Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / Healthy Perfectionism vs. Unhealthy Perfectionism

Transcript

Healthy Perfectionism vs. Unhealthy Perfectionism · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, I am grateful that you've taken a few moments out of your day to spend with me.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And today I wanted to talk about the topic of perfectionism.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I feel as though it's okay for me to really bring this one up because I myself am a recovering perfectionist.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I say recovering because the truth of the matter is, is I do have the tendencies.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of my personality trait.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's just about becoming aware when I'm allowing my perfectionism to maybe keep me from moving forward or from it's limiting me in some way.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just, you know, with perfectionism, I do think it's just really important to bring it to the awareness that we can make um aligned choices and aligned actions with how we want to move forward.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Perfectionism is often known as type A personality.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh perfectionists generally are rational, uh, they're good with self-control, they've got the high ethical standards, very strong principles, tend to strive to be the best, or often to the point of being overly critical of themselves.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, however, that's it's also expecting perfectionist perfectionism in others.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So a type A personality um is just we rarely satisfied with their accomplishments, making it difficult to really truly feel happy and content.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's somewhat of a uh, you know, I've done this, but maybe it's not good enough, and I have to keep striving to do more and more and more.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Perfectionists tend to be intolerant and and they just they really want to be in control of the situation because there's this subconscious belief.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know that it's always a conscious belief, but there's this this this belief that they're the only ones who can who can get it right or that they have to be in control in order to get it right.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So they perfectionists often end up with a lot to do or that feeling of of of constant stress because it's that feeling of I I'm I'm not there yet.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not good enough yet.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just feels like the plate is always full, which sometimes puts them predisposed to feeling or suffering from burnout.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, now it's not that perfectionism is necessarily a bad thing.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Research does suggest that there are different types of perfectionist behavior, which can actually boost your success, but sometimes it can keep us from continuing to move forward.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I just wanted to somewhat talk through um the different types of perfectionism.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: So healthy perfectionists do have a growth mindset.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: They challenge themselves by setting the high and realistic goals and standards, and their actions are inspired by that intrinsic motivation.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So adaptive perfectionism means that they gain pleasure from um pleasure from task processes and competition, um, not only the end result.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what that really means is that healthy perfectionists are able to accept the mistakes.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: They don't see mistakes as failures, but as opportunities for learning and growth.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so they stay engaged in activities and they don't allow failures to discourage them.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the adaptive form of perfectionism.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we um, and this is what I feel like, you know, when we recognize that we are a perfectionist, as in my case, I would recognize I was recognizing that it would, I was looking at failures as or mistakes as failures and the end rather than shifting it into, oh, that didn't go the way that I wanted it to go.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you add that element of self-compassion in conjunction with perfectionism, it can shift into this adaptive form of perfectionism, into this healthy version where instead of it a mistake or a failure meaning the end of something, it can actually mean the possibility for something more.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the converse to that, of course, is the maladaptive perfectionist or the ones with the fixed mindset, which is how I think I used to show up, where it was there's just this high, there's uh an extremely high set of unrealistic goals, or that you become obsessed with getting it just right and just perfect, and you're striving to achieve all of your goals at all costs, and that's when you become overly critical of yourself and you only want to be and will accept yourself to be the best, and you fear failure and you see mistakes as huge disappointments, and that the that they're basically the end of the world.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is when you're in that maladaptive perfectionist mindset, you um end up being very judgmental of yourself, you're overly critical, you become obsessed with uh your imperfections.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can actually start becoming obsessed with others' imperfections or how you perceive as imperfections, and it creates this uh this low tolerance of uh stress stress essentially, and you end up being in this consistent high sense, uh, high stress place, uh, that overwhelm.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really about recognizing that you if you can switch it to a growth mindset, you can actually use your your high standards that you have to create intrinsic motivation rather than using those high standards to be an element of shutting down and not being able to move forward.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: There are different types of of perfectionists as well, as I mentioned before.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the self-or self-oriented perfectionists where perfectionism is directed towards self, you know, where you're looking to yourself to be uh that that perfect person, you know, you're meticulous, organized, you set these high standards for yourself, you're productive and successful, you express um your needs uh uh uh assertively, you know, you have that attitude where you can, um you feel like you can work towards your goals, and that's where that intrinsic motivation comes from, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're resourceful.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Some others are other-oriented perfectionists.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what that really means is that um people who are dominantly other-oriented perfectionists, they direct their perfectionist expectations towards other people.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So those types of perfectionists tend to hold others to these really high standards, expecting them to do things absolutely flawlessly.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, sometimes we can re recognize it even as parents, where we really are holding our children to like this really high standard and expect them to be perfect angels.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes it happens in romantic relationships where other oriented perfectionists are overly critical of their partner and they tend to start to suppress their emotions and distance themselves from their partner emotionally or physically because their criticism starts to become detrimental to the relationship.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there are ways that we can make uh the best of our perfectionism because holding ourselves to a high standard isn't on its own a bad thing.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's when we set these unrealistically high standards for ourselves or other people that it can start to whittle away and start to create that, you know, it can start to become detrimental to our mental health or our physical well-being or our relationships.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So becoming aware of maybe some uh maladaptive perfectionism is is the first step in shifting that perfectionism from maladaptive perfectionism into maybe more of a healthy striving.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So as you evaluate where you are on that perfectionism spectrum, you're able to then find that balance and shift towards that adaptive form of perfectionism.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, the adaptive form of perfectionism means that you set the high, realistic goals for yourself and then you adjust as necessary.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: You understand that you cannot necessarily do it all perfectly.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mistakes may be made, but I but that you can learn from those.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you become real resilient and you're able to recover from those minor mistakes and shift them into a way where you can learn and you can grow, like I said before, that growth mindset.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: How can we and and and in other ways that we can actually start breaking down that maladaptive perfectionist ideas and ideologies in our head?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can use ways, tools such as um journaling to just recognize our thought processes, really get them out of our head onto paper, sometimes just being able to uh challenge those negative self-that the the negative thoughts that we're having about ourselves, really using the tool about flexible thinking, you know, really asking ourselves when we're stuck in that spiral of perfectionism and it might be that maladaptive perfectionism, and we're thinking to ourselves that we've just completely failed and it's and it's um there's no girl going forward.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's really just asking ourselves, is there is there really a perfect way to do this, or is there a way that we can look at this where it's good enough?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a way that we can learn from this situation rather than simply say that the um that the whole thing is a loss?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're talking about perfectionism, it's just really important to remember that it doesn't have to be a nasty thing, it doesn't have to be a an awful title that we wear.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really how we choose to use it and live it.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: It can be adaptive perfectionism versus maladaptive perfectionism.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this was helpful.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you find that you would like additional support, please feel free to reach out.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, I'm Comedy Wood.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Username it's authenticme.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.