The perfectionist in me saw two strong reasons not to go to the gym. The imperfectionist in me saw an opportunity for a little bit of forward progress, and I took it.
We think that the big decisions, such as “I’m going to lose weight” and “I’ve decided to write a book,” matter most just because they’re significant if accomplished. But look back over your life, and think of all the thousands of little moments in which you had an opportunity to be doing something that could have added up to mastery in an area by now.
A goal is like pole vaulting: Failure is anything underneath the bar, and success is anything above it. It doesn’t matter how high you get; it only matters if you get over the bar. This polarized view of goals is supposed to motivate us to reach the mark and maybe even surpass it, but it’s an inferior strategy that worsens the perfectionism problem.
We make the grave error of redefining partial success as “failure.” If it isn’t whole and complete, we find it embarrassing at best and humiliating at worst. This isn’t merely irrational—it’s lethal to our progress and well-being! Perfectionists do not accept a small amount of value or progress;** ****they only want big, smooth, perfect wins. **
If you truly believe that you’re worse than other people, it only makes sense to act like a threatened puffer fish (intimidate) or turtle (hide).
The less you think of yourself, the more likely you are to overcompensate. If you have an aggressive or extroverted personality, your inferiority complex will usually result in the puffer fish response. If you have a passive, shy personality, this usually results in the turtle response.
In addition, school teaches us that “‘A’ efforts” bring “‘A’ results.” Real life shows us that “‘A’ efforts” only give us a chance at “‘A’ results.” Students can go out into the job market, do all the right things, and still get a real-life “F” when they aren’t selected for a job. This is the ideal breeding ground for perfectionistic thinking.
Perfectionism is an excuse-generating machine. After setting a perfect standard, attempting to meet it seems futile. Such a standard can also be a response to underlying fears and doubts. For example, if I feared that I couldn’t write well, I might then create an irrationally high standard for my writing to discourage myself from ever attempting to write—for example, my first draft must be as concise as Hemingway and as witty as Shakespeare. This would prevent me from writing a single word!__ __
The perfectionist enjoys safety and protection from what they fear, and that—not striving for excellence—is the most common reason why people become perfectionists.
Desire for greatness and fear of inadequacy are counterforces, and perfectionism is the only solution that seems to address both. You can fantasize about greatness while remaining protected against embarrassment. Inaction, in this case, even appears to validate your great potential because desiring perfection implies that you have and can meet high standards (when you run out of excuses), but it only hides your potential from yourself and the world.
If perfectionism were an iceberg, the small, visible tip would be a desire for excellence, and the submerged part, which reportedly comprises 90% of an iceberg’s mass, would be the fear of failure. The fear of failure is not something we want to show to the world, but it can still drive our actions.
it’s not the literal consequences of failure that scare us; it’s the idea that we could fail at something we desire greatly.
We cling to perfectionism not because the cost of failure rises but because the importance of the reward rises. The more we want something, the more afraid we are to not get it. A “perfect” example of this is one of the many low-risk and high-reward behaviors that trigger a perfectionistic response in people: asking a girl to go on a date, asking for a raise, meeting new people, or trying something new. Each of these usually has a negligible downside compared to the great upside if it’s a success.
Perfectionism protects us against symbolic failure. Because low-risk and high-reward opportunities are often tied to concepts that we crave success in—romance, career, and socializing—an individual instance of failure can be seen as symbolic of our standing in that area, even though, logically, it’s more of a chance-based result than a life-defining failure.
In this dynamic is another “benefit” of perfectionism—mystery! If you never attempt something, you can’t know empirically that you’re not world-class at it. The mystery in perfectionism allows our perfect fantasies to never be tested and disproved. A quick logic check tells us that we’re not perfect at anything. So there’s not actually any mystery; it’s just the illusion of it.
It’s important to be honest about this—__perfectionism does protect us__. It protects us from massively damaging our confidence and hopes.
Any passive activity is safe for the perfectionist, because if they’re not involved, they can’t mess up.
Have you ever seen someone lose and immediately serve up a ready-made platter of excuses as to why they lost? I’ve done it before.
There’s a term called “self-handicapping” that describes how people purposefully handicap themselves—explicitly or mentally—to have an excuse on hand if things don’t work out. When done explicitly, it might be letting someone get a head start in a race because if you give them a head start and they win, you can say it’s because they started first. If self-handicapping mentally, you may start the race from the same spot, but in your head, you’ll think, “My knee hurts and I’m tired” instead of “I’m going to win this race.”
We do this to protect ourselves. It seems nice, too, to have a chance of success but to say, “Well, my ankle was sore” if the attempt fails. It is riskier to accept the full consequences of an action.
Self-handicapping is a perfectionist trait in that it lets you put an asterisk beside your failures, but it’s also a hindrance to success. It’s playing life safely instead of playing to win.
In life, you’re consistently building up one of two things—your level of comfort or your level of growth. To grow in an area, you must face increased risk, uncertainty, and discomfort. There is absolutely no other option, because if growth were comfortable, then you’d already be at that point.
Areas that people self-handicap in include the following:
Business and career success (e.g., putting in a halfhearted effort at work or slacking on your business, almost as if you’re “saving” your best work for a special occasion or the right moment)
Romance (e.g., not investing in or pursuing relationships, being emotionally distant, etc.)
Social situations (e.g., finding reasons to avoid conversations, pretending not to care, etc.)
Personal appearance (e.g., not presenting your best self, because if people reject a lesser version of you, you’ll have an excuse)
Personal health (e.g., not exercising because you have a minor injury or health concern; you can almost always exercise around it!)
The main point here is that action itself is the best starting point for more action, while trying to think your way into more motivation is an unreliable and ineffective way to create forward momentum.
As a behavior is repeated, the subconscious recognizes the pattern, the neural pathway is strengthened, and our emotions toward the behavior decrease.
Imperfectionism is NOT laziness, low standards, contentment with failure, disinterest in excellence and improvement, or apathy.
A common, false assumption is that aiming for perfection gets you closer to it. The opposite is true: Embracing imperfection will bring you closer to perfection than a perfectionist mindset will.
Back when I was a single perfectionist, I’d see couples and think, She chose him? I’m in better shape! That guy? I’m better-looking! Him? He seems boring. I was jealous of everyone who had someone. But I was on the sidelines, not doing anything to find a woman. The reason was, of course, that I feared the imperfect reality of putting myself out there and taking risks. I was stuck.
In general, the idea behind imperfectionism is to not care so much about conditions or results, and care more about what you can do right now to move forward with your identity and your life.
It’s never disrespectful (to those you’ve hurt) to move on with your life, as rumination doesn’t solve problems or make up for mistakes. Self-punishment doesn’t atone for things you’ve done or make the situation better. Rumination is a desperate, futile attempt to change the past by thinking about it. It’s a form of denial, and acceptance is the antidote.
When you begin to ruminate on an event, give yourself 30 seconds to understand why you did what you did. You always act in your perceived best interest. Think about your motives in that moment. Admit you’re a flawed person. Once you’ve fully understood your “prior self” in that moment, you will not judge your actions as harshly (just as the key to judging other people less is to try to understand them more). We’re hardest on ourselves when we don’t take a moment to understand.
Maybe it’s because of how we’re raised as children, or maybe it’s insecurity, but a great number of us are far too reliant on permission to act. Permission is a big part of our external lives—there are rules all around us (a rule is a requirement or a lack of permission to do something). We have federal laws and state laws, company policies, social norms and etiquette, and so on.
All behaviors have consequences, but very few of them carry significant consequences. The harmless results people worry about are embarrassment or rejection. Sending four emails in a row, for example, could be embarrassing or cause the other person to reject your proposal. But if you’re that persistent, perhaps it will make you stand out. It’s best not to worry about it; if you want to do it and have a good reason to do it, do it.
Have you seen people do embarrassing things in public? How did they make you feel? Did you laugh? Deep down, were you jealous a little bit that they had the guts to do something so crazy without needing permission?
It’s very desirable to have a desensitized embarrassment reflex, because it brings you freedom. The “crazy” people of the world have that going for them—they’re not worried about being embarrassed. But most of us are so tame in our behavior that we’d never approach really embarrassing behavior even if we felt free to do it.
Those who have a strong need for approval are not rebels. They struggle to live in their own way because they try to attach everything they do to a standard practice. Or they try to live in the way that will draw the least amount of criticism from others. They need to rebel against their own need for approval, and they need to practice. When you don’t care about the approval of others, you are free to be yourself and do things you’d never consider otherwise.
Needing approval is a violation of your identity. This truth points to another truth: those who need approval don’t know who they are. If you know who you are, it’s much easier to live as yourself. If you’re not sure who you are—maybe you’re young or have followed others for too long—you’ll look for your identity outside of yourself.
This is easier said than done. You can’t exactly find your identity overnight after not having one for years. But you can take the prerequisite step to find out—rebel. Rebel against whatever is putting your life on rails. It’s only once you’re free to make your own choices that you’ll discover who you really are.
Personally, I am most sensitive to general societal expectations and judgments. So my rebellion practice involves things like lying down in public (I’ve done it), dancing like a fool (do it all the time), talking to women (getting better at it), and any other potentially embarrassing activity.
There’s a pressure to conform. Always. This makes us all more susceptible to perfectionist tendencies. The aforementioned exercises are meant to challenge and reveal these ridiculous expectations placed upon us. People will think you’re insane when you lie down in the middle of a public place or walk in slow motion, but is that really crazy? Perhaps. But it’s even crazier for others to worry about it.
There are people who feel like impostors just for being loved. They don’t believe they deserve it, and think that if they make a mistake, they will be exposed and lose it. They may think being loved is contingent on being the perfect spouse, friend, or father, which they know they cannot sustain.
As a perfectionist: What should I say to her first? She knows she’s pretty, and complimenting her will just make me seem like every other guy. But I want to be nice and show her I’m attracted to her. But that will make me seem desperate. Maybe I should playfully tease her? What should I say, though? I don’t want to use a pick-up line. But those are funny and she might like it. I wonder how awkward it would be to talk to her. Oops, she left five minutes ago.
As an imperfectionist: If I talk to her, I win. I’ll say “Hi.”
Freedom is walking up to a woman, tripping over your shoes, coughing three times, stuttering on your first word, and after this medley of mistakes, talking to her and calling it a success.
Procrastination is not caused by laziness but by a combination of fear and overcomplicated objectives, which come from a perfectionistic mindset.
Because of how perfectionists define success, they can perform 80 push-ups and feel like a failure because they missed their goal of 100. Their bodies benefit from the exercise, but their future progress is harmed by their perspective. When you berate yourself for imperfect performance, you can squeak out improved performance in the short term. This is why so many people do it. But in the long-term, you’re damaging your sense of self-worth and competence. Even if the damage is minor, you have to compare it to what it’s like to always appreciate forward progress.
Some people have come to believe that they need an accurately-sized goal in order to do something. They think that, in order to reach 20 push-ups, that “chunk” must be aimed for at the start.
If you hesitate to move to implementation even briefly, you may loop back to deliberation and get lost in the details of complex variables. Even worse, this can become habitual.
The second you understand there is a bigger benefit and less downside to doing something, do it.
For the subject of quantity vs. quality in the context of life decisions and progress, it’s most accurate to say that quantity is the path to quality. When you can refine something over many attempts, improving it more with each iteration, you’re bound to have greater success than if you meticulously planned out the perfect first try.
Undoubtedly, when talking about end results, quality is preferred, but obsessing over quality can decrease it by interfering with (or skipping) the critical refinement process.
Your best chance to reach your big dreams is through small goals in quantity.
The assumption of the perfectionist is that there is a golden path and that no other way will suffice.
I’m not saying we should carelessly run into what hurts us most. I’m saying that even the worst detours have value. That is to say that all paths have some value, and while some are measurably better than others, finding the best one isn’t as important as moving forward in life. Unequivocally, the worst choice is inaction. Perfectionists often choose inaction because, with an infinite number of possible paths, finding the perfect one is difficult to figure out. When pursuing some end, you can know where you want to go, but give yourself flexibility in your path to get there. If you keep your path flexible and practice perseverance, you’re going to get many of the things you want in life.
Binary mindset action:
Say “Hi” to a person you find attractive = win.
Send any email to a person of interest (for business, networking, or a specific request) = win.
Write a story outline (it doesn’t have to be good!) = win.
Publish a book = win.
Give a speech = win.