Maladaptive Perfectionism

Perfectionism can be self-oriented, other-oriented, or socially-prescribed. Socially-prescribed perfectionism refers to the belief that other people hold high standards for you. All forms of perfectionism can become maladaptive.  Self-oriented perfectionism refers to setting high standards for yourself. Other-oriented perfectionism refers to setting high standards for other people. 

SOCIALLY-PRESCRIBED PERFECTIONISM

With socially-prescribed perfectionism, you may have the tendency to act in ways that you think you are "supposed to" act. You may feel like acceptance and approval are conditional upon being perfect. Perhaps you had critical and demanding parents who struggled to love unconditionally and tied achievement with self-worth not only for you but for themselves, thus modeling it for you as a way of life as well. When you live like this, you risk creating an unfulfilling life for yourself. Your task lies in learning to differentiate your own personally meaningful values and goals from the values and goals that have been instilled in you.

OTHER-ORIENTED PERFECTIONISM

With other-oriented perfectionism, you risk alienating other people by holding them to standards that are not achievable and interpreting their failure as a sign that they are unworthy and/or that they don't care about you. You may have started holding other people to incredibly high standards because you were mistreated in the past and fear being rejected, neglected, or exploited again. You may derive your own sense of worth from the way that others treat you. Your task lies in building true respect for yourself so that you can find the middle ground where you hold others to appropriate standards, rather than holding them to unrealistic standards out of a place of fear and feelings of unworthiness. 

SELF-ORIENTED PERFECTIONISM

With self-oriented perfectionism, you may have a surplus of "anxious energy" that you direct towards accomplishing goals. Maybe you've learned to manage your anxiety by attempting to grasp control, such as through creating exceptionally high standards and attempting to meet these standards. You map your anxiety onto unfinished tasks so that you don't have to think about what else may really be bothering you. Your mind works quickly. You can think about many possible outcomes for situations and you plan for all of them. Sometimes this may have benefitted you, but other times it becomes so excessive that it defeats the purpose and ends up causing even more anxiety than it is intending to prevent. Your ability to achieve may be tied up with your identity and sense of self-worth. Letting go of high standards can be scary due to the fear that you will "let it all go" if you stop holding yourself to such a high standard. You may feel like you can't feel good about yourself at all if you're not operating at your "full potential" at all times. Perhaps pushing yourself too hard is starting to catch up with you and it's been leading to "crashes." It can be hard to accept that you can't run at your highest setting at all times. You may feel disappointed with yourself for needing a break when you know that you're capable of "doing so much more." Your task lies in learning to pace yourself, setting realistic personal standards that still challenge you, and cultivating a multi-faceted identity as well as a more stable sense of self-worth. 

PERFECTIONISM & THERAPY

Sometimes high-achieving individuals resist seeking therapy because they fear losing their ability to accomplish so much. However, when fear of failure is fueling productivity, the pace can be difficult to maintain in the long-term. Through psychotherapy, it is possible to work through the conflicts at the core of this fear and cultivate a new, more meaningful and stable source of motivation that will allow you to work more effectively over time.