Managing Achievement & Perfectionism
People who are high achievers often times tip the scale to perfectionistic ideals. Perfectionism is not necessarily about being ‘perfect’. Ask yourself this question… Is it ever really possible to be 100% ‘perfect’? Perfectionism involves:
1.The relentless striving for extremely high standards (for yourself and/or others) that are personally demanding, in the context of the individual.
2. Judging your self-worth based largely on your ability to strive for and achieve such unrelenting standards.
3. Experiencing negative consequences of setting such demanding standards, despite consideration of the impact these standards have on you.
People who are perfectionists tend to be overly concerned with achievement and the pursuit of unrelenting standards. They often rely on their ability to achieve unrelenting standards as a basis on which to judge their self-worth. In turn, this can have a big impact on the balance of their lives.
Most people evaluate their self-worth based on a variety of things; they might consider their personal qualities such as kindness, loyalty, and a willingness to help people. They might evaluate how happy they are based on how well important things in their life are going. Perfectionists tend to judge their self-worth based almost entirely on achieving their unrelenting standards. They overvalue achieving and achievement. They may have other interests, but over time these seem to take a lesser place in their lives. This system of self-evaluation may have developed through experiences and/or positive reinforcement from people around them. Perfectionists come to believe that they are only of worth if they are pursuing or achieving the high standards they set for themselves.
Since perfectionists base their self-worth on their ability to achieve unrelenting standards, they tend to work extremely hard to achieve these standards. However, when people base much of their self-worth on only one thing in their lives, they are putting a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves to make sure that it works out. That’s why it’s not surprising that perfectionists tend to feel stressed, irritable, depressed, anxious or guilty, and think negatively about themselves. When a goal is achieved, they may feel relieved, but they don’t tend to feel happy for very long. In fact, perfectionists tend to dismiss their success (“I was just lucky”) or conclude that the standard set was too low (“anyone could have done that”) and re-set the standard higher for next time.
Ways to manage…
You may find it helpful to think about the amount of importance you place on each of the areas of your life that contribute to your self-worth. If you find that your self-esteem overly relies on your ability to achieve, you may want to consider broadening your interests. This will give you a chance to develop other ways of feeling good about yourself, apart from the pursuit of those relentlessly high standards. Identify the other areas of your life that may have once been important to your self-worth but have now taken a lesser place.
· Choose one area you would like to start with and then think of some activities you could engage in to help you do that. You might find yourself thinking that you don’t feel like doing this activity and want to put it off until you feel ready.
· Don’t — act now! People often want to wait until they feel motivated before they act. However, an important thing to bear in mind is, motivation may not come on its own, but when you ACT first, motivation will then follow.
· Remember, ACTION before MOTIVATION, and you‘ll soon find that your life will be more balanced. You will be less preoccupied with only one aspect of your life, and less dependent on that success and achievement for your self-evaluation.
-Regina Myers LMHC
