11 Thoughts and Behaviors To Combat Perfectionism

Practical tips from a psychotherapist.

Photo by Jonathan Hoxmark on Unsplash

Modify your behaviors

Create personal goals, realistic expectations — and stop multitasking!

Go ahead and let yourself know that you are enough. What you are doing right now, and thinking right now, and feeling right now is enough. By letting go and setting some more realistic goals, you’ll gain so much by no longer spinning your wheels trying to reach the impossible.

You think you are the exception to the multitasking rule, but you’re not. You are wasting your time. Stop doing all the things and doing them all at once.

Set boundaries and say “no more!”

We know you’ve got high ambitions but #YOUCANTDOITALL

Learn to set boundaries and say “no” to the things that don’t need to have your hand in, don’t fill you up or you don’t want to do. Setting healthy boundaries will assist you in regaining control of your schedule and energy levels.

Take breaks

Sometimes these will be 1-minute breaks, 5 minutes break, or hour-long breaks. The important thing is that you are taking a break. For those of you that the thought of taking breaks initiates that “breaks = wasted time” alarm, just take a breath.

It may not be natural for you to prioritize yourself, so it may be helpful for you to schedule your breaks. This will get you used to what it feels like in order to see the benefits and the importance of recharging.

Focus on self-care. Connect with loved ones, invest in therapy, re-connect with an old hobby, read, get outside, go for a walk, take deep breaths.

Recharge on a vacation

Doesn’t have to be fancy. Maybe it's a half-day trip, full-day trip, or weekend getaway. There is nothing like getting out of town and spending time in a new environment.

Reward yourself

Remember that a big thing keeping the perfectionistic standards top priority is fear of failure. And it is tough work facing your fears head-on. So give yourself a break and pamper yourself throughout this lifelong journey of change.

Repeat, repeat, repeat “Time off is not time wasted!”

Being bored is good. Resting is great and taking breaks is necessary!

For a perfectionist, it is easy to practice that relaxation is wasted time not spent on achieving said goals.

But in reality, our creativity originates and grows in times of rest. This downtime gives us the ability to remain healthy and feel refreshed so when it is time to get back at it, we can show up as our full selves and chip away towards our goals.

Modify your thoughts

Challenge negative thoughts and your inner critic

Let’s turn down the volume to that negativity! Your emotional well-being does not need to be beaten up, so back off and switch things up.

1. EX Perfectionistic Thoughts: My co-workers should never be late for meetings. If my co-workers are late it is because they don’t care about me or the topic at hand.
2. EX Alternative Thoughts: Maybe they lost track of time, or maybe they got stuck in traffic. Even when we try to be on time, sometimes life happens. Heck, this even happens to me sometimes!
3. EX Evaluating Perfectionistic Thoughts and Alternative Thoughts: My alternative thoughts are far more plausible and realistic. My perfectionistic thoughts really don’t serve me any purpose (other than getting me all wound up).
4. EX Choosing a More Realistic and Helpful Perspective: This really isn’t that bad, its just a few minutes. And if it continues to be a regular issue, then I will address it with them at a later date.

Use hypothesis-testing

Let’s carry out some small experiments.

Try sending an email without proofreading it, show up a few minutes late to a meeting, buy something online without reading every single review. According to perfectionist standards, this may seem like half-assing things.

So yeah — let’s try that and see if the word ends!

Even if the result ends up being negative, it probably wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be (though your brain may be telling you something different). And how did it feel to not drive yourself (or others) crazy? Or did you gain back some time or save some energy that could be used elsewhere?

From When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism:

An excellent way to test the accuracy of your perfectionistic thoughts and predictions is to carry out small experiments, a process also known as hypothesis testing. Carefully designed experiments will provide an opportunity to disprove your perfectionistic beliefs. For example, if you tend to write papers that are too detailed, try leaving out some of the detail and seeing what happens. Regardless of the outcome, you will obtain valuable information. If there is no consequence, you will learn that your beliefs about the importance of including all of the details are not true.

Look at the big picture

Remind yourself that it’s all going to work out — in time. Provide yourself some reassurance using the data from your life to show yourself that you get things done. Feel secure as opposed to being overwhelmed. Don’t panic because your history shows that you are a “doer” and that it will all get done — with time.

Get out of the details and let’s look at the bigger picture. Often times perfectionists getting bogged down with the nitty-gritty and it can end up causing more worry than what is useful.

You can ask yourself the following questions to assist in this process:

1. Does it really matter?
2. What is the worst that could happen?
3. If the worst does happen, can I survive it?
4. Will this still matter tomorrow? How about next week? Next year?

Take on another person’s perspective

Point of view is a very important aspect of human connection and interaction.

Perfectionists often have a hard time seeing others’ perspectives, but being able to take on someone else’s perspective can be very beneficial.

For example, if I think “I am lazy!” because I went to the gym for an hour today and not 2 hours, it might be helpful to think about this from someone else’s perspective.

So, to do this I could ask myself:

1. How would Susan (friend) view this situation?
2. Are there other ways of looking at this situation?
3. What would I tell a close friend who was having this dilemma?

Don’t hold others to the same standards

This will take practice. When you navigate your life doing everything perfectly, it is common to have those expectations carry over to how we expect others to behave. The issue with this is that not everyone is wired like you.

Bring awareness to the thoughts and expectations you have of others and challenge and shift those just as you would if they were thoughts about yourself.

There are lots of things you can do in your daily life to combat perfectionism. Let’s recap:

1. Create personal goals, realistic expectations — and stop multitasking!
2. Set boundaries and say “no more!”
3. Take breaks
4. Recharge on a vacation
5. Reward yourself
6. Repeat, repeat, repeat “Time off is not time wasted!”
7. Challenge negative thoughts and your inner critic
8. Use hypothesis-testing
9. Look at the big picture
10. Take on another person’s perspective
11. Don’t hold others to the same standards

TherapyByShannon specializes in counseling men and young adults. She strives to create a counseling environment for positive change where men and young adults can relate, feel heard, and find new solutions to their negative patterns. She commonly works with stress, relationship issues, difficulty saying no or recognizing emotions, interpersonal connection, intimacy, and anger issues.

Originally published by Shannon Gonter, LPCC, NCC, of Louisville, KY. Edits by Annette Miller for length and clarity in Enriched Couples.

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