Harness The Power Of Your Perfectionism

A lot of people see perfectionism as a problem—and it can be that!

We can use perfectionism as a would-be shield against our fear of failure, by putting things off until we’re better prepared (repeat forever, or at least until the deadliniest deadline that ever deadlined), or do things but really struggle to draw a line under them and check them off as “done” because we keep tweaking and improving and improving… With diminishing returns (forever). So, that’s not helpful.

But, if we’re mindful, we can also leverage our perfectionism to our benefit.

Great! How?

First we need to be able to discern the ways in which perfectionism can be bad or good for us. Or as it’s called in psychology, ways in which our perfectionism can be maladaptive or adaptive.

• Maladaptive: describing a behavioral adaptation to our environment—specifically, a reactive behavioral adaptation that is unhealthy and really is not a solution to the problem at hand
• Adaptive: describing a behavioral adaptation to our environment—specifically, a responsive behavioral adaptation that is healthy and helps us to thrive

So in the case of perfectionism, one example for each might be:

• Maladaptive: never taking up that new hobby, because you’re just going to suck at it anyway, and what’s the point if you’re not going to excel? You’re a perfectionist, and you don’t settle for anything less than excellence.
• Adaptive: researching the new hobby, learning the basics, and recognizing that even if the results are not immediately perfect, the learning process can be… Yes, even with mistakes along the way, for they too are part of learning! You’re a perfectionist, and you’re going to be the best possible student of your new hobby.

Did you catch the key there?

When it comes to approaching things we do in life—either because we want to or because we must—there are two kinds of mindset: goal-oriented, and task-oriented.

Broadly speaking, each has their merits, and as a general topic, it’s beyond the scope of today’s main feature. Here we’re looking at it in the context of perfectionism, and in that frame, there’s a clear qualitative difference:

• The goal-oriented perfectionist will be frustrated to the point of torment, at not immediately attaining the goal. Everything short of that will be a means to an end, at best. Not fun.
• The task-oriented perfectionist will take joy in going about the task in the best way possible, and optimizing their process as they go. The journey itself will be rewarding and a tangible product of their consistent perfectionism.

The good news is: you get to choose! You’re not stuck in a box.

If you’re thinking “I’m a perfectionist and I’m generally a goal-oriented person”, that’s fine. You’re just going to need to reframe your goals.

• Instead of: my goal is to be fluent in Arabic
  • …so you never speak it, because to err is human, all too human, and you’re a perfectionist, so you don’t want that!
• Let’s try: my goal is to study Arabic for at least 15 minutes per day, every day, without fail, covering at least some new material each time, no matter how small the increase
  • …and then you go and throw yourself into conversation way out of your depth, make mistakes, and get corrections, because that’s how you learn, and you’re a perfectionist, so you want that!

This goes for any field of expertise, of course.

• If you want to play the violin solo in Carnegie Hall, you have to pick up your violin and practice each day.
• If you want to be a world-renowned pastry chef, you have to make a consistent habit of baking.
• If you want to write a bestselling book, you have to show up at your keyboard.

Be perfect all you want, but be the perfect student.

And as your skills grow, maybe you’ll upgrade that to also being the perfect practitioner, and perhaps later still, the perfect teacher.

But just remember:

Perfection comes not from the end goal (that would be backwards thinking!) but from the process (which includes mistakes; they’re an important part of learning; embrace them and grow!), so perfect that first.

How To Stop Revisiting Those Memories

We’ve talked before about putting the brakes on negative thought spirals (and that’s a really useful technique, so if you weren’t with us yet for that one, we do recommend hopping back and reading it!).

We’ve also talked about optimizing memory, to include making moments unforgettable.

But what about the moments we’d rather forget?

First, a quick note: we have no pressing wish or need to re-traumatize any readers, so if you’ve a pressing reason to think your memories you’d rather forget are beyond the scope of a few hundred words “one quick trick” in a newsletter, feel free to skip this section today.

One more quick note: it is generally not considered healthy to repress important memories. Some things are best worked through consciously in therapy with a competent professional.

Today’s technique is more for things in the category of “do you really need to keep remembering that one time you did something embarrassing 20 years ago?”

That said… sometimes, even when it does come to the management of serious PTSD, therapy can (intentionally, reasonably) throw in the towel on processing all of something big, and instead seek to simply look at minimizing its effect on ongoing life. Again, that’s best undertaken with a well-trained professional, however.

For more trivial annoyances, meanwhile…

Two Steps To Forgetting

The first step:

You may remember that memories are tied to the senses, and the more senses are involved, the more easily and fully we remember a thing. To remember something, therefore, we make sure to pay full attention to all the sensory experience of the memory, bringing in all 5 senses if possible.

To forget, the reverse is true. Drain the memory of color, make it black and white, fuzzier, blurrier, smaller, further away, sterile, silent, gone.

You can make a habit of doing this automatically whenever your unwanted memory resurfaces.

The second missing step:

This is the second step, but it’s going to be a missing step. Memories, like paths in a forest, are easier to access the more often we access them. A memory we visit every day will have a well-worn path, easy to follow. A memory we haven’t visited for decades will have an overgrown, sometimes nearly impossible-to-find path.

To labor the metaphor a little: if your memory has literal steps leading to it, we’re going to remove one of the steps now, to make it very difficult to access accidentally. Don’t worry, you can always put the step back later if you want to.

Let’s say you want to forget something that happened once upon a time in a certain workplace. Rather than wait for the memory in question to come up, we’re going to apply the first step that we just learned, to the entire workplace.

So, in this example, you’d make the memory of that workplace drained of color, made black and white, fuzzier, blurrier, smaller, further away, sterile, silent, gone.

Then, you’d make a habit of doing that whenever that workplace nearly comes to mind.

The result? You’re unlikely to accidentally access a memory that occurred in that workplace, if even mentally wandering to the workplace itself causes it to shrivel up and disappear like paper in fire.

Important reminder

The above psychological technique is to psychological trauma what painkillers are to physical pain. It can ease the symptom, while masking the cause. If it’s something serious, we recommend enlisting the help of a professional, rather than “self-medicating” in this fashion.

If it’s just a small annoying thing, though, sometimes it’s easier to just be able to refrain from prodding and poking it daily, forget about it, and enjoy life.