyone. Right. Got your shit together. Right. But it was really, I lost so much control so fast that I didn't have time to translate it into anything other than what it was, which was, oh, I was doing all of those things because I was afraid of something. It was all coming from a place of fear. I better get my career together or I don't know what was going to happen. You sometimes don't even know what the fear is.

9:39Totally. When you're operating from a place of fear. And I know this also sounds cliche, but I'm grateful for that moment of time because in the sliding doors version of life where I didn't get sick and just stayed on that track, I mean, that's the gift of a crisis. It's like a call to action. And when everything in your life gets dismantled, you really have to reconstruct it. And it's rare that you reconstruct it in exactly the same way it was before because you are no longer the same person that you were before. And what was your diagnosis? How old were you and what went down? At 33, I got diagnosed with this rare condition called gestational trophoblastic disease, which is like highly treatable, 95 % treatment rate, whatever.

10:27And then, you know when you hear something health-related, it's like in 1 % to 2 % of people. Yes. And I kept being that 1 % to 2%. And so all of my doctors were like, we're just going to do this, and then it's going to manage it. We're going to do chemotherapy. And it wasn't radiation therapy, but I lost a lot of my hair. and, you know, I was at Memorial Sloan Kettering for a good chunk of the day for many, many months. And then it ended up just echoing into my life more and more. I had to have a hysterectomy, like all of this stuff, which I know you've gone through, that I just, every time that I thought it was under control, it wasn't.

11:06Yes. And so it was just a constant recalibration. And at some point, you really have to just calibrate fully internally. Yep. And I've had to do that before in lots of other ways in my life, but not in this way. And so it was just, it was just a wild moment, you know? And did it drive you deeper into your work as a psychotherapist and specifically around investigating and really understanding perfectionism? Yeah. Because I was like noticing a difference between the clients that I've worked with at the time my practice was on Wall Street. So I was working with really ambitious women, and big law and finance.

11:47And they had such an energy that they brought to the room that was so electric and all at once like constructive and destructive and just so brimming with potential. And I started to notice a difference in myself. Being with them? Yes. Like I started to feel more muted because I was trying to do what everyone around me was telling me to do, which is you need to work less. You need to like calm down, take a bath, sit in the bath, do nothing, meditate, don't think about anything. And that's not how I process things. I'm a walker. That's how I process things and move through things. And I don't like doing nothing.

12:30Yeah. We're going to talk about that, by the way. I have to interrupt you for a second. One of my like dearest friends in the world, I've known her forever. And I remember I was struggling once. She said, Marie, you're just like, you need to take a bath. And I was like, fuck off. Like I hate fucking baths. Like I just remember the experience of having like so much rage and my friend trying to help me. And I was like, nope, that doesn't work on this thing. Yeah. And I, you know, I actually love a good bath, but I don't like forced. Correct. You know, it's like a thing about a good bath is you haven't had a good bath in like weeks and then you do, and then it's nice.

13:04But like every day and what it feels like so contrived. And then it stresses me out more. And so I was exhausting myself trying to be this version of healthy that people were telling me was healthy. Yes. And that's why I started feeling like I was fading out and my clients were just so magnetic in so many ways. And I was like, what is happening here? And that's where I got to all the things that I put in the book. Yeah. And let's talk about that too, because I thought it was really fun when I started peeling into the book, you have created five different kinds of perfectionists. So let's talk about those five types and the value of knowing your type.

13:45And I love to, for everyone listening, like at the back of the book, you say it very, very clearly. It's like, Hey, these are constructs, right? These are not like, this is something that you've created based on all of your experience, all of your training, all of your clients, but it's not made to quote quote unquote, stick us in these perfectionist boxes. It's just to kind of explore these notions of tendencies and to give us footholds and toeholds into seeing like, oh great, here's ways if I tend to lean in this flavor, these are some things I want to explore. And so I love it. So walk us through the five types.

14:17Yes. Okay. So we'll start with classics because I think the classic perfectionist is what most people think about when they think about perfectionism and like perfectionism itself, which can be really, really wonderful and you can use to your advantage, and can be really, really destructive and just pull you down. Each of these types have their advantages and liabilities. So the advantages to the classic perfectionist, these are people who are very put together, right? They're highly reliable, very disciplined. They do what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it in the way that they said they would do it.

14:51And that's great. On the con side of this type, they can sometimes operate in a way that doesn't necessarily engender a lot of collaboration. Because a classic perfectionist is like, well, I really want to get it done well, so I'm going to do it myself. Yes. And that doesn't lend itself to feeling connected to people. So classic perfectionists can feel really taken for granted because it's like, oh, she'll do it. She likes doing that, you know? And even if you like doing something, that doesn't mean it's not hard. It doesn't mean you don't want appreciation. And people can often feel like they're kind of haughty or living in their own world, right?

15:27So then we have the procrastinator perfectionist. And the best way to explain this is they want the conditions to be perfect before they start. Ooh, you're going to get a lot of people with that one. So these are people who are really thoughtful, take great preparative measures, can see something from a 360-degree angle, and can think about all the contingencies that might unfold. The problem comes in when their preparative measures spill past the point of diminishing returns, and they are preparing too much, and they're not actually doing the thing that they want to do. So it creates a kind of paralysis.

16:04And the counterpart to the procrastinator perfectionist is the messy perfectionist. That's me most of the time. I have a big chunk of messy perfectionist in me, too. And messy perfectionists want the middle of the process to be perfect. So they love starting anything. And it's such an advantage to be able to push through the anxiety of a new beginning. Messy perfectionists don't even feel anxiety around that. It's exciting and adventurous. And they, like, romanticize it. And so they can put their hands in a million pots at once, and it gives them energy. The problem is these very naturally enthusiastic people can say yes to a million things in a way that doesn't allow them to commit to even one thing.

16:53Totally. And so they end up wearing themselves too thin and not only not doing the million things that they wanted to do, but not even getting one thing done. Yeah. And that can lead to this really destructive narrative of, I guess I don't care enough. I guess I'm not disciplined enough. I guess I'm not smart enough for anyone to take me seriously. And none of that is true. None of that is true. It's just that you need help in the middle. And procrastinated perfectionists need help in the beginning. Intense perfectionists want the end of the process to be perfect. So these are people who are focused on the outcome.

17:30They have razor-sharp focus. They're extremely efficient. They don't care about being liked. So they're very direct effortlessly, which is another great quality. But on the con side, sometimes they can get to the end goal in a way that kind of dismisses their well-being and the well-being of people around them. Totally. And so it's like, great, you achieved all of your Q2 goals, but half of your team is now quitting. Yeah, totally. And so then lastly, there's the Parisian perfectionist. And this is a really interesting iteration of perfectionism because it plays out interpersonally. And we think of perfectionism as only operating in these like achievement roles or, you know, sports roles or something like that.

18:19But this is about ideal connection. And so Parisian perfectionists want to be perfectly liked. They want to perfectly like other people. They want ideal connections. And on the pro side, these are people who you do not have to explain how important relationships are in life. They just get it. They're naturally warm and inclusive. They'll go out of their way to talk to the person standing alone at a party, for example. But on the con side, they can sometimes take shortcuts to connection through people-pleasing, which we all know doesn't work. And so not only have they now not connected to anyone, they've also disconnected from themselves.

19:01And that can just metastasize into bad cycles of people-pleasing. So good. And I know at perfectionistguide.com, you have a great quiz. So for everyone watching right now, you can go take the quiz. We'll put it in the show notes. Thank you, by the way. That was like such a beautiful outline of each of the five types. Ray, look, nothing in life is that complicated. You can do whatever you set your mind to. If you roll up your sleeves, you get in there and you do it. Everything is figureoutable. I was still a little girl when my mom said those three words to me. I had no idea how much they changed my life.

19:40Eventually, that simple phrase helped me end a physically abusive relationship, get out of piles of debt and land every job I've ever had, from bartending to trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, to publishing at Condé Nast, to becoming one of the world's first Nike elite dance athletes, to starting a business at 23 and building it into a multi-million dollar socially conscious education and media company from the ground up. Now look, I don't know what your dreams are, but I do know this. They are 100 % figureoutable. If you want help on your journey, get yourself a copy of my number one New York Times bestselling book, Everything is Figureoutable.

20:24Now, one big thing, do not just read the book. I need you to do the book because if you do, it will change your life. Learn more at everythingisfigureoutable.com or head to your favorite place to buy books or audio books now. So I want to dispel another myth. So we've already kind of really, and I'm going to use this word because I've had a good amount of coffee today and I love coffee. We've smashed through the myth that perfectionism has to always be bad. So here's another myth. Average is not a bad thing. Perfectionists are totally fine operating at an average and below average level in a lot of areas, just not the areas they long to excel in.

21:06Bam. Those are your words. I love that you wrote that because, again, when people kind of try and squash us down a little bit, it's like, oh, everything has to be – it's like, no, not everything, just the shit that really matters. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's – I think that's a great thing. And one of the things that people don't understand about perfectionism is that it's highly individualized. And so it's not just – and that's what frustrated me to the point where I was like, I got to write a book about this because so many of the things we think about perfectionism are so limited. It's so black and white.

21:45It's like perfectionism is bad and unhealthy. So if you're a perfectionist, that means you are bad and unhealthy in some way. And not only is that approach not useful, it's actively harmful. Say more. Well, it's actively harmful because thinking of yourself as a perfectionist is like thinking of yourself as a romantic or an activist or an artist. It's an enduring identity, marker, meaning people who think of themselves as perfectionists or romantics or whatever, hold onto that identity through their whole lifetime. And that's why we don't experience perfectionism episodically, right? So you might say, I went through a depression after college, but you don't say I went through a perfectionism after college.

22:24You say, I am a perfectionist. And so if you're talking about perfectionism in this black and white, like it's bad way, what you're really saying is to perfectionists, you need to be less of who you are. And you know what? If you can get rid of it completely and be a whole new person, even better. I'm like, that is taking an eradication approach to healing, trying to get rid of something that's in you and part of you, as opposed to an integration approach, which is like, let's get some boundaries around this. Let's understand it more completely. Let's get support where we need support. I would never say to a romantic, let me tell you the solution to all your problems.

23:03Just believe and love 75 % of the time. That's like how people talk to perfectionists. They're like, just lower your standards a little bit. Just do this. Just do that. And it doesn't work. Yeah. No, it doesn't work. And I want to talk a little bit about the difference between adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism. And I thought your observation here was so accurate. You talk about this a lot in your book. We're all up and down at different times in different ways for different reasons. You write, these are your words. If you're wondering if you're an adaptive or maladaptive perfectionist, spare yourself the trouble.

23:35You're both. I love that you say you're referring to the mindset the person is in, not the person themselves. And that is such an important distinction. This is why I love reading your work because it feels so precise from a truth level. And the distinctions that you have throughout the book are really, really important. Because I've noticed, I've seen myself in your book in so many different ways. It's like, oh yeah, when I'm off, when I'm scared, when I'm fearful, when, you know, you said something before that I so identified with. For me, so much of the things I've done in my life, at the time I was doing them, whatever they were, I'm like a fish in water.

24:17I didn't know that fear was driving me until, you know, the shit hits the fan and you're like off on the sidelines for a minute and you have a, for me, a moment of like, oh, perspective shift and you're able to kind of reflect and see things from a different point of view. But I love this notion that you're not maladaptive or adaptive. It's like, who are you? What mindset are you in this particular moment? Right. Mental health, we are just beginning to talk about it in the right way. Mental health is really fluid, really context-dependent, meaning if you're at home for the holidays, you're probably going to be stressed.

24:57Yeah. You know, and it might be tough. And that moment isn't reflective of who you are and what you're capable of and all of these things. And it's like the fluidity of mental health is something that I think people don't like to discuss because it makes us feel out of control and control. There's something soothing about it, the illusion of it anyway. Right. But really, whether it's sunny outside or not, or whether someone attractive just hit on you, or whether you're on time or late impacts your mood in these ways that really make you go up and down. Forget about the medications you're on or serious crises you're going through.

25:37And I think it's helpful for people to understand because so many times we think, oh, I'm doing so great that we feel invincible. And we take away the things that are helping us to feel so great because we don't need them anymore. And we are, if anyone is like me, humbled quickly in realizing that. And at the same time, it's really powerful to understand that if you're suffering through a depression or you're depressed-ish, that's not a sentence for the rest of the season or the year. You can move the needle in both directions based on a lot of stuff that you surround yourself with. Yeah. And life in and of itself.