Beatha Coaching

Kicking off a new series, I am going to explore some of the key challenges that clients often bring to coaching: topics like procrastination, imposter syndrome, dealing with rejection, and experiencing anger at work. I’m starting with perfectionism, and in particular its impacts on our ability to produce creative work, because this is something I have struggled with myself. I will mention academic contexts quite a bit in this post, but the basic information about perfectionism and approaches to begin tackling it will be relevant no matter which field you work in or where you are finding perfectionism is causing you problems. And if you would like to take your understanding and toolkit deeper, I have a low-cost workshop on Tackling Procrastination coming up on Wednesday 3rd May 7.30-8.30pm UK time which you can book a place on here. The workshop will run live on zoom and be interactive, and everyone who books will also receive a link to the recording and a workbook with follow-on material.

What is perfectionism?

Let’s start with a question – how do we know when we are stuck in perfectionism, and when we are simply aiming for excellence? Clients will sometimes tell me that they value their perfectionist traits because of the level of excellence they are driven to strive for. And there is certainly an argument to be made that our perfectionist part can show us the way toward more detailed and deep creative work. However, there is a big difference between aiming for excellence and perfectionism. The key is in the word – perfectionism is the pursuit of an idea that something can be perfect, and that there is a single, verifiable version of perfection that is achievable through working hard enough for long enough. Excellence, by contrast, allows for a more nuanced assessment, even a more personal one, against a range of factors. In research we aim for excellence, not perfection, because the very idea of perfect is a full-stop, a completion, a nothing-to-add-here – that concept is antithetical to the research process, and I would argue to creativity more generally, as our role is always to contribute by building upon the work of others and in turn provide new foundations for someone else.

If this is the case, why do so many of us, at one time or another, find ourselves stuck in perfectionism? To answer this, let’s go back to that question – how do we know if it’s perfectionism? As so often, the answer lies in our nervous system. Ask yourself, how do you feel when you are doing the work? Are you:

• Calm or jittery?
• Able to rest, or on edge and unable to settle?
• Able to move away from your project, or hyperfocused?
• Making (possibly slow) progress, or going in circles?
• Clear about the next steps, or feeling confused?
• Meeting deadlines, or watching them whoosh past?
• Feeling basically fine, or feeling tense with sore, tight muscles?
• Eating & sleeping normally, or feeling sick with disrupted sleep?
• Confident about your process & when to move on, or anxious & second guessing all your choices?

Perfectionism is an anxiety state. When you are operating from a desire for excellence, you are working within your window of tolerance. Even if the work is challenging and time consuming, you will feel generally positive and in a calm, connected state in which planning and creativity are easy. You are also able to walk away from the project, and feel safe doing so. Perfectionism, however, feels like you are outside your window of tolerance, and your work is driven by anxious energy and ruminating thoughts that can also lead to shut-downs. This is one of the reasons why perfectionism and procrastination travel hand-in-hand. Perfectionism is based on an assessment of risk, and a drive to avoid that risk by controlling all the possible controllables.

What happens when we are caught in perfectionism?

Let’s look at an example – you might be a person who really loves organising things. You get a dopamine hit and lots of positive emotions from a perfectly arranged cupboard, or colour coordinating a spreadsheet. However, when perfectionism shows up this calm, confident, creative feeling changes into something more unpleasant. Perfectionism is looking at the spreadsheet and feeling anxious that perhaps it isn’t perfectly user friendly as you had thought, in fact there might be much better ways to organise the data and colour code it. As you ruminate about the ways you went wrong, you fear what this will mean for your reputation, or for further down the line when the project gets busy and other users try to work with it. You become overwhelmed with the possible risks and so tinker and play with the spreadsheet, spending far longer on it than the relative importance of the job justifies. You are unable to accept good enough for now, when perfect still feels like an achievable option, and you are convinced that getting this right or not is going to determine your career future. You delay other work in order to continue to refine the spreadsheet, and you feel increasingly confused about the outcomes. When you finally have to submit the spreadsheet, you are convinced it is poor quality and will need to be drastically reworked, and you are now stressed and anxious about the overdue projects waiting for your attention.

As this example illustrates, perfectionism is fuelled by an internal narrative about the possible consequences of getting something wrong, or it not being good enough. There is an implicit belief embedded in perfectionism that there is a right way to do something, and that we are being assessed to see whether we achieve it. The triggers for this narrative can be external and contextual – academia is rife with experiences of being assessed and, often quite cruelly, criticised. So perfectionism can be related to quite legitimate fears of consequences. There may also be internal triggers from past experiences of rejection and being told we are falling behind, or stories we were introduced to about what success and safety look like. At its heart, perfectionism is a form of social anxiety in which we attempt to secure our safety by overworking. As creatives, we may also be particularly susceptible to the need for validation and approval, and perfectionism can be driven by a desire to excel and so be recognised and affirmed. None of these narratives are either shameful or unusual – in fact these are powerful human drives, and part of what makes us social beings.

Perfectionism is limiting, however, because it puts us at the mercy of highly subjective criteria for assessing our self-worth. Perfectionism is future-orientated – it is a manifestation of anticipatory anxiety in which we try to ward off potential negative futures by laying a perfect foundation now. This form of future-predicting naturally leans on our inherent negativity bias, expecting the worst and catastrophising the impacts of a less-than-perfect performance. It is also a form of black-and-white thinking, blinding us to the many shades of grey where real creativity and authentic self-expression occur. Perfectionists narrow their focus so completely onto what isn’t right and isn’t working, that they lose sight of their successes and unique contributions. Perfectionism is also exhausting, making every task last twice as long as is needed, and the very real physical burnout that results from overwork leads to a slump of procrastination, fear, and avoidance.

Next steps…

1. Recognise & regulate – perfectionism is an anxiety state marked by the characteristic symptoms of a nervous system in fight/flight (racing heart rate, sweaty palms, shortened breath, feeling jittery and hyperfocused, being unable to rest, tight braced muscles) so the first step is to listen to the body and practice down-regulating. We’ll be covering this in more detail at the workshop on 3 May, but down-regulating means responding to the body’s release of adrenaline and cortisol with movement and calming breaths to help settle the nervous system back into rest and digest.
2. Practice finding safety – part of overcoming perfectionism, as with any kind of anxiety, is to start exposing your nervous system to the triggers in a graduated way. This can mean dialing back on what you expect of yourself, but it can also mean initially tackling the task in a safer form. For example, I find I have little to no issues with perfectionism when I write on this blog – the structure, the control I have over deadlines, and the short-form style really suit me, I actively enjoy this writing experience. A marked contrast from writing for an academic journal and passing one, two, a third deadline for submission because it just wasn’t good enough yet.
3. Remind yourself that perfect is subjective – a key corrective to perfectionism is to recognise what you actually do and don’t have control over. If your perfectionism is sparked by producing work that will be evaluated, such as drafts for a thesis chapter, practice reminding yourself that your reviewers/supervisors will have certain opinions based on their subjective likes and dislikes, and so will your friends, and so will other academic readers, and so will your mum… If you can, begin to focus instead on the control you can have over how you feel about the work you submit – what goals do you want to set for this work and how can you work toward those?
4. Explore the triggers – finally, doing some inner work to identify what triggers you is the best way to start healing from perfectionism. Journaling, or working with a coach or a writing programme, can help you to start to express the inner narratives and limiting core beliefs that are sending you into a ruminative cycle and anxiety. If you would like more information on the unhelpful thought patterns that can contribute to perfectionism, I’ll be covering these in the workshop on 3rd May, and will also be giving additional guidance and exercises in the free workbook that participants will receive after the session. But here are a few journaling prompts to start with:

• When I am working on this piece of work, who am I imagining passing judgement on the final product? What previous experience in my life does this remind me of?
• What do I believe to be the worst outcome from my work on this project? And what about the best outcome?
• What would I like to achieve with this piece of work, and how will I measure whether I have achieved that (in a way that is within my control)?

If this blog post has resonated with you, and you would like support to reduce the impact perfectionism has on your wellbeing and work patterns, do register to join us on Wednesday 3rd May 7.30-8.30pm UK time for the workshop on Tackling Perfectionism, or register and receive the recording and workbook even if you can’t attend live. The workshop costs £10 or whatever you can afford, and you can register using the link here.

I also have a few spaces available to start working 1-2-1 with new coaching clients in May and June. If you would be interested in exploring whether coaching could help with your working experience, your mental health and wellbeing, or your confidence and personal development work, please contact me using the form below. I would love to hear from you.