Perfectionism has become the bane of modern life. In our competitive, ultra-fast lifestyles, we find ourselves feeling dissatisfied and upset when we fail to achieve the ultimate in "just so-ness". You drive yourself to be the perfect home-maker, cook, parent or property magnate - and feel a failure if you aren't. It is much healthier (but it seems, increasingly harder) to accept your imperfections, cut yourself some slack, and simply relax.
Experience shows that the trait usually develops in childhood, often from parents, teachers or contemporaries who drive a child to constantly do better. The legacy for many young people is they feel that, no matter what they do, it is never good enough. You may carry this "Nothing I do is ever good enough" belief with you into adulthood as a self-defeating belief, and even though you are probably very successful in most areas of your life - you may constantly criticize yourself and feel worthless because you aren't doing things perfectly. Your perfectionist ideas are likely to be backed up by distorted thinking errors like "all or nothing thinking".
When you find yourself driven by standards that you find impossible to meet, ask yourself helpful questions like: "Whose standards am I trying to meet?", "How would I know I had reached perfection?", "Is what I judge to be perfect the same as another person's view?"
You can draw out an 'Advantages and Disadvantages' chart to weigh up the pros and cons of your thinking, to consider alternative views, and examine your discoveries. Test, record and rate your levels of satisfaction to prove the point to yourself that you don't need to reach standards of perfection to gain considerable satisfaction from doing tasks.
Rather than comparing your own personal qualities, looks, competencies or achievements with those of other people, try instead to appreciate your own unique attributes, do things that give you satisfaction as well as you can, and be proud of your achievements, however small.
Christine Wilding and Aileen Milne
