8 Rules for Overcoming Perfectionism: Stop the Cycle of Regret

No doubt, we all strive for success in our own unique way.

And why not? Success brings many rewards. Often it leads to favorable social and personal positions or new career opportunities. Success gifts us with confidence, self-worth and all around happiness.

But is it possible for the strive for success to be…unhealthy?

Certainly - and there’s a word for it: perfectionism. Obsessive perfectionism can lead a person to anxiety and stress.

The worst part is that anxiety fuelling perfectionism and stress cloud the mind, exhaust the body and can, ironically, lead to imperfection.

Wait! Stop it...I know what you’re thinking.

Overcoming perfectionism: here’s something else to fixate on, another aspect of your life that you’re getting wrong.

But don’t worry, there is a way out.

You don’t have to obsess over being perfect anymore. Take a deep breath and let’s dissect this a little more.

Adaptive vs Maladaptive Perfectionism: When Being Perfect Hurts

When you’re a perfectionist, your inner voice can be pretty harsh, dictating that you should have handled a certain situation better or improved a set of skills at a faster rate. It drives you to incessantly work and obsess over anything and everything.

And it often gets in the way of any physical or mental rest, which is unhealthy to both our physical and emotional well-being.

In fact, it can be self-destructive.

Though sometimes perfectionism can be a handy tool to help you reach your goals, it can also turn on you, pushing you to fret over uncontrollable events or outcomes. It’s important to understand this distinction and to recognize when striving to be perfect is hurting you.

Adaptive Perfectionism

Adaptive perfectionism is sometimes necessary and can help us reach a short-term goal. It brings about an intensive effort to achieve a specific goal and helps us set high but realistic standards and ambitions.

It doesn’t involve harsh self-criticism or self-destructive thoughts when our standards aren’t met and allows room to make mistakes.

After all, mistakes facilitate learning and self-growth.

You can be productive without your life being ruled by the strive for perfection.

What happens, though, when perfectionism grows to an unhealthy level?

A lot of stress, anxiety, and mental breakdowns.

Maladaptive Perfectionism

In comparison to adaptive perfectionism, maladaptive perfectionism can be defined as a level of perfectionism that often sets unrealistic or unattainable goals. It hinders our ability to experience happiness and even success.

Adaptive perfectionism can lead people to feel the need to control every single aspect of their lives, even the lives of the people around them.

The problem?

It is impossible to constantly control your environment. And when the perfectionist realizes this, the reaction is often extremely self-critical. This can lead to a very negative self-image, which only further perpetuates any feelings of depression and anxiety that led to maladaptive perfectionism in the first place.

It becomes a rabbit hole of thoughts that can be hard to climb out of.

So how do we stop this?

How do we cease this incessant need to obsess over the seemingly mundane?

Here are a few actionable tips that you can start practicing today to reign in your little obsessively perfect monster.

How To Overcome Perfectionism: 8 Rules to Reclaim Your Life and Say Goodbye to Regret

1. Practice Non-Attachment

Non-attachment, or detachment, is a conscious decision to let go of expectations that we often attach to certain outcomes. When we have expectations about outcomes, like we expect to get a job we applied for or we expect that guy to like us back, lots of emotions can arise when things don’t go as planned.

Instead of allowing frustration or anger to send us spiralling into a tirade of negative thoughts, we can sit back as an observer and look calmly upon what has transpired. Life happens the way that it happens and that’s really all there is to it. It throws many lessons our way that we often ignore and are too often caught up in the what-ifs and whys. Instead, try taking things as they come. You never know, an unexpected outcome could lead to many great things.

2. Set Realistic Goals

Setting realistic goals is key to eliminating the unnecessary use of precious energy, energy that you could be directed towards more pressing tasks. Sometimes good enough, is enough. Not everything needs to be perfect, not everything requires so much time and energy.

3. Dispute Negative Thoughts

Don’t be a victim to your inner critic - it can be a cruel master. Instead, reward your hard work with positivity, compassion and love. I mean, you’ve worked really hard to achieve your goals, why discount your efforts? Observe your negative thoughts and counteract it with the positive facts in the circumstance, like the fact that you made it to the interview or that you made significant improvements.

4. Practice Self-Care

Reconnect with an old hobby or activity that you’ve deep down wanted to connect with. Taking better care of yourself in this way will lead to more productivity later as it gets the creative juices flowing in the brain and breaks up negative thought patterns. Beyond that though, let yourself live! Life isn’t meant to be spent doing things we don’t necessarily want to be doing. Do something you love, you’ll be much happier for it.

5. Recognize That Relaxation Time Is Not Wasted Time

Yeah sure, time spent achieving goals never seems like wasted time. But what if the time spent doing this isn’t as productive as it could be though? We all know we aren’t as productive as we can be if we are tired, stressed or are experiencing the much dreaded brain fog. Spend a weekend away and do something different. Or if you have to be at work or attending a commitment that you can’t cancel, schedule regular breaks to make sure you’re fresh. Taking time out to recharge your batteries will ensure you’re feeling rested to kick some serious life admin butt!

6. Trust In Yourself And Your Abilities

You have what it takes, seriously! Think back to the many challenges you have been presented with throughout your life: You’ve handled them all till this point, right? Even if it has meant going to great lengths to finish a project, it’s always been flawless by the time you’re done. This is the time to trust your perfectionistic ways, you always kill it!

7. Stop Multitasking

We are told that multitasking is necessary to success, but this is not true. In fact, multitasking can hinder your success.

Think about it.

If you devote all of your time and energy into a single project, then you can give all of yourself to that project. If you divide your time and energy between many projects, then all of those projects get only a part of you. And all of you is a whole lot better than a part of you.

Stop trying to achieve so many things at once, it decreases efficiency, wastes precious energy, disrupts memory and chucks in another layer of stress you probably don’t really need. A good place to start is to simply focus on one task at a time and perhaps allocate time to each task you want to achieve during the day. But be flexible in this, remember non-attachment, some things take longer than you think. That’s ok too.

8. Don’t Hold Others To Your High Standards

Perfection is in the eye of the beholder and not everybody has the same high standards as you (they probably don’t need to either). Don't compare yourself to others. It’s very easy to expect that people should operate on the same level as you, but the simple matter of it is that they probably don’t care to. Adjust your expectations and understand that people have different ways of doing things. Who knows, the way that they do things may work better for them than the way that you do things.

There you have it, hopefully you can implement these tips in your day to day and relieve some of the stress and anxiety being perfect requires. Because what is ‘perfect’ anyway?