Imperfect notes for perfectionists

Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Imperfect notes for perfectionists

One of the Academic Writing Studio team told me about a great book they’d read that they thought might be helpful for many of our people. Jeanette has been part of the team for a long time. Perfectionism is something many academics struggle with. You are not alone. I hope this review, and the book, helps something shift in your own struggle.

Alarms ring the fanfare, a familiar refrain begins. (Dread again?) Overthinking crashes in with a myriad of percussive ways to steal your attention. Familiar sounds? Particularly when writing, my perfectionist’s tight beat of ‘on-time with polished-shoes, no-mess-here, things-under-control’, gives way to a behind-the-scenes cacophony of not-good-enough and shame.

And yet… perfectionism is not something to apologize for. At least this is the first take away from The Perfectionist’s Guide To Losing Control: A Path To Peace and Power by Katherine Morgan Schafler.

Reframing it as a form of idealism, Schafler correlates perfectionist tendencies and eudaemonistic belief systems, in which we find satisfaction in seeking meaningfulness and understanding, rather than the more hedonistic tendency to move towards pleasure and away from pain. (Academic writers, you’re all doing good!!)

Schafler proposes that the label perfectionist is mostly directed towards people who identify as women, and argues that our collective interpretation of perfectionism skews negatively, diminishing attitudes and actions that in other circumstances are seen positively as ambitious, driven and idealistic.

Nonetheless, Schafler has observed perfectionistic tendencies play out in both adaptive and maladaptive ways, and her book offers ideas to keep things in check.

Types of Perfectionism

Writing for a mainstream audience, Schafler, whose research interests include breaking away from ‘task completed = self worth’ enculturing, has constructed a model, presented as five personas, of the ways in which perfectionism may play out. (Keep in mind it’s possible to inhabit more than one way of being from within this model, and, frankly, they all feel somewhat familiar to me.)

A Procrastinator Perfectionist fears getting started, dwells in hesitation. “(T)here’s no better first sentence than the one a procrastinator perfectionist imagines in her head but never actually writes down” (p1).

A Classic Perfectionist has difficulty with disorder, and works very hard to keep life orderly and stable.

An Intense Perfectionist wants a perfect outcome and expects the same from others. Their directness can feel punitive.

A Parisian perfectionist recognises the power of connection. But, this can disintegrate into people-pleasing.

A Messy Perfectionist has lots of ideas and enthusiasm. Also struggles to stay on task and see things through. “She writes the first sentence, loves it, and then writes seventeen other, very different versions of the first sentence and loves each one of those (…)” (pp.1-2).

Despite the differing ways in which perfectionist tendencies may play out for you, Schafler suggests that maladaptive experiences of them are all heard as the same kind of noise. Her thesis is heard in the title of chapter 5.

“You’ve been solving for the wrong problem. It’s not that you approach life with perfectionism; it’s that you respond to missteps with self-punishment” (p.119).

Make Peace.

Simply, the proposed ‘solution’ for self-punishing, maladaptive perfectionism is for you to make peace with it.

Construct healthy limits around it.

Notice and manage assumptions that:

a) you will reach the aims you set for yourself, and

b) you will/can then be happy.

Don’t beat yourself (or others) up for not reaching the mark. An extended section on self-compassion draws on Neff’s work to build self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.

This book resonated with me. It led me to do some deep thinking as to why writing presses a bruise every time I start, and every time I release something into the world, and how I experience that. (Unlike many of you, I have time for that kind of musing.)

To give you an idea of what’s covered, here follows a smattering of points the author makes…

Ways we overthink

Schafler outlines 10 ways in which you might wear yourself out overthinking.

1. Alternate realities

One is counterfactual thinking, the process of constructing alternate versions of something that’s happened (pp181-188). It’s been helpful for me to think of this as a cognitive reflex, possibly intended to prepare us for a more successful future. As such, it can generate useful progress, but if and when the ‘what I wished I had said in the meeting that just happened‘ ruminating descends into unhelpful storylines, not so. Watch out for the moment things shift, and stories we habitually tell ourselves, like some version of an ‘all the ways I could have written that paper better’ soundtrack from years ago.

2. Fear and overthinking

Two fear-based thoughts that often drive overthinking are:

‘I will never get what I want‘, and, ‘I will lose what I have‘.

Both future-based, they invite attempts to influence outcomes beyond your control. Focusing on what is happening this moment, trusting you are making good choices and doing fine in the here and now, without undue concern over where things are heading, instead brings a sense of control. (You’ve got this!)

3. Stages of emotional processing

Happiness AND stress are experienced in three stages. This draws on Bellezza & Baucell’s AER model; anticipation, event, recall. I find it helpful to have this spelt out regarding agreeing to things that I don’t really want to do. It’s not just a coffee, it’s:

Anticipation — recurring flashes of anxiety throughout the preceding week,

Event — a half hour of heightened anxiety, an energy drain,

Recall — hours, even days, of negative blah, rehashing stories, plus a bonus self-beating, why did I say I would go because I always feel rattled in their presence.

4. Closure or control

I will not end with closure, because Schafler debunks this as a fantasy (pp.216-221).

Confusion will all become clear; suffering will be seen to be holding purpose; emotional pain can be catalogued away in alphabetical order. Not going to happen for you.

Control, the thing that perfectionists yearn for, is unattainable because grief and anger and passions and perceptions shift and change over time.

5. Self-care is still important

Your mental health needs constant tending. You’ve heard this before, yet ‘simple‘ isn’t the same as ‘easy‘ or we would all be doing fine.

Sleeping, breathing deeply, drinking water, eating well, walking, talking, taking steps to feel more in control of our finances and/or problems helped by good information, a meditation practice that can help you develop your ability to quickly and efficiently let past and future thoughts go so you can return to the sentence on your page.

6. Connection.

Connect with yourself, and with others. Schafler argues that Struggle and Challenge are the same, except the former is exhausting and based in isolation, and the second is energized by support and guidance, “an exchange of connection” (p.208).

So, know that we are here, with four co-writing sessions per week, to support and befriend you on your journey.

In the end…

We are all working through the difficulties, beauty, and chaos of life, while hopefully inching forward. As a means to curb the self-punishingly high expectations of perfectionists, Schafler argues for differentiating intentions and goals, concluding that we have a fair chance of meeting our intentions, even if we don’t quite reach the goal. It took me a while to see that although I’m tackling different goals now, including writing weirdly personal essays like this one to stretch myself, my intention may have always been the same. I’m finding my voice, after decades of feeling drawn to help young people do the same because I was shaped in a place where women and children were really kinda silenced.

Altering behaviours is difficult. Learning takes time, although Schafler stresses that a feather’s weight of positive self-compassionate action, continually accrued, will bring you deep and significant results. Change and growth are constants, ever shifting, always requiring maintenance. So don’t blow up the hard work of maintaining self-compassion by misnaming missteps as regression and failure. Iterations enable us to look deeper into the layers and complexity of our learnings. Do think of ‘fail forward’ as a liminal space. A place to temporarily hang out, playing the self-forgiving messy learner. It’s a nice tune.

Types of Perfectionism

Make Peace.