The Root of Perfectionism
My sense of perfectionism and hypervigilance came from the fear and anxiety of potentially losing my job
I set my out-of-office messages, turn off my work laptop and cell phone, and stash them away in a drawer. I was about to take an unpaid week of vacation, and I was not going to answer any calls or check emails during that week. While I enjoyed my time off, I started getting intrusive thoughts as the time to return to work drew near. “Is my team mad at me for not being there? Will they yell at me or ignore me when they see me again?” When I got back to the office, my manager pushed one of my meetings with him a few hours later. Then, it seemed like he took longer than usual to answer one of my emails. The thought crossed my mind: “Have I fallen out of favor because I was out when we had a big project?”
As it turns out, work went along fine without me. No one yelled at me (something my parents would do) or ignored me when I returned. Most people were glad to see me. Many people asked how my time off was. I was assigned plenty of work when I returned and my manager even realized how short-staffed we were in my absence. My paranoia about falling out of favor was fiction, not fact. It was a sign of confirmation bias: I thought I would be punished for taking time off so my mind looked for evidence of it. Due…
