perfectionism

Perfectionism can put a significant strain on relationships. People with perfectionistic tendencies can often lead to feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled in a relationship. When it's difficult to embrace imperfections in a relationship, it can lead to criticism, and an erosion of intimacy and connection. Perfectionism can create tension, frustration, distrust, and hinder genuine connection.

How Perfectionism Can Harm Relationships

Perfectionism has a way of creating distance in a relationship, often making your partner feel they're not good enough and somehow always coming up short. If you set unrealistic expectations for your partner to become perfect (or close to it), it generally leads to resentment and disappointment, and can take the life out of the relationship.

Unrealistic Expectations

Perfectionism often leads to unrealistic expectations in relationships. You may hold your partner to impossibly high standards, expecting them, on some level, to make you happy or fulfilled by their actions or who they are in the relationship. This often leads to pressure to come through with the impossible, and can your partner feel resentful, guilty, defeated, or a number of other negative feelings towards themselves and the relationship. Over time, these expectations can impact trust and intimacy, leaving your partner feeling inadequate and constantly scrutinized.

Deeper Fears

The perfectionist’s relentless pursuit of flawlessness can stem from a variety of deeper inadequacies. Some of these can be a fear of their own imperfections and flaws, coping with trauma or past abuse or neglect, fear of failure, or even a carryover from trying to reduce parental arguments or marital issues in the house growing up, and more. You may constantly strive for unattainable standards, terrified of making mistakes or falling short, due to the scary perceived repercussions. A perfectionist often fears that if they (and the others around them) aren't perfect, then everything will fall apart.

Criticism and Judgment

Perfectionism can often manifest as criticism and judgment in relationships. You may constantly scrutinize your partner’s actions, appearance, or decisions. This mindset can build resentment into the relationship, erode trust and intimacy, and create an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. Your partner may feel like they’re walking on eggshells, never quite knowing how to meet these standards. Over time, this constant judgment can lead to decreased self-esteem, and, ultimately, relationship breakdown.

Difficulty Asking for Help

People who struggle with perfectionism can sometimes find it difficult to ask for help, fearing it may reveal their perceived inadequacies. You might hesitate to delegate tasks or request support, believing you should be able to handle everything on your own. For many, this can be the result of being left to figure out their own emotions and figure out life growing up without much emotional support. However, help is something necessary for everybody, and when not able to ask for help, people can often implode under the impossible pressure of making everything happen themselves.

This reluctance to utilize help can strain relationships, as partners may feel excluded or undervalued; or even because the stress levels of the perfectionist who is trying to figure out everything on their own makes it difficult to be emotionally available for the relationship. Recognizing that asking for help is a strength and necessity is important for not only relationships, but for overall mental health stability.

All-or-Nothing Thinking

Perfectionism very often shows up in all-or-nothing thinking. You may view situations in extreme terms, seeing outcomes as complete successes or total failures. This black-and-white mentality can lead to unrealistic expectations of yourself and your partner, creating unnecessary stress and conflict in your relationships, and for yourself. It can feel as if any shortcoming collapses everything, leading to impossible pressure to achieve perfection. This can also lead to higher anxiety, stress, and depression for you, and even for others around you.

Allowing Help & Moving Forward

There is more to perfectionism than the above. While it isn't necessarily an issue to strive for perfection in some ways, as this can be an asset to people in certain areas of life, it is important to know how to make space for imperfection, flaws, and middle ground, especially in relationships. A relationship is, at its core, made up of two people who are humans and have flaws. Expecting perfection in many ways is already a setup for failure in a relationship.

#Relationships #MentalHealth #perfectionism #Anxiety #Depression

Perfectionism can put a significant strain on relationships. People with perfectionistic tendencies can often lead to feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled in a relationship. When it's difficult to embrace imperfections in a relationship, it can lead to criticism, and an erosion of intimacy and connection. Perfectionism can create tension, frustration, distrust, and hinder genuine connection.

How Perfectionism Can Harm Relationships

Perfectionism has a way of creating distance in a relationship, often making your partner feel they're not good enough and somehow always coming up short. If you set unrealistic expectations for your partner to become perfect (or close to it), it generally leads to resentment and disappointment, and can take the life out of the relationship.

Unrealistic Expectations

Perfectionism often leads to unrealistic expectations in relationships. You may hold your partner to impossibly high standards, expecting them, on some level, to make you happy or fulfilled by their actions or who they are in the relationship. This often leads to pressure to come through with the impossible, and can your partner feel resentful, guilty, defeated, or a number of other negative feelings towards themselves and the relationship. Over time, these expectations can impact trust and intimacy, leaving your partner feeling inadequate and constantly scrutinized.

Deeper Fears

The perfectionist’s relentless pursuit of flawlessness can stem from a variety of deeper inadequacies. Some of these can be a fear of their own imperfections and flaws, coping with trauma or past abuse or neglect, fear of failure, or even a carryover from trying to reduce parental arguments or marital issues in the house growing up, and more. You may constantly strive for unattainable standards, terrified of making mistakes or falling short, due to the scary perceived repercussions. A perfectionist often fears that if they (and the others around them) aren't perfect, then everything will fall apart.

Criticism and Judgment

Perfectionism can often manifest as criticism and judgment in relationships. You may constantly scrutinize your partner’s actions, appearance, or decisions. This mindset can build resentment into the relationship, erode trust and intimacy, and create an atmosphere of tension and anxiety. Your partner may feel like they’re walking on eggshells, never quite knowing how to meet these standards. Over time, this constant judgment can lead to decreased self-esteem, and, ultimately, relationship breakdown.

Difficulty Asking for Help

People who struggle with perfectionism can sometimes find it difficult to ask for help, fearing it may reveal their perceived inadequacies. You might hesitate to delegate tasks or request support, believing you should be able to handle everything on your own. For many, this can be the result of being left to figure out their own emotions and figure out life growing up without much emotional support. However, help is something necessary for everybody, and when not able to ask for help, people can often implode under the impossible pressure of making everything happen themselves.

This reluctance to utilize help can strain relationships, as partners may feel excluded or undervalued; or even because the stress levels of the perfectionist who is trying to figure out everything on their own makes it difficult to be emotionally available for the relationship. Recognizing that asking for help is a strength and necessity is important for not only relationships, but for overall mental health stability.

All-or-Nothing Thinking

Perfectionism very often shows up in all-or-nothing thinking. You may view situations in extreme terms, seeing outcomes as complete successes or total failures. This black-and-white mentality can lead to unrealistic expectations of yourself and your partner, creating unnecessary stress and conflict in your relationships, and for yourself. It can feel as if any shortcoming collapses everything, leading to impossible pressure to achieve perfection. This can also lead to higher anxiety, stress, and depression for you, and even for others around you.

Allowing Help & Moving Forward

There is more to perfectionism than the above. While it isn't necessarily an issue to strive for perfection in some ways, as this can be an asset to people in certain areas of life, it is important to know how to make space for imperfection, flaws, and middle ground, especially in relationships. A relationship is, at its core, made up of two people who are humans and have flaws. Expecting perfection in many ways is already a setup for failure in a relationship.

#Relationships #MentalHealth #perfectionism #Anxiety #Depression

Today's affirmation given by The Mighty is — "If you have a setback, remember — you're not starting from scratch, you're starting from experience."

This is how the mindset of someone, whose stuck in perfectionism, should be.
Perfectionism is never worth it. Let me give you a few points to take it too far. I'm sure they'll help you understand how irrational the idea of being obsessed with perfection is:
1. You're going to school.
2. You decide to pay attention in classes perfectly.
3. However, you fall asleep in one of the classes. Bam! When you realise that, you decide to leave your school, thinking that you've failed to execute your goal of a perfect, error-free school life.
4. In Google, you type 'Perfect school near me'.
5. You get no results. Bam! You stop using Google, considering it imperfect and worthless. You think that Google did a mistake by not giving you a single search result.
6. You think of what search engine to use, which is perfect.
7. You eventually don't find any perfect search engine.
8. You ask ChatGPT, "Which search engine is perfect?". ChatGPT gives you this answer: "Sorry, I can't assist.". Damn it!! You even stop using ChatGPT, considering it to be imperfect because of its response.
9. In a newspaper, you search for articles which recommend you schools to get admitted to. Bam! You find your old school mentioned in such an article. You stop reading newspapers, considering it to be a mistake in that article, and thus, considering newspapers to be imperfect.
10. You eventually find out that all schools in the world are imperfect.
11. You eventually find yourself imperfect.
12. You eventually find your life imperfect too.
13. You get suicidal ideations because of that.

But, here's a very good example:
14. You consider even your suicidal ideations useless. You don't find death perfect, and you don't find life perfect either.
So, what's the way out of this?

The way out is creating a divorce application by yourself and signing it by yourself. In that way, consider yourself divorced from perfectionism.

But again, the problem here could be looking for a perfect way to create a perfect divorce application form.

Ultimately, you'll abuse yourself for such obsession with perfection. So, why even care about marrying perfection and staying committed to it?

Had fun at art class last night. Had fun drawing trees. For the first time, after a fruitless attempt to draw a tree from my phone, I stopped trying and started playing about, drawing trees from my mind instead. Particularly proud of this one. It reminds me of EH Shephard's 100 acre wood illustrations (though not as complex - he was a brilliant artist ☺️)

#ArtTherapy #perfectionism #Depression #Anxiety #PTSD #PTSDSupportAndRecovery #MightyArtRoom #ThePencilCase

#MentalHealth #perfectionism

Perfectionism is a trait that makes life an endless report card on accomplishments or looks. When healthy, it can be self-motivating and drive you to overcome adversity and achieve success. When unhealthy, it can be a fast and enduring track to unhappiness.

What makes extreme perfectionism so toxic is that while those in its grip desire success, they are most focused on avoiding failure, resulting in a negative orientation. They don’t believe in unconditional love, expecting others’ affection and approval to be dependent on a flawless performance.

If you’re wondering whether you are a perfectionist, there’s a good chance you are—at least to a degree. There's also a good chance you have some investment in being a perfectionist because of the positive connotations of the word "perfect."

Perfectionists are a lot like high achievers, but with some key differences. Here we share the differences, revealing ten telltale signs of a perfectionist — signs that you may be able to spot in yourself or people you know.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/how-to-overcome-perfectionism

#MentalHealth #perfectionism

Fat loss is really hard if you are a “perfectionist.” Clients who self identify as a “perfectionist” tend to be the clients who fail the most often, are knocked out of the game by failure the longest, and have the hardest time bouncing back after failure.

In other words, clients who self-identify as “perfectionists” tend to be the least successful clients on a nutrition plan, by a huge margin.

Two kinds of perfectionism:

Positive Perfectionism

sometimes also called healthy perfectionism or perfectionist strivings

Negative Perfectionism

sometimes also called unhealthy perfectionism or perfectionist concerns

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/how-to-overcome-perfectionism

And, on those days when all you have in you is to muster up the energy to even take a deep breath and accept yourself exactly where you are and feel what you need to feel…..‘it is what it is’!
#Anxiety #BipolarDisorder #Depression #perfectionism #MentalHealth

#MentalHealth #perfectionism

Self-doubt is closely linked to self-esteem. And according to Schiraldi (2007), our self-esteem is built on top of three building blocks:

-Unconditional self-worth. A sense that our worth is neither increased nor decreased by external factors like the way people treat us, our decisions, or the amount of money we make.

-Unconditional love. Permanent love from ourselves and others.

-Growth. Developing desirable personal qualities, making good decisions, and building our strengths.

Thinking through these questions and developing a mindset that helps you maintain your self-worth may help self-doubts from taking over.

Surround yourself with support

No one masters life by themselves. Tony himself has several mentors. To learn how to overcome self-doubt and climb to the peak of achievement, you’ll need people to lift you up. Find someone who has what you want and emulate them. Practice peer elevation as well: Minimize relationships that bring negativity into your life and surround yourself with positivity and support instead.

Use positive self-talk

Positive self-talk is when we say things to ourselves that are kind, positive, or supportive. Positive self-talk is generally thought to be good for mental health and has even been shown to improve performance (Tod, Hardy, & Oliver, 2011).

​

Use affirmations for self-doubt

Positive affirmations may be considered a type of positive self-talk because we repeat statements to ourselves to shift our mindset in ways that make us feel more self-confident and optimistic. For example, we might say, "I am strong and capable", "I am doing my best and that is enough", or "I am capable of anything I put my mind to". These affirmations may help us feel more sure about ourselves even when our lives feel wobbly.

Practice self-compassion

We can likely decrease the negative impact of mistakes and failures by being more compassionate towards ourselves. For example, we might treat ourselves like we would treat a friend, replace our inner critic with an inner cheerleader, or remind ourselves that we are only human and we deserve to be treated kindly, at the very least by ourselves.

Find your strengths

Rather than focusing on your weaknesses or challenges, it can be helpful to focus more on your strengths. First, find your strengths by asking yourself what you're good at. Then try to focus on these strengths when and if you find that you are doubting yourself.

You can refer to this:

resiliens.com/resilify/program/how-to-overcome-perfectionism