The effect of perfectionism on your career and life
This is the third article in the series “Taking down barriers to career advancement of women in STEM and beyond”
(largely based on “The CBT Workbook for Perfectionism” by Sharon Martin)
Other articles in the series:
What is perfectionism?
My understanding of perfectionism prior to the year of personal research was largely incomplete. What characterizes perfectionistic behavior is not necessarily “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” but having painfully high standards, fear and anxiety-driven restlessness or inaction, and the belief that mediocrity equates to inferiority, which is why achievements determine the perfectionist’s self-worth. The internalized preconceptions, or the so-called inner critic — “an inner voice that judges, criticizes, or demeans a person whether or not the self-criticism is objectively justified” — drive actions of an individual who runs the hamster wheel of constant disappointment.
Perfectionism can take many forms, hence it is often categorized as follows:
- self-oriented — setting unattainable standards for yourself, self-criticism when you fail to meet them;
- other-oriented — setting unattainable standards for others, anger and disappointment when they fail to meet them;
- socially prescribed — believing that others set unrealistic expectations for you and that others will be highly critical of you if you fail to meet them.
One person can experience one or more of those forms. In the context of women’s history and state of affairs, as well as the types of hurdles on our way to leadership, it is very likely that you will fall victim of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism.
The impact of perfectionism
Let’s discuss their negative impact on your life.
- Stress. If it is your nature to demand a lot from yourself and work harder than most, the pressure will exhaust you emotionally and physically. If a setback occurs, a perfectionist will have a harder time recovering from it. In addition, they will find it difficult to quieten their mind.
- Work-life balance. The “I don’t have time for…” sentence of a perfectionist ends with items of self-care: sleep, vacation, hobbies, relationships, or play. Perfectionists can work out of a sense of duty or genuine satisfaction from a job well done. Either way, their drive to excessive work is at the expense of their personal life.
- Missed opportunities because of all the things a perfectionist won’t do because they think they are not good at them. You may convince yourself you don’t want to do something rather than face that you don’t do it because of fear of failure, embarrassment, criticism, rejection, or simply being worse than everyone else. Fear is an individual obstacle linked to the leadership ambition gap described above.
- Relationships. Perfectionists approach to fear and constant busyness translates into deprioritizing relationships, which on some level leads to deep dissatisfaction in life. Relationships can be impacted with physical absence or mental absence even when a perfectionist is physically present. Sometimes the lack of vulnerability in showing the imperfect self leads perfectionists to question whether they are truly loved and accepted for who they are.
As any defence mechanism, perfectionism lingers because we convinced ourselves that it is beneficial for us. But as Tara Mohr writes in her fantastic book “Playing Big: a practical guide for brilliant women like you”:
If you think that the key to greater willpower is being harder on yourself, you are not alone. But you are wrong. Research shows that trying to motivate yourself out of fear, guilt and shame simply doesn't work. Self-compassion — being supportive and kind to yourself especially in the face of stress and failure — is associated with more motivation and better self-control.
Roots of perfectionism
In order to release yourself from the shackles of anxiety and painfully high standards, take under scrutiny where it comes from. Acknowledging and understanding are the first important steps towards acceptance and eventual change of your self-destructive and self-limiting behaviors.
Negative childhood experiences can significantly contribute to the development of perfectionist traits and it is natural for children to seek to please their primary caregivers even in damaging relationships.
- Demaning parents tell children what to do rather than inquire what a child needs or feels, which damages their self esteem and ability to identify their own true self in adulthood. Children crack under the pressure to perform, experience sense of shame and inadequacy, and learn that love is conditional upon pleasing others.
- Perfectionist parents pass on the behavioral patterns on their children by praising excessively achievements not efforts, modelling values of perfect appearance, family and house, and comparing themselves to others.
- Distracted parents are physically or emotionally unavailable due to their constant busyness, which is why they neglect their child’s emotional needs. Always in front of a screen or buried by another commitment, they send a message to the child that it isn’t enough to get their attention.
- Overwhelmed parents are distracted and fatigued to the point of creating a chaotic or even unsafe home. Situations which exceed their ability to cope with life include trauma, mental illness, substance abuse, poverty, or living in a violent community. Overwhelmed parents can be highly critical, moody, inconsistent, impossible to please, abusive, blame children or depend on them for emotional support. Perfectionism of a child becomes a means of restoring balance in the family.
Perfectionist messages also come from culture and media.
- Women and girls are particularly at risk of becoming perfectionists due to gender socialization described in the previous section. As Sharon Martin summarizes in her book,
In Western cultures, girls are socialized as caretakers, to put needs of others before their own, and to suppress their own feelings and goals in order to please others or keep peace. Girls are taught to be neat and quiet and that being pretty and thin are measures of their worth.
- Local cultural values such as working hard and increasing productivity (hence the busyness), emphasis on individualism (competitiveness to the “top”), comparing yourself to others (falling short of those who e.g. work at Google, drive a Tesla, or own a big house) stimulate perfectionism.
- By requiring unconditional devotion and squashing practices of questioning their doctrines, religious or ideological groups inhibit growth of idiogenic personality of its members.
- We are bombarded by images of success and beauty in many forms by ads and social media. Content tailored for appeal lacks realism and its ubiquity, by analogy to gender socialization, perpetuates the sense of falling short of a new norm. This drives us to seek “perfection”.
More pressure for academics
Research infrastructure and the academic incentive system has many pain points, which I passionately reported on in my article “Why we need to seed blockchain in research: crisis and opportunities for collaboration”. As I write there,
The fierce competition and pressure to publish has already caused mental health damage in academia, with 33% of PhD students being at risk of a common psychiatric disorder [13], attributed in part to not transparent job demands and control, or juggling work-family demands. From the point of view of senior researchers, “everywhere, supervisors ask PhD students to publish in high-impact journals and acquire external funding before they are ready.” [14]
Academia is the perfect breeding ground for perfectionists. It is difficult to find a graduate student, who is not convinved that their academic future is over, unless they achieve overblown KPIs. In this case both self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism drives type A personalities to a survival mode of trying to meet unrealistic expectations. Unlike in industry, earned PhD degrees have a sort of “expiry date”, after which options for obtaining funding for individual research disappear. Such institutional obstacles add more pressure to the already overboiling pot. It is thus not surprising that women “leak out” from the academic STEM pipeline at a higher rate than men, as they have to navigate unrealistic expectations towards being a woman as well as an employable scientist.
Key takeaways / action items
- The feeling of falling short of a certain ideal, internalized through messages from culture, media, childhood, religion, work environment, etc., leads to self-handicapping behaviors.
- Perfectionism is not always showing as doing everything perfectly; it can also show as an inability to do things at all due to anxiety and fear.
- It can be directed towards self, others, or socially-prescribed. It leads to stress, messes up work-life balance, negatively impacts relationships, and ultimately leads to missing opportunities for achieving greater satisfaction in life.
- Perfectionism has a strong gender dimension, which puts additional pressure on female academics.
- The first very (!) important step on the “healing” journey is to understand how it shows, which areas of your life it affects, and where it comes from.
