Overcoming Perfectionism

Perfectionism is the strong desire to achieve perfection in one or more areas of life. When within certain normal limits, this desire can be inspiring and really useful to reach many goals. However, when this desire turns into an obsession it can be very harmful for a person’s life.

Obsessive perfectionists usually feel frustration because of their inability to reach certain unrealistic goals, and this causes a strong depression and the feeling of impotence, along with the idea that “nothing is good enough”.

Causes Of Perfectionism

Many experts think that perfectionism is associated with childhood and teenage years. During this period, a person’s psyche is more vulnerable to external factors and more susceptible to wrong impressions of what life is.

Most perfectionists show a history of being valued on the basis of their achievements rather than their efforts. Thus, a person’s self esteem is highly related to how other people judge him/her. When the real value of a person strongly depends on other people’s approval, this person will develop high vulnerability and sensitiveness to other’s critics. Therefore, the only way to be valuable and successful is to be perfect in every aspect, which is obviously impossible for anyone.

Symptoms Of Perfectionism

Perfectionists have a variety of specific symptoms and feelings, including a strong fear of failure and making mistakes, constant search for approval, designing their goals based on what other’s want rather than their own desires, “everything or nothing” thinking (, for instance, finishing second in a race is not admissible, or getting a B in a test instead of an A equals total failure), frustration, depression at the first mistake (even if it’s minimal or not relevant) and the strong belief that everyone is better than himself.

Many people with severe perfectionism have shown signs of self-punishment: for them, a mistake or failure is inadmissible and should be punished (sometimes, they even physically hurt themselves to “learn to avoid further mistakes”).

Treatment Of Perfectionism

Overcoming perfectionism is not easy. As it is frequently consequence of years of misconceptions, misjudgments and erroneous impressions, this addiction to perfection is often so inserted in a person’s mind that it requires deep psychological therapy and long lasting observation of a patient. As this is obviously a psychological disorder, medication should be avoided unless an expert recommends it.

Prevention Of Perfectionism

The best prevention of perfectionism is to provide an adequate environment to a child. Teaching him that everyone makes mistakes, that no person is perfect and considering his efforts rather than his achievements will help the kid develop a good self esteem and a subsequent healthy psyche.

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