7 October 2020
As regular readers know, this blog does not claim to provide authoritative opinions. Instead, it aims to review and discuss issues of interest to those wishing to change their lives, often in contexts involving addictive behaviours. As such, sources are usually documented to allow readers to do further research so, before leaving the topic of perfectionism, I wanted to check my own library for sources. Burn’s (1999) The Feeling Good Handbook includes no fewer than 12 indexed mentions of perfectionism. At the time he wrote it, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) was a relatively new treatment for Burns’ subject areas: “…anxiety, depression, and other disorders.”
Anxiety, depression, and other disorders are often lurking just beneath the surface of addiction. Perfectionism is often lurking just below those. Burns cites the case of a physician he was treating who, once he reached a target, claimed to see only higher, less attainable targets ahead. As such, he was gaining zero satisfaction. When queried by Burns, the patient recalled being instructed by his parents to strive to be number one. Soon after, the patient began a series of day-to-day experiments in imperfection. This was an MD who regularly wrote scholarly papers for his own profession and felt zero joy from that work. When a water pipe burst in his kitchen, with no previous skill, he fixed it himself. When queried by Burns about the skill of the repair, the patient told him it was “below average” but that he had attained more satisfaction from that repair than most other work he could remember completing. He had no standards to compete with, he just wanted a dry kitchen.
I quit smoking cigarettes by (unknowingly) giving myself permission to fail. On the morning of my first class in jiu-jitsu, I awoke and said to myself, “Let’s see how long I can do this.” One day became two, two weeks became three, and in that third week the withdrawal made it difficult for me to read. Reading is me! But I stuck with it and that urge-inducing symptom also passed. I haven’t had a single inhalation since that first day in September 1984. I think if I had told myself, “Dan, you HAVE to do this...” the pressure of reaching perfect behaviour, in addition to the discomfort of withdrawal, would have sunk me. I’ve seen people in SMART Recovery use the same non-perfectionistic “I’ll give it a try” attitude with great success.
Here’s the point: perfectionism locks people in performance-preventing knots. Life goes by without the participation of the perfectionist because she’s too worried about imperfection to jump in the ring and simply enjoy the experience, come what may. N.B., life offers no refunds on missed opportunities.
Dan Chalykoff facilitates two weekly voluntary group meetings, as well as private appointments, for SMART-based counselling services at danchalykoff@hotmail.com
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