Perfectionism Is A Poison — Here’s The Antidote
Perfectionism is our armor against shame. Little do we know that the twenty-ton shield we lug around thinking it will protect us is in fact preventing us from taking flight
As I start writing, I can feel my hands shaking. My palms are sweaty. My breathing is heavier. The temperature of the room has shot up a few degrees. My fingers have gone bone-stiff. I’m making more typing mistakes than usual. I barely get to the end of a sentence before I instinctively reach for the “backspace” key, deleting all of it, only to type it all again a few seconds later. I’m writing and editing simultaneously, even though I know that’s not the way to go. The voice in my head — the menacing little demon that wakes up whenever I’m starting something new — is begging me to stop. You don’t want to do this, he says. What if it’s not perfect? You can’t settle for something ‘good enough.’ What would people think? What if they criticize you? You can’t live with the embarrassment of failure. Stop!
And yet, I trudge on, because I’m well aware of this feeling — I’ve felt it a thousand times before. From when I was a child, like the imaginary friends kids conjure up to cope with their loneliness. But unlike other imaginary friends, this one stayed even when I grew up.
If you are a seasoned perfectionist, you know what I’m talking about. The perfectionism demon stands in the way of every creative project you start — it talks you out of every new activity you want to participate in. It paints a horrifying picture of the future in your mind, a future where you’re shamed and humiliated because your efforts have yielded a mediocre result. It’s comfortable with things as they are — why jeopardize the safety the status quo offers? Why bother starting something that might not be perfect?
And here’s the problem: The perfectionism demon always wins, no exception. It traps you in the feeling of safety for things as they are, even if it’s making you miserable. It sets you on the path to addiction, depression, and life paralysis, You don’t follow your dreams because of your deep fear of failing and disappointing others. Perfectionism is slowly poisoning your life and sucking the joy out of it.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
What Is Perfectionism?
In her book Gifts of Imperfection, researcher Brene Brown defines perfectionism as,
“. . . perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, work perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid and minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”
A lot of people take pride in being perfectionists. They argue that being dissatisfied with things being just ‘good enough’ means they don’t half-ass through their work. Perfectionism drives them towards excellence, towards creating something perfect and flawless. Striving for mastery requires a healthy dose of dissatisfaction and self-criticism, right?
Well, no. See, healthy striving and perfectionism are not the same thing. Healthy striving is internally driven — it’s fueled by curiosity and the passion to be better, or the best, at what you do. Perfectionism is externally driven — it’s rooted in the potentially all-consuming question: What will people think?
Achieving mastery over something requires curiosity, willingness to take risks, and viewing failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Perfectionism kills curiosity. And we avoid trying new things or barely recover every time we fall short of our — or others’ — unrealistic, astronomical standards.
What Perfectionism Isn’t
Perfectionism isn’t self-improvement. In fact, it’s the opposite. If you think about it, self-improvement is rooted in self-acceptance, which is the antithesis of perfectionism. In order to improve in any area of your life, you first have to accept that you are good enough as you are. . . but you can always be better.
Perfectionism does not allow for that. Self-improvement requires that we take risks and learn from our failures. Perfectionism forces us to be comfortable with the status quo, regardless of how miserable it makes our lives. Self-improvement requires we accept our mistakes and be content with the fact that we are but one in the pool of billions of imperfect humans. Perfectionism denies our common humanity, making us believe that we are different from the rest, that we are better.
Self-improvement requires that when we fall off, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move on to the next important thing, like it was no big deal. Perfectionism makes us roll around in the dirt, cursing and shaming ourselves for starting something we couldn’t execute perfectly.
Perfectionism Is Destructive, Always
Some folks champion the idea that a modest dose of perfectionism is necessary for quality work. I disagree. Perfectionism is inherently self-destructive and addictive — it can never work in your favor.
Let me explain what I mean.
Perfectionism is self-destructive for two reasons:
1. There is no such thing as perfection. It’s an unattainable goal. You are reaching out for something that’s not there. In fact, it’s not anywhere except in your head.
2. Perfectionism is other-centric — it’s about perception. We want to be perceived as flawless, infallible, and perfect. This, too, is an unattainable goal — there’s no way to control what others think of you, no matter how much time and energy you put into it.
Perfectionism is also highly addictive, because it’s rooted in shame. When we experience shame, judgment, and blame, we believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough. So rather than questioning the faulty logic of perfectionism, we get entrenched in the quest to live, look, and do everything just right. Instead of accepting our failures and mistakes and being content with them — a healthy value — we try to numb the underlying discomfort. Anything that has a numbing effect on you is addictive. Perfectionism is no exception.
Feeling shamed, judged, or blamed are the uncomfortable realities of the human experience. Perfectionism does not cure the shame of not being perfect — it increases it. You can’t inoculate yourself against shame and humiliation. That’s because you can’t control how people perceive you. Sure, you might delude a few people into thinking how awesome you are, but you can’t do that to everyone. People will criticize you, whether rightly or not. When that happens — and trust me, it will — your perfectionism will paralyze you. It’ll throw you into a vicious cycle of self-blame: It’s my fault that I wasn’t perfect enough. If I had done it perfectly they wouldn’t be saying these things.
Dig Deeper
Perfectionism is a subtle poison — it slowly seeps into your life. Most poisons require a break in your skin, a wound, to enter your bloodstream, from where they find their way to your nervous system and your heart. Perfectionism also comes from a wound, typically one you sustained in your childhood. You’d have to carefully inspect your past and look for that wound. Identifying the birthplace of your perfectionism, on its own, won’t make it go away. But it will give you clarity and,make it a bit easier to go after it.
My ceaseless struggle with perfectionism began when I was in school. I was your classic precocious — “promised” — kid: Good grades, good manners, excellent rule-following, class monitor, school prefect, even the school head boy. I scored first in exams consecutively for a decade, from Grade 1 to Grade 10, a still-intact record at my school. I won multiple awards and certificates. I was popular — the kids knew me, the teachers loved me. I basked in approval and validation. In every family, there comes a guy (or a gal) that transforms the destinies of all the upcoming generations — I was that guy.
As you can imagine, it didn’t turn out so well for me. I was admired for my rule-following and agreeableness, so I doubled down on it. I became a meek pushover, a doormat of a human being. I couldn’t say “No” to people or disagree with them. I couldn’t participate in extracurriculars because if I performed poorly, my carefully-built reputation would come crashing down. Taking risks is terrifying when you’re a perfectionist — your self-worth is on the line. So, I stuck to being the academic genius, to being the wunderkind.
The school was my turf — within its gates, I was untouchable. But outside, I was struggling. I began seeing everything through the lens of success and failure, and since success was uncertain and failure wasn’t an option, I never got around to trying new things. Even the most routine activities became a game of logistics to me. I’d carefully plan what I needed to do to succeed in whatever I did. I could solve twenty-step math problems in minutes. Interacting with another human being was a four-step process. It’s the same thing, only easier, right?
When you overcomplicate the simplest things, you inevitably set yourself up for failure. When I failed, my ego was bruised. So I’d rationalize my way out of the discomfort. I’d tell myself that the new guy I met wasn’t my type, and that I was glad we didn’t hit it off. I’d tell myself that football took a huge chunk of my time, which I could better spend immersed in my books. It was a cover for all the uncomfortable feelings lurking underneath.
And then something particularly bad happened. I was in 10th Grade at the time. Our biology teacher gave us a surprise test. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the class failed. Not me — I scored a solid 10/10. The teacher was furious. He said the class was indifferent, that my peers didn’t give a single flying fuck about their future, that they were not disciplined and passion-driven, a that they were better off looking for a blue-collar job instead of wasting their parents’ hard-earned money on school. You know, the typical frustrated teacher rant.
Then he pointed at me, “Asad here knows more about biology than I do. He can probably teach me better than I can teach him. I don’t come here to teach him — I come here to teach you guys.” Are you kidding me? Being called more knowledgeable than the teacher. That was an Olympic-level achievement.
So what did I do? I tried to prove him right. I began studying more intensely, for longer hours. It got to a point that I actually knew more about my subjects than the teachers who taught those subjects. I nailed every test, aced every exam, and got all the awards they could award. Studying for hours on the stretch was stressful, I could’ve burnt out. But my teachers kept showering me with praise, which kept burnout at bay.
Then, I learned about this supposedly difficult exam that could give you a guaranteed entry into Pakistan’s elite bureaucracy. I had a few years to prepare for it. I got into reading books, magazines, and newspapers. As you might have guessed, I overdid it — at one point, I was reading seven different magazines, two to three books, and the local and international newspapers, all at the same time. I had to know about absolutely everything. No sane person would try to cram a newspaper. I did.
When I first started writing, I overdid that, too. My essays were too long, too wordy, almost unintelligible. They were absolutely trash, but because they got me approval and validation from my teachers, I kept on going. I passed out of school the year Covid-19 hit. I had been validated all those years for my good grades, and now that there was no school and no grades, I was lost. I needed approval, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.
As I began posting my writings online, I faced harsh criticism. People told me my writings were unnecessarily long and my conclusions were faulty. Instead of seeing it as an opportunity to learn and improve, I became self-critical. I’m not doing it right, I told myself. The more I wrote, the more people criticized me. Since I was not used to it, I immediately choked. I gave up writing, telling myself it was taking a lot of my time, and that I wasn’t interested in it anyway.
In college, I learned not to outshine teachers. Less memorization, more efficiency. I saw my perfectionism’s impact, sought change to avoid mediocrity. It was around this time that I realized I was a perfectionist, and how it was affecting my life. I decided I had to find a way to overcome my perfectionism or risk being mediocre all my life.
I read countless articles, read a few books, and watched all the videos I could find. None of it worked. Some of the supposedly helpful strategies I found — “set realistic and reasonable expectations for yourself” — I didn’t know how to implement.
And then I found the antidote — a solution that worked like a charm every time, no exceptions. It was ridiculously simple, and yet surprisingly effective.
And Now. . . The Antidote
That antidote was self-compassion. I know, you’re probably annoyed at me. You might be screaming, I’VE BEEN READING FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES AND THAT’S THE FUCKING ANSWER I GET? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? You might even throw a few of those four-letter curse words my way. I made the lofty promise of giving you a magical solution to what’s probably the most debilitating problem in your life. But here I am, offering something totally abstract and utterly inapplicable.
You have every right to be mad at me — I would be, too — but hear me out. Self-compassion truly is a magical cure for perfectionism. It’s the conscious act of extending compassion to one’s self in instances of perceived inadequacy or failure. It’s when you start something, fail to meet your inhumane expectations, but instead of beating yourself up for it, you accept it as a part of being an imperfect human. Sounds great, right?
But how can you be more self-compassionate? By treating yourself how you treat those closest to you. Imagine you’re embarking on a new creative project, but you’re afraid it won’t be perfect. You are second-guessing your decision and wondering if the embarrassment and humiliation of a failed project are worth it. It’s a shitstorm of negative emotions and self-doubt, and you’re in the eye of the storm.
At this moment, you would have to separate yourself from those feelings. No, you don’t need LSD, cocaine, or any narcotics for that. All you have to do is think about the person you love the most — parent, sibling, best friend, partner, child — and ask yourself: If they were in the same position as you are in right now, what would you have them do? Would you tell them to stop and return to the safety of the status quo, and probably never do anything meaningful in life? Or would you tell them to get started with the project, and, instead of obsessing over the outcome, focus on the process, as the latter is in their control while the former is not?
Chances are, you’d choose the second option. Now take that advice and apply it to yourself. It’s that simple.
It’s going to take some time to get used to. You’d have to try and fail a couple of times, but you’ll eventually get the hang of it. All it requires is the willingness and courage to try. Digging into your past and identifying the root cause of your perfectionism helps a lot along the way.
There is no silver bullet for the perfectionism demon in your head. It will keep screaming its lungs out every time you embark on something new. The key is not silencing it; it’s not listening to it. It’s accepting that the demon will probably never leave you alone, and that’s okay. It always will be. As long as you accept that what comes out of its mouth is gibberish and meaningless, you’ll be fine.
Remember what I said earlier, the perfectionist demon always wins. The goal is to befriend it, not vanquish it. As long as you two are not in conflict, it won’t be a problem.
Summary
Congrats, dear reader. You made it to the very end. Here’s what I want you to take away from this:
· Perfection is a self-destructive and addictive trait that’s rooted in the question: What will people think?
· Shame reinforces perfectionism and perfectionism reinforces shame. It’s a vicious cycle.
· Dig deep into your past to identify potential associations between achievements you were praised for and your perfectionism. It’s highly likely that these two are related.
· Perfectionism can never work for you because it’s inherently other-centric. You can’t change people’s perception of you, no matter how much time and energy you put into it.
· You cannot completely overcome perfectionism. The key is to be self-compassionate. Imagine the person you love the most: If they were in the same situation as you, what advice would you give them? Take that advice and apply it to yourself.
· The perfectionism demon will always be with you, but as long as you don’t listen to it, you’ll be fine.
