The Illusion of Perfectionism & What to do about it!

When I was thinking about writing this blog post, I reached out to the world’s most trusted consultant “google”. I was really curious about some of the myths that perhaps you and I at one point or another ascribed to? Honestly, I laughed at some, some I gave a nod, thinking that it could be plausible, others were just illogical, downright unbelievable and laughable. Yes, it is easy for us to identify and spot certain myths, because they don’t fit within our understanding of self and the world. What if there is a myth that we praise, one that we celebrate as being a valuable personal characteristic.

Perfection can be seen as doing a piece of work well or producing a product or a service that is flawless. To some, perfectionism represents the need to criticize, the need to identify weakness, making the perfectionist a difficult parent, spouse, supervisor and friend. There are also those that see a perfectionist as someone who spends an excessive amount of time and energy cleaning their surroundings and organizing their possessions. Irrespective of how we define perfectionism, research suggests that there are three underlying psychological components of perfectionism. These components are not there for us to further “diagnose” or blame ourselves, rather it serves as a way in which we can better understand how we interact with our world and those within it.