The Sneaky Truth About Perfectionism
Updated: Jul 22, 2022
Written by: Sarah Moody, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Did you know that “perfectionism” is really just a pretty name for AVOIDANCE?
It’s true.
We’re all vaguely familiar with perfectionism, especially those of us who identify as high achievers. Perfectionism is defined as the tendency or obsession with holding oneself to high standards. It’s often associated with a hyper-critical internal dialogue (aka that negative talk track running inside your brain) and a feeling that you could always be doing more. And unfortunately, it’s associated with some pretty nasty side effects, like increased rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, and eating disorders.
The thing about perfectionists is that we aren’t actually motivated by the desire to be “perfect”, we’re motivated by the desire to avoid failure. The idea that we would disappoint ourselves or others is riding shotgun in everything we do, telling us we need to work harder and be better so that we don’t have to deal with that terrible feeling.
The problem is, we end up feeling terrible anyway!
Perfectionism trains our brains to look for flaws and fix them as a way to avoid the feeling of failure. But that pattern doesn’t just stop with our deliverables – it extends to our relationships, our goals, our ability to balance work and life. We literally make the feeling of failure INESCAPABLE for ourselves, and then wonder why we feel so anxious and overwhelmed. On top of that, we play small with our dreams, too afraid of failure to actually pursue what we want.
Don’t worry: this IS NOT a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. There IS another option. There are two tools I recommend to train your brain out of perfectionism.
Number one: practice FEELING your feelings. This might sound like something you heard in kindergarten, but it’s actually well supported by neuroscience that tapping into the PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE of your emotions helps alleviate their intensity. In fact, did you know that the physical sensation of a feeling usually passes through the body in less than 90 seconds!? Brains are just awesome like that.
Most of us were never taught how to actually feel our emotions in our bodies, so here are a few questions to get you started:
Where do you feel the feeling in your body? (Head, neck, stomach, shoulders)
Does it move? If so, how fast or slow is it?
What texture is it? (Hard, sticky, soft…)
What temperature is the feeling? (Hot, cold, warm)
What shape is it?
No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you can take ten seconds to answer these questions for yourself. Practice feeling BOTH the positive and negative emotions – it’s all part of being human.
Number two: practice B- work. Or if B- feels like too much of a jump, try A-! And if you REALLY don’t want to do this, I’m going to suggest it would be ESPECIALLY helpful for you to try it in at least one area of your life.
B- work doesn’t mean that you forget your standards or stop working hard. It means that you prioritize what is truly important, get it done, and move on, knowing that you can iterate on everything. That is one thing I love about the tech industry: WE KNOW HOW TO ITERATE.
Remember this: re-training your brain takes time. Especially for perfectionists, we want the change to be instantaneous and that is just not going to happen. I like the metaphor of the water running over stone. One trickle of water does nothing, but many trickles of water over time can literally create the Grand Canyon!! The same is true of your brain: eventually, all of this will feel obvious. You just have to start.
Sarah Moody, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sarah is the only certified coach who:
Recovered from decades of anorexia and bulimia.
Has been a tech veteran for the past 20 years and started a company from scratch after getting fired from a job in 2001. Clients are some of the largest software enterprises in the world, and the company has grown by over 400% in revenue.
Has coached hundreds of clients and is on a mission to help other high achievers like herself, break through burnout and bring magic back into their career and life.
