Woman putting on eye makeup in mirror perfectionist

How to Know if You’re a Perfectionist and Why It’s Not A Good Thing

ByMetaphysical Mama February 23, 2021July 5, 2023

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Wondering if you are a perfectionist?

You’re on your way out the door to go grocery shopping. You’ve got your mask, wallet and phone. You are about to walk out the door and you catch sight of your reflection in the mirror.

OMG! Your ponytail is crooked!

You take your shoes off and march right back into the bathroom to start all over again. Guess what? You may be a perfectionist.

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What is Perfectionism

Perfectionism is just one of many inner personalities we can develop. We all have a number of these inner selves, or sub-personalities.

On average each of us have between 4-8. Sub-personalities are semi-autonomous and are able to control our actions if we let them. For instance, have you ever given up on something you really enjoyed because your perfectionist decided if you couldn’t do it perfectly, you shouldn’t bother doing it at all? That is your perfectionist taking control.

multiple exposure of woman's face perfectionist — Perfectionism is just one of many inner personalities we can develop.

Someone with the perfectionist personality holds themselves to impossibly high standards and expect more from themselves than is humanly possible. When they can’t live up to those standards, they are incredibly hard on themselves and often give up on whatever it is they feel they have “failed” at.

The Birth of the Perfectionist

How do we become perfectionists? Is it an inherent quality or something we develop?

The perfectionist personality is, like many other sub-personalities, a protection mechanism. It’s often developed when we are quite young. It emerges as a way to help us feel okay, to fit in, to be loved and accepted and to ensure our survival. It is born from the thoughts and emotions we experience from recurring situations.

For example, if we only get attention from our parents when we do really well in school, we will start to equate love with good grades. Therefore, if our grades are bad, we are unloveable. This will create a personality that believes if it gets perfect grades it will be loved.

Another example could be of someone who was abused as a child. The perfectionist may develop to not get attention, to fit in and stay under the radar. This perfectionist has learned that when they make mistakes, they draw attention and may be punished for that mistake.

These are two extreme examples of how the perfectionist can come about. There are more subtle examples that fall somewhere in-between the two.

Little girl in cat costume perfectionist — The perfectionist often develops when we are young

Someone who feels uncomfortable with themselves may start to develop a perfectionist personality to hide their perceived imperfections.

Perfectionism can also be used to hide shame. Unfortunately, the more one inevitably fails at being perfect, the more the shame grows and builds up.

The thing about the perfectionist personality is that it only develops into a personality if at one time or another it worked. It is actually a brilliant defence mechanism, unfortunately sustaining it over the long term, is almost impossible.

Isn’t Perfectionism a Good Thing?

Most of us strive to be better and excel at what we do. We want to do a good job. Put out quality. That isn’t a bad thing. Perfectionism, however, is a compulsive behaviour. We try to be perfect to feel like we are okay, and if we fall short the defences we have built crumble.

This is not just about doing our best. Perfectionism doesn’t allow us to be human. It believes that “it is no good if it isn’t perfect. It has to be perfect or else everyone will know I’m not okay. If I am perfect, I will be loved.” Sadly, we cannot live up to the perfectionist standards, therefore we feel flawed and unloveable.

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Covert and Overt Perfectionism

For many years I thought I lacked motivation, that I was lazy and that was why I struggled to do certain things. Turns out that I was battling with a covert perfectionist personality, and losing. So what exactly is covert and overt perfectionism?

Overt perfectionism is what most people think of when speaking of perfectionism. It drives you to work on a project for weeks with no sleep to make sure it is absolutely perfect. It makes you work harder than you ever thought possible and although it drives you to produce astounding results, it also tears you apart if you don’t meet up to those standards.

Feet sticking out of bed perfectionist — Covert perfectionism can look like a lack of motivation

Covert perfectionism, on the other hand, believes that if you cannot produce perfect results, why bother trying. Although it also pushes you to achieve impossible standards, covert perfectionism forces you to quit trying if you can’t achieve those standards right away.

This can appear as if the person lacks motivation or is just lazy. This is the person who tries to paint and quits because they were unable to produce a masterpiece on their first go.

You May Be a Perfectionist if…

Common traits of the perfectionist:

You feel like you always fail – No matter what you do, it never feels like it’s enough. You always feel like you should have done better.
Feedback makes you uncomfortable – You dread receiving feedback and have difficulty listening to it without becoming defensive. The thought of someone pointing out imperfections is too much to bear.
You procrastinate and struggle to get things done on time – You put things off as long as possible afraid that you will not be able to do it perfectly. When you do start working on it, it takes you forever to finish because you are fixated on making it perfect.
It’s hard for you to celebrate your successes – It is difficult for you to celebrate any successes because you don’t feel you deserve it and you are too busy looking to the next accomplishment.
You have “all or nothing” thinking – If you can’t do it perfectly, you would rather not do it at all. Better to do nothing, than to fail.
It is a struggle to ask for help – Asking for help feels like a weakness. You feel like it shows the other person there is something you are not good at. It makes you feel vulnerable and inadequate.
You obsess over past mistakes – Your past mistakes and failures haunt you. They are constantly running through your head, leaving you wondering how you could have done better. You worry about repeating the same mistakes and avoid situations where that could happen.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of Perfectionism

We have talked about some of the cons of perfectionism. How it sets us up to fail, unable to meet unrealistic expectations. Making us feel like we are not quite enough. How it keeps us from trying something new, because we may not do it well enough.

The perfectionist isn’t all bad though. It pushes us to be better than we thought possible. It helps us gain praise from others for our exceptional work. Which helps to boost our confidence. It shows us what our best really does look like.

Make a list of the pros and cons of your perfectionist.

Reining in Your Perfectionist

When dealing with your perfectionist, you don’t want to get rid of it all together. It has become a part of your personality and has at one point or another, served you well.

To try to sever that part of your personality, firstly would be near impossible and secondly, it would be like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. There are qualities inherent in the perfectionist that are worth hanging on to.

Pros and Cons

Here is where you want to take a look at the list of pros and cons you made. You want to start to integrate the pros of your perfectionism and minimize the cons.

Once you have your pros and cons list, look at ways to utilize the pros and eliminate the cons. An example of these may be:

Pro: It helps me put out great work

Con: I struggle to meet deadlines or am unable to complete the work at all, because it is never good enough.

Solution: Set a time limit. Once that time is up you have to turn the work in, whether it is perfect or not. Accept that it is good enough.

Change Your Perspective

Your perfectionist has a skewed sense of reality. You are somehow less worthy if everything doesn’t come together exactly right. To overcome that kind of thinking you need a reality check. One way to do this, is to change your perspective.

There are a few ways to change your perspective.

Ask yourself if there is another way to look at this situation. For instance, you are beating yourself up because you are not learning how to churn butter as well as the rest of your online butter churning class. Is it really because you are a failure? Are you doomed to forever buy butter from the grocery store? Or maybe you just need a little more practice. Maybe you need to just adjust your butter churning technique.

Another way to change your perspective is to think about what you would say to a friend who was about to give up on butter churning forever because they couldn’t make perfect butter after their first class. Would you tell them that butter churning obviously wasn’t their calling? Or would you tell them not to give up on their butter churning dreams and get back at it?

Treat yourself the way you would treat a friend. Stop being so hard on yourself. You deserve the same support you would give to a friend.

Here’s a guided meditation and journal exercise to help you deal with your perfectionist.

Make Compromises With Your Perfectionist

Another way you can work with your perfectionist, is by coming up with compromises. Expecting yourself to be perfect in every area at all times is not realistic. You need to ask yourself what imperfections can you live with.

Make deals with your perfectionist. “I will put all of my energy into making this one thing perfect, but I’m going to let that one slide.”

It will take some practice and definitely push you outside your comfort zone. However, the more you do it, the easier it will become. This will also give you a good idea as to what your priorities are when it comes to your perfectionism.

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Affirmations for Perfectionists

Finally, here are a few affirmations to help you work with your perfectionist.

I learn and grow from my mistakes
I am enough exactly as I am
My uniqueness is what makes me beautiful
I can’t succeed unless I am willing to fail
I’m strong and brave enough to ask for help when I need it
I forgive myself for all of my past mistakes
To be human means to be imperfect
I am worthy of love right now, exactly as I am

If you are enjoying this post, you may want to go check out https://metaphysicalmama.com/why-you-need-to-start-loving-your-self-right-now-everything-you-need-to-know-about-self-love/

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Still have questions? Email me at tiffany@metaphysicalmama.com

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