I don't know since when, perfectionism has become a "fashion". However, as more and more people pursue perfection, more and more problems also arise. Perfectionism has become one of the reasons why many people are unhappy.
case
Hao Mei (pseudonym), who often ranks among the best in grades, has been very unhappy recently, and even has thoughts of getting tired of studying. The main reason is that she has high requirements for herself, and if her grades are not the first, she feels like a failure. But the reality is that no matter how hard you try, you can't always be first. So she became more and more afraid of exams. Not only that, Hao Mei is also very demanding of others. In a group activity, as the group leader, she severely criticized everyone because she was dissatisfied with the performance of all the group members, which caused the students to not want to cooperate with her. She felt increasingly lonely and frustrated.
The root of Hao Mei's problem with learning weariness is her excessive perfectionism. She is too strict with herself and others, aspires to be the best in everything, and has low self-esteem, low mood, and withdrawn behavior when she doesn't do well.
parental influence
Some parents are anxious and strict, often have high expectations and desire for control of their children, and often directly or indirectly send signals that their children are not good enough. Go for all right next time (insufficient attention, near perfection is not enough). These parents criticize, scold and even physically punish their children if they make mistakes or behave well below their standards. As they grow older, these children internalize the expectations and demands of their parents and become more and more perfect.
In addition, some parents themselves have a perfect complex, which subtly affects their children; some parents themselves are very good, outstanding in certain aspects, and their children will imitate and learn from the parents who are perfect in their eyes.
environmental impact
The school environment and social environment also foster perfectionism. For example, some subject examinations have uniform standard answers, and people have various evaluations and grade assessments in their study and work. These give everyone an illusion that only by striving to be the best can you achieve your ideal goals.
In fact, many people have the same state as Hao Mei, but because most of the time they are only trapped in specific events, they are not well aware that they are a perfectionist. We need to understand our perfectionism, and when we realize that we are starting to compete, we should stop in time and try our best to live in harmony with perfectionism. What should be done then?
Be aware of your perfectionist tendencies
Some scholars divide perfectionism into positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism. A positive perfectionist is someone who has a healthy pursuit of excellence and experiences joy in striving to achieve high standards. A negative perfectionist is someone who sets personal standards too far beyond their abilities, forcing themselves to work toward impossible goals, and measuring their worth by this.
Clearly, positive perfectionism is positive and can act as a drive for excellence. And negative perfectionism, excessive pursuit of perfection, can easily go to extremes. There are two types of negative perfectionists: one is an introvert, who has high expectations of himself, entangled in his own imperfections, and lowers his self-evaluation; the other is an extrovert, who has high expectations of others , frustrated with the imperfection of others. Many people, like Haomei, have both.
Break the Shackles of Negative Perfectionism
We need to recognize that negative perfectionism is not perfect. The extreme pursuit of perfection can lead to some psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, procrastination, obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, sleep disorders, etc.
If we find that we have more introverted perfectionism tendencies, we must pay special attention to adjusting our self-awareness, accept ourselves, and not blindly cater to others; if we have more extroverted perfectionism tendencies, we must empathize and tolerate others shortcomings, preventing projecting one's own thoughts onto others.
In addition, we also need to fundamentally change some negative perfectionist thinking patterns, including but not limited to the following three.
Jump out of the extreme thinking of "black or white"
Perfectionists are prone to fall into the cognitive misunderstanding of "black and white", thinking that no success is failure, either good or bad, and there are few intermediate states such as "okay", "almost" and "good enough".
We can often use "measurement questions" to help ourselves think beyond extremes. The simplest scale is that 10 points represent the ideal situation in your heart, and 0 points represent the worst situation. Then:
1. Know where your current state is on the scale, and rate yourself.
2. When the current state is extremely bad, you may give yourself a score of 0. At this time, think more about the highest score you can score in the past week or more? Think about the difference in that state? At this time, I often feel better and score again.
3. Suppose you give yourself a more realistic score of 6 at this time, then think about what you have done to make yourself a 6 instead of lower? What score do you think is "good enough"? What needs to be done to improve a point? What would be the sign if it improved by one point?
This exercise helps us focus on the extent of our future-oriented progress, rather than on the things we are worried about. In addition, we can learn all kinds of knowledge, come into contact with different people and different viewpoints, learn to look at one thing flexibly from multiple perspectives, and improve our ability to think in multiple ways.
Change the goal of "perfect" to "done"
Perfectionists tend to set high goals and standards, are quality-conscious, and expect perfect results. If they do not do well, they will self-doubt, self-denial, and even withdraw and avoid doing things, which seriously hinders their progress.
In this case, the goals and standards can be appropriately lowered, starting with "done" rather than "perfect". Try as long as you have the opportunity, do it in advance, repeat and improve frequently, and finally achieve "quantitative change to qualitative change", which is often more successful than those who expect to be perfect on the first try.
The people who succeed in the end are almost never successful, and they all go through hard work to finally achieve their goals. Physicist Albert Einstein once said, "I'm not much smarter than others, I'm just able to do it again and again."
We can break down a big goal into smaller goals, and a big task into individual pieces. Nodes, respectively set the completion time and reasonable standards, do it step by step, persevere, gradually develop habits, and improve internal drive, which is the core of personal growth.
Don't be afraid of external evaluation, be brave to be your true self
Behind the emotional and behavioral problems of perfectionists, they often internalize too many negative evaluations from others and fail to form relatively objective self-perception beliefs. For example, because one thing is not done well (fact), it is considered that the ability is too poor (evaluation).
When we hear negative comments, we can ask ourselves more:
Is it true that others say I am not good? On what basis?
I'm not perfect at this, so what?
Is this thing "good enough"? What is the standard of reasonableness?
Do I have to meet other people's expectations? What are my true feelings?
Rogers, a master of humanistic psychology, believes: "Self-concept has a more important role in individual behavior and personality than true self." How others view us is not so important, the most important thing is how we view ourselves. Self-esteem, self-confidence and self-love from the heart are the inner driving force for our continuous progress.
Perfectionism has two sides. We want to preserve the benefits of positive perfectionism and reduce the harm caused by negative perfectionism. "There are cracks in everything, and that's where the light comes in." You don't need to be perfect, just accept your imperfections and you'll be happier.
.jpeg)