Wellbeing Services - I've Got to Be Perfect Booklet

I’ve Got to be Perfect

By Sarah Lane and Josie Bannon

It can be hard to ask for help with perfectionism, particularly within a university environment. Well done for recognising that perfectionism is having a negative effect on you and for taking the first step towards trying to tackle the problem.

This booklet is aimed at anyone who feels that perfectionism is impacting negatively on their life. It includes a student example to illustrate how to apply the various ideas and techniques. All the techniques in the booklet are based on the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach. We will talk more about this later in the booklet. There is a lot of research to show that CBT can be very helpful in overcoming a range of psychological difficulties. You may be working through this booklet with individual support from a practitioner at the Wellbeing Centre.

It can also be helpful to talk to someone you trust such as a family member or a friend so you have their support as well.

If you are working with a practitioner it is likely you will have regular sessions where you can talk through how you are getting on with using the different techniques and any difficulties that may have arisen. You can talk together about how to solve these problems and progress with the techniques.

Tackling perfectionism can be a difficult and challenging process and there may be times when you feel as though you aren’t getting anywhere. Remember at these points that we all have good days and bad days, so try not to let the bad days feel as though you have taken ‘two steps back’.

If you are seeing a practitioner at the wellbeing centre then you can talk this through with them and work out the best course of action. If not then you may want to get in touch to access some support in using these techniques.

The idea of this booklet is to give you the information you need to help yourself tackle perfectionism. It will be most effective if you try out at all the techniques to find out which ones are the most helpful for you.

Understanding perfectionism

As can be seen from the above definition, perfectionism is not necessarily about being ‘perfect’. It is more about pushing yourself excessively hard to meet targets which may be so difficult to reach that they result in negative consequences for your wellbeing. Perfectionism usually involves judging your self-worth based largely on your ability to strive for and achieve these unrelenting standards.

“…the relentless striving for extremely high standards, both for yourself and / or others, that are personally demanding, in the context of the individual.” Centre

for Clinical Interventions.

It is possible to be a perfectionist in one area of life but not in others. At university, students are most likely to have a tendency towards perfectionism with their studies. However, it may also be an issue affecting health and fitness; sport; eating, weight and shape; grooming and personal hygiene; and close relationships.

How does perfectionism develop?

Perfectionism tends to develop as a result of being rewarded by others for successes, known in psychology as positive reinforcement. Achieving may then become equated with being hard-working, conscientious and intelligent i.e. being of worth. Perfectionists come to believe they are only of worth if they are pursuing or achieving the high standards they set for themselves. Punishment or a lack of positive reinforcement can also lead to perfectionism. Sometimes indirect learning or modelling, of perhaps a parent’s behaviour, can play a part. Natural temperament may be an element in the development of perfectionism as well.

Advantages and disadvantages of perfectionism

I enjoy completing tasks to the best of my ability.

It helps me to be organised.

I feel satisfied when I know I have done everything I can on a piece of work.

I feel I can rest if I can go to bed knowing that I have completed all tasks.

I like to get the highest results in the class.

It makes me feel efficient.

I like being prepared for any eventuality.

Achieving what others can’t gives me a sense of pleasure.

It makes me feel special.

Study takes up all my time, there’s little opportunity for socialising or relaxing.

Whatever level I achieve , it’s still never enough.

I have to check my work lots of times before I feel able to submit it.

I am very critical of myself if I do not believe I’ve done something exactly right.

I worry so much that I’ll fail that I put off starting work until really near the deadline.

I don’t trust other people to do things as well as me so I end up doing most of the work on group projects.

I have to do increasingly well to feel accepted by others.

How does perfectionism develop? Perfectionism is usually considered to be positive. People often view it as the pursuit of excellence, having high standards and working hard to challenge themselves. It may be perceived as facilitating efficiency, organisation and preparation. However, sometimes these standards get in the way of our happiness and can actually impair our performance. They provide little chance of meeting goals and feeling good about ourselves. The pressure is likely to make us feel constantly on edge, tense and stressed out. Self-worth can become especially vulnerable as not reaching the (possibly unachievable) standards may result in feeling like a failure. There can be a significant impact on wellbeing and frustration, worry, social isolation, depression, relationship difficulties, insomnia, poor health and a persistent sense of failure may result.

How does perfectionism affect you?

What advantages and disadvantages do you associate with perfectionism?

A way of thinking about perfectionism

Thoughts

Often negative or unhelpful such as being concerned about potential failure or self-criticising when achievements are not deemed to be enough.

Feelings

Anxiety about performance. Feeling low when unable to achieve the extremely high standard set.

Behaviour

Checking work many times. Spending so much time on study that there is little opportunity to do much else.

The above diagram shows how you can get trapped in a vicious cycle that can be very difficult to break out of.

All of these three areas can be affected by perfectionism then each area can start to have additional ‘knock on’ effects on the other areas. For example, if you think that you will fail or not do well enough on a piece of work, then you might experience feelings of anxiety about your performance and try to control these feelings by checking your work many times. A result of checking work many times might be that you don’t realise that you would have done as well without doing this and continue to think that it is necessary to spend a lot of time going over work to prevent failure.

How does your procrastination affect you?

Have a go at filling in your vicious cycle.

Behaviour

Thoughts

Feelings

The techniques in this booklet are based on the idea of this vicious cycle. It is possible to tackle perfectionism by focusing on making changes in any one specific area. This booklet includes techniques based on thoughts and behaviour as a way of breaking the cycle.

Setting yourself goals to work towards...

Setting and monitoring goals can help keep you focused on what you want to achieve and can also help you to know when you have reached that point.

First identify the extremely high standards you set yourself and consider what you do to maintain these. Think about what other people would consider a healthy high standard to aim towards. What perfectionist behaviours could you aim to reduce over the next few months? When setting goals try to ensure they are specific and realistic so that you will be able to measure when you have achieved them. A time frame should also be included.

GOAL

I can do this now (circle a number)

Revisit these each week and circle the relevant number. This will help with monitoring your progress towards your goals.

Yoshiro’s story

Yoshiro is a third year English student. He has always been described as conscientious throughout his education, takes great pride in the essays he writes and consistently receives firsts and high 2:1s. Yoshiro proofreads his work ten times before submitting it to check that he has not made any errors. He also takes great care over constructing each sentence as he is keen for his work to read as well as possible. Yoshiro’s approach to his studies is very time-consuming and means that he has less time for socialising with his friends. It also causes him to delay starting essays sometimes for fear that they will not be good enough.

Yoshiro initially set himself a goal to be less perfectionist, however it is difficult to measure this. Making goals SMART can help.

Setting SMART goals

Specific – Be as clear as you can. You may want to ‘feel better’ but ask yourself what ‘feeling better’ means you will be able to do e.g. go for a walk.

Measurable – How will you know when you have achieved this goal? Is there an end point?

Achievable – It needs to be something we really want or need to do so that we feel more motivated. Is your goal a small enough step?

Relevant – It needs to be relevant to you; it should match your values.

Time bound – You should have a clear idea of when you want to achieve this goal by.

To reduce the number of times I check each essay to five times over the next month.

Perfectionist behaviours

Being a perfectionist can have a significant impact on the things we do and the way we act. Perfectionist behaviours can be divided into two categories: Active Behaviours and Avoidance Behaviours. In other words, things that we do more of and things that we do less of.

Perfectionist Active Behaviours

Most perfectionists engage in actions aimed at reaching the extremely high standards they have set for themselves, and perhaps others. These may seem necessary to the perfectionist but excessive to other people.

For example:

l Excessive checking

l Excessive organising

l List making

l Correcting others

l Reassurance seeking

The problem with perfectionist behaviours

Perfectionist Avoidance Behaviours

Many perfectionists also try to meet their extremely high standards and avoid ‘failure’ by avoiding doing tasks.

For example:

l Procrastination

l Giving up too soon

l Indecisiveness

l Avoiding tasks they fear they are unable to do adequately

Perfectionist behaviours keep you from learning whether or not your perfectionistic beliefs are true. For example, a student who proof reads every essay ten times, will not be able to test out whether they will receive a lower grade by not engaging in this behaviour.

Perfectionist behaviours are often time-consuming and are sometimes done at the expense of other important activities. They can impair relationships and may, at times, actually interfere with attempts to meet the standards that have been set.

Challenging perfectionist behaviours

One way to test the accuracy of perfectionistic beliefs is to see what happens when you behave differently. This can help loosen the grip of perfectionism. You may need to experiment with tackling tasks that you have been avoiding doing or may need to experiment with not actively doing your perfectionism behaviours.

If I didn’t proof-read every assignment so many times, I’d receive a bad mark.

I will fail on any ‘healthy eating plan’ because there’s always a party or a meal out and I’ll overeat.

Proof-reading assignments thirty times before submission.

Delaying starting a ‘healthy eating plan’.

Proof-reading the assignment only ten times before submission.

Develop a healthy eating plan which allows for exceptions such as parties.

There’s no point starting this assignment as it won’t be good enough anyway.

Procrastinating over doing work.

Start writing the assignment and ask a friend from course to read it and see what their feedback is.

Behavioural experiments: The process

Challenging perfectionist behaviours can help to loosen the grip of perfectionism. To find out what happens if we reduce our perfectionist behaviours we need to carry out experiments.

We can study the ‘behaviour’ in question through a step by step process of experimentation, similar to how we would go about conducting any other scientific experiment. The steps involved in this process are detailed below:

1. Identify a belief – A belief or thought might be quite vague or general. If you are going to test it out then you will need to reduce it down to something specific that can be tested experimentally.

2. Make a plan to test the belief – Be as specific as possible. What, where, when and with who will you test this. You will also need to create a hypothesis about what you predict is going to happen.

3. Carry out the experiment – This might feel very uncomfortable and anxiety provoking. But remember that a bit of anxiety is to be expected and you are just experimenting to find out what happens.

4. Evaluate the result – Record what happened in the experiment. What was the outcome? Is the outcome open to interpretation or is it conclusive?

5. Draw conclusions – What do the results mean? How do they relate to the original prediction / hypothesis? What does this tell you about your belief? Are you able to test this belief further with any more experiments?

A. Is there another explanation for what happened?

B. What else was happening at that time? What other variables may have affected the outcome?

C. Are there other ways of viewing what happened?

D. What could I learn from the experience to improve or change things in the future?

What if the findings support my belief / prediction?

Yoshiro’s behavioural experiment

Below is an example of an experiment that Yoshiro tried:

1: Belief to be tested

If I don’t check my essays 10 times I believe I will receive a bad mark.

2: Experiment to test belief

I’ll start by checking my essay seven times. I will do this for my next assignment which is the Contemporary Fiction module EN203, due in on the 20.11.24. I will be doing the essay at home or in the library.

It was hard to stop checking after seven proof-reads and I got anxious that I might receive a bad mark but my result was as good as normal.

Step 5: Draw conclusions (learning from experiment and effect on original beliefs)

I was really surprised that I was able to do it. I’m pleased that I am now comfortable with only checking my essays seven times and not concerned it will affect my result. I feel able to try reducing to five proof-reads now as well and see if there is a difference to my mark.

Testing perfectionist beliefs worksheet

Step 1: Belief to be tested

Step 2: Experiment to test belief (What to do, where to do it and when to do it) Distress rating before experiment (0-10)

Step 3: Carry out experiment Distress rating during experiment (0-10)

Step 4: Evaluate the result Distress rating after experiment (0-10)

Prediction came true (%)

Step 5: Draw conclusions (learning from experiment and effect on original beliefs)

Progressing with behavioural change

Tips for moving forward

l Start with a relatively easy task.

l Break down each goal into small steps, with the number of steps being determined by how stressful the goal is.

l Consider who, what, when, where and how.

l Expect some anxiety.

l Persist – keep going until the anxiety reduces.

l It may be helpful to repeat a step more than once.

l Recognise your successes and acknowledge the steps you’ve made.

On the roll of the dice

One of the problems with being a perfectionist is the inability to relax and unwind. Here is a fun way you can encourage more spontaneity:

l List six activities which give you a sense of relaxation or pleasure. Try to think of activities you do not usually allow yourself to do and are reasonable in terms of their cost and time-frame.

l Schedule a day and time to try one of these activities.

l Then roll a dice to decide which activity to do at this time.

l Do not roll the dice again or change your planned relaxation day! This may get in the way of overcoming perfectionism.

l Review afterwards how you got on with this task, noting any difficulties or positives.

l Consider how you could include more activities that are not focused on achievement in your day-to-day activities.

On the roll of the dice worksheet

List six activities which give you a sense of relaxation or pleasure. Try to think of activities you do not usually allow yourself to do and that are reasonable in terms of their cost and time-frame.

Date: Time:

Activity:

Perfectionist thinking

Biased information processing

We tend to pay attention to and interpret things according to what we expect. Since achieving extremely high standards provides the basis for a perfectionist’s self-worth, they tend to pay careful attention to any evidence that they take to mean they are not achieving. Perfectionists also have a tendency to interpret information in a way that demonstrates they are not achieving.

Repeatedly focusing on information in the environment that is consistent with our beliefs, and ignoring information that does not fit with our beliefs, can lead to these beliefs seeming well supported. Similarly, repeatedly interpreting information in a way that is consistent with our beliefs may lead to us perceiving that there is a lot of support for these beliefs. When perfectionists pay attention only to evidence that they are not achieving, or interpret neutral information as showing they are not achieving, they tend to feel bad about themselves. E.g. Focusing on having received one mark below 60% when all the others have been above. This then underlines the importance of striving to achieve, thereby keeping perfectionism going.

Self-criticism and unhelpful thinking

Perfectionists tend to be extremely self-critical, especially if they are unable to meet their high standards. This self-criticism can cause people to feel a range of negative emotions including anger, anxiety, depression and guilt. Often these negative thoughts reflect an unhelpful style of thinking such as:

l Black and white thinking

l Shoulding and musting

l Catastrophising

l Jumping to conclusions

l Mental filter

l Labelling

l Magnification and minimisation

Perfectionists repeated criticism of themselves not only causes uncomfortable emotions, it also emphasises the importance of achieving unrealistically high standards. The negative thinking styles that they rely on cause them to place unreasonable pressures on themselves, see only the extremes and not accurately perceive situations. Such negative thinking styles underlie perfectionists’ extremely high standards and harsh self-criticism. See the next page for a description of the different thinking styles that can occur.

Unhelpful thinking styles

Have a look through the thoughts you have recorded and see if any of these thinking styles apply, these can be helpful to refer to when trying to generate evidence.

All or nothing thinking (sometimes called ‘black and white thinking’)

Seeing only one extreme or the other. There are no in-betweens or shades of grey.

Over-generalising

Seeing a pattern based upon a single event or being overly broad in the conclusions we draw. Tends to involve the words always, everyone, never.

Magnification and minimisation

Blowing things out of proportion (catastrophising), or inappropriately shrinking something to make it seem less important.

Mental filter

Only paying attention to certain types of information such as noticing failures but not successes.

Disqualifying the positive

Discounting the good things that have happened or that you have done.

Compare and despair

Seeing only the good points in others compared with the bad ones in yourself.

Jumping to conclusions

Mind-reading

Assuming we know what someone else is thinking.

Fortune telling

Predicting what’s going to happen in the future.

Emotional reasoning

Assuming that because we feel a certain way what we think must be true.

Shoulds and musts

Putting unreasonable demands or pressure on yourself or others. Using critical words which make us feel guilty or like we have failed.

Personalisation

Blaming yourself or taking responsibility for something that wasn’t completely your fault or blaming other people for something that was your fault.

Labelling

Assigning labels to ourselves or other people.

Memories

Current situations triggering memories of past upsetting events.

Unhelpful thoughts

If I don’t do well on this essay, people will think I’m stupid.

I can’t start the essay yet, I haven’t done enough reading.

If I don’t check this essay through again, I’ll miss something important and will receive a bad mark.

Perfectionists commonly have unhelpful thoughts like this and unfortunately these make us feel worse and more likely to carry out perfectionist behaviours. They’re part of the vicious cycle that happens in perfectionism. Challenging these thoughts is another way of breaking the cycle.

Characteristics of unhelpful thoughts

Automatic: We don’t think them on purpose; they come into our minds involuntarily.

Believable: They seem real at the time.

Unhelpful: They are the kind of thoughts that would be upsetting to anybody.

Distorted: They are not accurate reflections of reality but based on how we feel at the time.

Challenging perfectionist thinking

Cognitive Restructuring is a technique that aims to change unhelpful thoughts by identifying and challenging them.

It can help you to think in a less perfectionistic way and to see situations more objectively by targeting the unhelpful thinking styles that maintain perfectionism. It does this by using questions to help you consider different perspectives and generate factual evidence to challenge your unhelpful thoughts.

Challenging negative thoughts can be difficult at first, but over time it gets easier and easier.

The three steps of Cognitive Restructuring

Recording your thoughts

Firstly, you need to identify the content of your unhelpful thoughts. Each time you notice yourself feeling anxious, complete the initial three columns of the Thought Diary sheet.

l In the first column write down a brief description of the situation you were in when the thought occurred i.e. where you were and what you were doing.

l In the second column write down one emotional word to describe the feeling you had as a result of the thought, such as sad, anxious, or angry. Also rate how bad that feeling was on a scale of 0-100%.

l In the third column write down exactly what the thought was i.e. the words that went through your mind or the image that occurred. Then rate how much you believe that thought to be true, where 0 is not at all and 100% is totally believe the thought.

l For the time being, ignore the last two columns; we return to complete these in the final stage of the process. It is suggested you collect your thoughts in this way for one or two weeks, depending on how frequently unhelpful thoughts are occurring for you.

Yoshiro spent a week noting down unhelpful thoughts as they arose. An example of one of his thoughts is detailed below...

home writing an essay. Anxious (70%). If I don’t check this essay through again, I’ll miss something important and will receive a bad mark(80%).

Thought Diary worksheet

Situation:

Where you were and what you were doing

Feeling: Emotion experienced and rating of how bad it was (0–100%)

Thought: Words that went through your mind and rating of how much you believe this thought (0–100%)

Revised thought: Words of new thought and rating of how much you believe this thought (0–100%)

Feeling: Emotion experienced and rating of how strong it is (0–100%)

Noting down evidence for and against

Next you examine your thoughts in an objective way. You can do this by collecting evidence for and against a particular thought to see whether it is accurate or not.

Choose a frequent thought from the ones you have noted on your diary sheet. Write the thought down in the top left corner of the Evidence Table sheet on page 23 and note the percentage belief rating in the top right box.

Then, imagine that you are the judge in a court where the evidence for and against the truth of your thought is being examined. Write down the evidence for each side in the table. Remember that the evidence should be factual and that you need to present the full picture so that a fair decision can be made. Generating the ‘Evidence Against’ can be difficult as it is something you a probably not used to doing. Some questions to help you to do this are given on the next page.

Next Yoshiro chose one of his thoughts and considered the evidence for and against it...

If I don’t check this essay through again, I’ll miss something important and will receive a bad mark.

I found a couple of errors to correct the last time I read the essay through.

I received a low mark on an essay in the first year.

I have generally been getting good marks for my work so far.

I’ve only received one low mark since being at university.

I’ve checked it through a couple of times and I tried to be thorough so it’s unlikely I’ve missed anything major.

I have already used the spelling and grammar check function.

Generating evidence against your thoughts

Coming up with evidence against negative thoughts can be very difficult if you are not familiar with doing it. Below are a list of questions that you can ask yourself to help with generating evidence against negative thoughts.

What alternative views are there?

l If you rate the belief in your thought as 75%, what makes up the remaining 25%?

l How would a friend or someone who cares about you view this situation?

l How would I have viewed this situation before I felt anxious?

l How would I view someone else in my situation?

Does this thought fit with any of the thinking styles on the previous page?

If it does then this means you are only looking at this from one perspective, what is another perspective?

For example, if you notice the thought fits into a ‘self blaming’ style of thinking then write down all of the other external factors which might have been involved in this.

What action could I take?

l Am I assuming I can do nothing to change my situation?

l Am I overlooking solutions to problems on the assumption they won’t work?

Evidence table worksheet

Revising initial thoughts

Finally, you reconsider the original thought, taking all the evidence into consideration to put it into perspective. Try to come up with a revised thought based on both sides of the argument.

l Write down the new thought in the fourth column of the Thought Diary and rate how much you believe it.

l In the final column re-rate your feeling using the same 0-100% scale. Notice if your emotion has changed as a result of changing your thought.

l Remember, unhelpful thinking takes time to change; it may often be necessary to challenge your thoughts several times before you notice a difference in how you feel. As you become more experienced in this approach you will start to find that the process becomes more automatic and you are able to catch the thoughts and judge them as they actually happen.

Finally Yoshiro looked back at his initial thought and, considering all the evidence he had noted both for and against the thought, came up with the following alternative thought...

Revised thought

What is your new more balanced thought? How much you believe this thought (0-100%)?

Feeling

Re-write the emotion you had previously. State how strong the emotion is when you have your new thought (0-100%)

I’ve proof-read it several times already and it’s unlikely I’ve missed anything important. (50%) Anxious (40%)

Over-evaluation of achievement

Most people evaluate their self-worth based on a variety of things e.g. personal qualities, relationships, skills. Perfectionists tend to judge their self-worth based almost entirely on achieving their extremely high standards. Achieving and achievement become overvalued. Perfectionists may have other interests but over time these seem to take a lesser place in their lives.

The impact of over-reliance on achievement

When people base much of their self-worth on only one thing in their lives they are putting a huge amount of pressure on themselves to make sure it is successful. This can lead to difficulties such as stress, anxiety and low mood. When a goal is achieved they may feel relieved but they don’t tend to feel happy for very long. In fact perfectionists tend to dismiss their success or conclude that the standard set was too low and reset the standard higher for next time.

Tackling the over-evaluation of achievement

You may find it helpful to think about the amount of importance you place on each of the areas of your life that contribute to your self-worth. If you find that your self-esteem overly relies on your ability to achieve, you may want to consider broadening your interests to develop other ways of feeling good about yourself.

Identify the other areas of your life that may have once been important to your self-worth but have now taken a lesser place. Choose one area you would like to start with and then think of some activities you could engage in to help you do that.

Making progress

Coping tips

l Practice not being perfect!

l Give yourself permission to make mistakes – we all do it and some of our most valuable learning comes from taking a non-judgemental look at mistakes.

l Remind yourself of the unhelpful consequences of your perfectionism.

l Reward yourself often when you’ve accomplished something outside your comfort zone.

Potential obstacles to overcoming perfectionism

l Minimising the extent to which perfectionism is a problem.

l Fear of change.

l Extreme self-criticism.

l Life circumstances.

Consider whether any of these potential obstacles are likely to pose difficulties for you and, if so, think about how you might overcome them.

Notes

Well done for working through I’ve Got to be Perfect!

It is worth keeping an eye on your perfectionism. It is very normal to want to do your best but if you find that perfectionism is impacting on your wellbeing then it’s important to take action to try to improve the situation. You have learnt some skills from this booklet that you can use to manage perfectionism, both now and in the future.

You might feel that you’re still not quite where you want to be in terms of managing your perfectionism. This is completely normal; it can take time for these techniques to reverse the vicious cycle of thoughts, feelings and behaviours. It is encouraging if they have made any difference at all for you, even if it’s small.

Just keep up the good work and, with time, you’re likely to notice additional improvements. Further Cognitive Behavioural Therapy might also be helpful if you start to find it difficult to manage your perfectionism again at any time in the future. Just keep up the good work and as time goes on, you will notice it getting easier. It might also be that further Cognitive Behaviour Therapy might be helpful.

It can be helpful to schedule in a day a month where you can focus on YOU! You can have a look back through this booklet to remind yourself of the different techniques, and only do activities that are enjoyable and don’t involve any stress. If you schedule it in you’ll be more likely to do it, as these things can easily get lost or forgotten about otherwise.

Notes

Sarah Lane and Josie Bannon

(Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners)

Wellbeing Centre

University of Exeter

exeter.ac.uk/ wellbeing

References

Page 4: Speech bubble quote and bullet point statistics – Centre for Clinical Interventions, http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/docs/1%20What%20is%20%20Perfectionism.pdf.

Page 17: Roll of dice – Centre for Clinical Interventions, http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/docs/5%20Reducing%20my% 20Perfectionist%20Behaviour.pdf.