Coaching To Help Mental Wellbeing #2

Avoiding The Perfectionism Trap

This is the second in a series of blogs about positive mental health. The previous blog - ‘Knowing Who You Truly Are’ - outlined how coaching has much to offer to help our mental wellbeing, creating a positive space to explore who we truly are.

In this second mental wellbeing blog, you can find out about some aspects of perfectionism including:

· my own story of addressing perfectionism;

· destroying the myth that it’s linked to high performance;

· some of the possible causes of perfectionism;

· three ways to address it - including a surprising way to bypass it completely!

Addressing my own perfectionism

When I was studying in the ‘90s, my own perfectionism started to emerge in the form of ‘over-researching’. I developed a habit of collecting more and more information, and reviewing it continually. I never felt like I had enough information. Or rather, I had a sense that there was more out there to find. And of course, this is right – there is always more information out there! And with the internet, this has grown massively. There is never a single definitive essay on a particular topic incorporating all the research and information that there’s ever been. All we’re able to do is to choose to select the most important and relevant information, in order to frame the perspective that we want to put forward.

This over-researching was a form of perfectionism, driven by my own insecurity. The stress and anxiety from this made me quite ill, both physically and mentally. I realised that I needed to confront the reasons why I was doing this to myself. What I discovered was a mixture of pressures and expectations – some from myself and some from others - that had been tying me up in knots. Once I was aware of this and started to understand what was driving it, I could make choices about how I was going to respond. And in those choices, I was able to support my own mental and emotional wellbeing.

Destroying the mith of perfectionism!

So you might think that people who are perfectionists are high-functioning high-achievers, right? Wrong!

Research suggests that there’s actually a very tenuous link between perfectionist mindsets and behaviours and actual high performance. In other words, high performers succeed despite their perfectionism – not because of it.

In 2018, a Harvard Business study* reviewed 95 studies over four decades. It found that perfectionism is a much bigger weakness than generally assumed. Perfectionism is strongly and consistently related to many detrimental outcomes, including higher levels of burnout, stress, workaholism, anxiety, and depression. The study also found that there can be some ‘beneficial’ workplace outcomes, such as being more motivated and more engaged at work and working longer hours. However, even these ‘beneficial’ aspects are questionable, as we can feel held captive by the perfectionist drives, and come at a huge cost to us and others around us.

The authors distinguished between two different types of perfectionists. One ‘seeks excellence,’ focused on high standards for themselves and for others. The other ‘avoids failure,’ focused on obsessive fear of failure and judgement. Taken as a whole, their results confirm that perfectionism is not likely to be constructive at work.

This makes sense to those of us who’ve experienced perfectionism. We can be in denial – avoiding or hiding our mistakes – to appear perfect to ourselves and others. To keep this illusion going, we have to keep a rigid, perfect front to others, often quietly criticising and blaming ourselves inside. It’s an awful, unfulfilling way to live – as I found out myself!

Some of the possible causes of perfectionism

As my own experience showed me, there are both internal and external elements that can lead to perfectionist mindsets and behaviours. We can be perfectionists through our upbringing, either from being around those with their own strong perfectionist streak or having been raised with explicit expectations put on us of being ‘perfect’ ourselves. This can then combine with other outside pressures to live up to super-high standards - pressures from school, from wider family, from peer competition and from social media comparison. This toxic internal and external mix can really impact us in a destructive way.

A broad range of people can be affected by perfectionism and to varying degrees. But it’s no surprise that those whose job it is ‘to perform’ can be most affected – those in public life, and those in acting, music and sports.

Three ways coaching can help us address perfectionism

1. Space to have honest conversations

Take time and space to look at your life in a constructive way. Life coaching is just one way to help support you to ask yourself profound questions such as…

• How would I like my life to be more fulfilling?

• What would success look like for me, in the way that I truly want?

• What first steps could I take towards positive change and a life in balance?

Exploring questions like this, and being really deeply listened to, can help you to push through blocks that hold you back.

2. Finding your place of balance

There’s nothing wrong with driving towards a high goal or striving for high performance – but not at all costs to you and those around you. When you start to explore a way forward, you can often come to a natural understanding of a need for balance in how you pursue things.

We often tend to think of ourselves as having individual strengths that drive us forward. However, some forms of coaching are based on ‘paradox theory.’ This suggests that each personal quality we have is counter-balanced with an opposite, but complementary one. So this encourages us to look at them in pairs.

For example, you may be someone who has succeeded in work and in life by being very certain and single-minded about your decisions. But this often needs to be balanced by the opposite quality of being open to others’ points of view, allowing you to reflect on them, and being prepared to take them on board. Or you may work in a role where you need to achieve things by being diplomatic and polite and do this nearly all the time. But in some situations, you’ll need to be definite and assertive. Being diplomatic and polite in every situation isn’t always helpful to you or to others.

Coaching can help you to recognize all of your different qualities. Then you can access them, and can judge how to use them in different combinations, at different times.

3. The secret power of coaching

In my own example that I’ve shared, I felt that I had to make sense of the internal and external influences on me, to allow me to be free of them. But what I’ve now learnt – which really is the secret power of coaching – is that you don’t always need to get involved in working out the mess of influences; the whys or hows of what holds you back. You can simply choose a healthier pattern of doing things. This can work quickly and can bring about lasting, powerful change.

A coaching friend of mine once put it like this. She said, “It’s like having a dirty bucket that you want to get clean. The world tells you that you have to focus on the dirt in the bucket and scrub away at it for hours until it’s spotless. But the other way of doing it, is to flood the bucket with lots of clean fresh water and eventually the dirt is rinsed away.”

Those who feel that they have unhelpful mindsets and patterns can be supported to discover new ones that can be effective for them. And can then put these into action with no need to get caught up in the tangle of working out all the pressures and expectations.

It’s 30 years since I was trapped by my own perfectionist patterns. That’s enough distance away from them now that I can feel genuinely liberated from them in a lasting way. But I have to be honest with myself and realise that they can try and take hold of me again, in subtle ways. I have a positive mindset now, but remain aware and guard myself against these potential pitfalls. And I support others to do the same.

Next steps

Do you recognize some of these perfectionist patterns outlined in yourself?

You can break free by having honest conversations, by exploring a way forward to come to a place of balance, or by simply choosing healthier patterns of doing things. This can bring about quick, powerful, and lasting change.

We’re all on our continued journeys of discovery. Spend some time to reflect on these.

For further help with this, contact me for a free initial honest conversation here

Could life coaching help you? Take these two simple self-assessments here

* The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research by Brian Swider, Dana Harari, Amy P. Breidenthal, and Laurens Bujold Steed (2018)