Are You A Perfectionist?

This seems something of a loaded question; to answer no could be perceived as an admission that you can settle for second best, or that somehow high standards don't matter to you. In some quarters, such as high performance sport or design, perfectionism is seen as a desirable quality associated with an ambition to be ever better at your chosen discipline.

In reality, perfectionism is a much more pernicious and troubling quality to have. Rather than reflecting a desire for high standards, perfectionism manifests itself in feelings that nothing is ever good enough and a sense of inferiority or self-loathing. There has been a good deal of research on the phenomenon lately, particularly at York St John University, and the insights thrown up are revealing.

Broadly speaking, perfectionism can manifest itself in individuals in one of three ways: self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism. The first kind, self-oriented, is the most familiar and perhaps most benign form. These perfectionists set themselves high standards and work hard to achieve them; provided they can keep their tendencies in check, this can lead to high performance in their work.

Other-oriented perfectionists are a different matter. These apply excessive high standards to others and can be harsh in their criticism when they feel others aren’t meeting them. Unsurprisingly, researchers find that these individuals struggle to form good working relationships with their colleagues and their perfectionistic traits are counter-productive to the overall effectiveness of the organisation.

Most worrying however, though, are socially prescribed perfectionists. These individuals perceive the world as one which holds them to standards which they can only ever fail to meet. No matter how well they are actually doing in their lives, whether it be their work environment or their domestic relationships, the individual feels constantly that they are letting others down and disappointing colleagues and friends. This leads to low levels of life satisfaction and issues of self-esteem.

What’s worrying is that the research shows that levels of perfectionism in individuals are in the rise, particularly in the socially prescribed case. More and more people are feeling a pressure from society to be better in ways that they can simply never be. The effect is increasing levels of unhappiness and reporting of mental health issues.

What’s fuelling the rise in this perfectionism? Social scientists are inevitably rather circumspect in their judgments, but the rise of social media in the last few years seems to me to be more than a coincidence. Many aspects of social media use are little more than case studies of socially prescribed perfectionism. The constant demonstration of “living your best life”, the rejection of tens if not hundreds of selfies until the most perfect one is found, the borderline boasting that routinely occurs on the likes of Facebook; small wonder that the social media devotee feels a mix of envy and inadequacy when bombarded with carefully managed social media profiles of others. And the irony is that, in some cases, the person with the most exciting and wonderful life is no doubt feeling the same feelings when they look at others’ profiles too.

This is particularly worrying in the case of children who often lack the maturity to see past the surface image. Stories of highly able and successful youngsters who collapse when their perfect row of 9s at GCSE suffer the blemish of one grade 8 are not apocryphal. How can we help? Whilst it’s easier said than done, we need to help youngsters understand that their best is good enough. Celebrate their successes and encourage them to focus on the positives rather than catastrophising their setbacks. It’s a tough battle to fight and youngsters can be resistant to the message, but for their good it’s essential we keep pushing it. The phrase “nobody’s perfect” was never more important.