The Perfectionist Mean Girl

What does your Perfectionist mean girl sound like?

I’ve shared previously that humans have about 60-70K thoughts per day and roughly 85% of those are repeated, looping thoughts that slant mostly to the negative. 

Do you ever catch any of them and wonder where they came from? 

Is it in your voice or someone else’s? 

Are you carrying around those thoughts in your head for a reason that serves you? 

Have you ever tried to challenge them to see if they are really true for you? 

Awareness is so powerful.

The next time you’re working on a project, or challenged with a new task or you find yourself getting annoyed by something or someone, stop and take a moment to see what kind of chaos your thoughts are causing. How does it feel in your body as it’s happening? 

Is your inner perfectionist coming out to complete that project, needing every detail to be exact and perfect? 

Is your inner perfectionist telling you to do that project later? Does it tell you that you need time to “prepare, research and study”? 

Does it try to convince you that you’re just a person who needs a tight deadline to get things done? Because that inner critic likes to lie to you like that, procrastination is a product of perfectionism and always comes from fear… fear of being judged, fear of not being good enough, fear of taking chances.

I always told myself the “I need a tight deadline to get things done” lie, all throughout school and I did it for projects in college and at work too. Waiting until the last minute, staying up until 2am trying to get everything completed on time. Every single time, I was stressed under the pressure I put myself under. I was secretly fearful of not being able to get the project completed on time. I put myself up against the wall if I needed help or to use a resource that wasn’t available at midnight. I was stressed and full of fear that what I was producing would not be good enough. I had no time to be inspired, creative or thoughtful and told myself over and over again that this was how I was at my best. Lies. 

There is always a positive side and a negative side to our inner critic. 

The “nice” or positive side of perfectionism are things like having attention to detail, you can see mistakes that others can’t. We are likely to go the extra mile to ensure things are polished and the best it can be. We can be highly motivated and conscientious. My Strengths Finder assessment identified me as a Maximizer. I don’t always have the most original or innovative idea but I’m gonna make what we already have AMAZING! 

The negative side of perfectionism can actually be decreased productivity, undue stress and pressure, unrealistic expectations of our ourselves. We also project those expectations on others, so we may have a harder time with relationships, not understanding why others can’t see what we see and fix it. 

I didn’t know I was a perfectionist until I started making greeting cards for I business I started during the pandemic. I loved making cards, it was a beautiful, creative way for me to express myself in a way that wasn’t available to me in my corporate job. I’d spend hours at my desk, in my happy place making things; I felt like Edward Scissor Hands, snipping and cutting and creating. Bliss!

It wasn’t until my significant other asked my what I was grumbling about one evening during one of those blissful sessions. I hadn’t even realized that I was “grumbling” and then he says to me, “Why did you rip that card apart?” And I said, “Oh, well when I attached those two pieces it was a little bit crooked so I am doing it over again”. 

He said something to me about being a perfectionist and I remember hearing myself kind of bark back “I am not! I just want to do it right!” 

WHOA girl… where did that come from?!?!  It came from my deeeeeep desire to do things “right”, to not cause trouble, to not make a mistake, letting someone see that it’s crooked and crooked is not correct is failure…

Yikes! I am a perfectionist!  

Those thoughts about “doing it right” had become so automatic to me, I didn’t even hear them in my head anymore… but I could feel it in my body if I paid attention. My throat would get tight, my breathing would change and become more shallow and quick, I would feel something like electricity in my chest, my teeth would clench, and then I would sigh deeply a few times.

Seeing that crooked piece of paper, that was no more than 1/16th of an inch off made me feel anxious, and disappointed in myself and the only solution was to rip it apart and do it again until it was perfect. 

To me that wasn’t being a perfectionist, it was simply doing things right. But it was the feeling in my body that helped me realize the detrimental affects it was having on my self esteem and my confidence and probably my blood pressure. 

I created my own perfectionism anxiety and it started at a young age… so much so, that at school I could barely stand up in front of my class to present a project, and speech class was out of the question. It followed me in to college where I went out of my way to take classes that didn’t require me to do any kind of public speaking. Would you believe me if I told you that I would contact the professor ahead of time to see what the requirements were? I did and avoided any kind of speech requirement.  At work my perfectionism kept me up late working on projects that HAD to be perfectly polished, including considerations no one else would think to include (so much over thinking and so many sleepless nights). 

My perfectionism created a stomach ulcer when I was in my twenties, and has played a significant part in my anxiety for more years than I’d like to acknowledge. Our bodies feel the anxiety before our brains will realize what our thoughts are (remember those negative thoughts are on auto pilot because you’ve thought them for so long). Keep an eye on your breathing, your body tensing up, or another physical reaction you have to a situation. Hear yourself when you say “oh I’m just a procrastinator” or “I need a deadline to get things done”, “I just want it to be right”, phrases like that are a sign for you to love on yourself a little, look inward with genuine curiosity to find out why you are telling yourself those things. 

We are not procrastinators by nature, you learned to become a procrastinator because you wanted to avoid something unpleasant or that caused fear.  Perfectionism is also a learned behavior. Sometimes parents are hard on us and say things that sting, sometimes they are ill equipped, sometimes they have high expectations or perfectionistic tendencies of their own and have just passed them on, wanting you to strive to be your best. Maybe it was an off-handed comment from a teacher you really respected… but internalizing that, allowing it to cause you pain and to suffer in your work or relationships is unnecessary.

We can learn how to use the positive side of perfectionism to our advantage and find ways to ease up from the negative side. The first step is realizing it, acknowledging it and the second is to become lovingly curious about where it came from. At that point we can decide how to handle it. 

Awareness is powerful. 

Realizing what your inner mean girl is saying gives you a powerful opportunity to decide what you want to keep and what you want to change. 

Let me know what you think! What is your mean girl chattering about? 

Have a great week my friends!

Chris 

PS. Please share with anyone who may benefit from this call to look inward. I can help.