Perfectionism Gets a Bad Rap
I’m a perfectionist. Most days I’m ok with that. According to this article in The Atlantic, perfectionism is probably on the rise. And according to the research noted in that article, there are three types of perfectionism (Great…I can be three times the perfectionist now). There is “self-oriented perfectionism, or a desire to be perfect” (yep, been there…); “socially prescribed, or a desire to live up to others’ expectations” (…done that); “and other-oriented, or holding others to unrealistic standards” (I can’t be bothered with this one, people are always letting me down). The article notes that all three have shown increases in college and university students between 1989 and 2016.
However, are all of these things bad? I don’t think so and neither does writer Katie Heaney. In an article for The Cut where she references the article in The Atlantic, she says:
“I get why socially prescribed perfectionism is bad, because that relies on an external (and likely impossible) definition of perfection. I also get why other-oriented perfectionism is bad, because setting impossible standards for other people’s behavior is likely to lead only to disappointment. But what about self-oriented perfectionism, or, more plainly, the intrinsic desire to be excellent?”
The Atlantic Article notes that perfectionistic tendencies can be a good thing, like for professional athletes for example. Again, perfectionism can be split up, this time in two. There’s well-adjusted perfectionism. Our professional athlete perfectionist, for example, shows this when they fail to get the gold medal but still moves forward. And then there’s maladaptive perfectionism. Here, our professional athlete example lets failure and imperfection be the ruin of them. They can’t let it go.
In learning circles, maladaptive perfectionist tendencies may lead to learning shame, which I’ve previously written about here. Feeling shame in your failings typically means you believe that you are faulty. Feeling guilt about your failings means you know you could have done better and will do better but you don’t take it personally. I would suggest that those of us that experience well-adjusted perfectionism still feel damn terrible every time we miss one of our self-imposed standards. The difference though is that we feel guilt not shame. We strive to do better next time and that night we close our eyes and have a good sleep, without the lingering (for too long) of negative or self-defeating thoughts.
In my time spent educating others or in working to improve myself, I always put excellence front and centre. I’m thinking it is the relentless pursuit of excellence done well that creates well-adjusted perfectionists. The thing is, you still need to push. I find that some people don’t want to do this because it has an overall feel of competition and they don’t like being competitive or see themselves as the competitive type.
Competition has nothing to do with it though. I don’t have to be a professional athlete to be a perfectionist. It it’s simplest level, all I need is to want to be better today than I was yesterday and work towards being better tomorrow than I was today.
So you need to constantly push yourself or others out of their comfort zones as that is where the growth happens. And there is research out there now to show that all of us can be much better at the things we do (or want to be able to do) than we are right now. That is, if we’re willing to work really, really hard and hold high standards — perfectionist-like even.
I’d like to end with a quote to support the pursuit of excellence. The source is former College football coach Joe Paterno. Given recent revelations about what happened inside his University’s football program, he may not be anyone’s role model anymore. However, the message still resonates the message of excellence and, I think, the difference between healthy and unhealthy perfectionism.
“There are many people, particularly in sports, who think that success and excellence are the same thing. They are not the same thing. Excellence is something that is lasting and dependable and largely within a person’s control. In contrast, success is perishable and is often outside our control. If you strive for excellence, you will probably be successful eventually. People who put excellence in the first place have the patience to end up with success. An additional burden for the victim of the success mentality is that he is threatened by the success of others and he resents real excellence. In contrast, the person that is fascinated by quality is excited when he sees it in others.”
If you are responsible for a group of people that you can call “learners”, proudly and doggedly push them to be excellent. More importantly though is to show them why and how. More on that here.
