Hello my Socratica Friends! We’re here to help you be a GREAT student. Notice, I didn’t say PERFECT student. Do you expect that of yourself? You might be suffering from PERFECTIONISM. This ISN’T a good thing, even though “Perfect” is right there in the word. Maybe we should call it Perfect-ITIS, so it sounds like an inflammation. Which it kindof is: an inflamed sense that you need to be perfect! Confession time: This is something I really struggle with, personally. There’s this word that got in my head when I was a kid: IMPECCABLE.
I don’t have any idea why I thought this - it didn’t come from my parents or my teachers - but I really believed my work needed to be IMPECCABLE. My penmanship had to be IMPECCABLE. My school uniform had to be IMPECCABLE. I had to get a HUNDRED PERCENT on every test, I had to be the best student in the class. Even though I WAS a very strong student, my perfectionism got in the way of my really enjoying my education. Because I wasn’t perfect, I had a hard time appreciating just how much I had learned.
I’m still fighting this tendency. I want to be the best I can be, but how can we strive for excellence in a healthy way? We’re learning together today, Socratica Friends. Let’s talk about how we can cut ourselves a little slack and beat perfectionism. We’ll start by addressing our unreasonable expectations. I’m not talking about our goals. Having ambitious goals you want to achieve is terrific! Where it gets us into trouble is when we think our goal should be easy to achieve.
We’re imagining some ideal outcome - like writing a beautiful computer program, or getting straight As. What we don’t fully imagine is what it will take to get there. Okay, all you perfectionist Computer Programmers out there. How many versions of your code do you think you’ll have to write before it’s fully functional? Experienced coders know that you should expect error after error after error. And sometimes you have to compromise your standards of writing elegant code just to
get it working. It takes a LONG time and a LOT of effort to get to your final product. So when you’re beating yourself up for not writing perfect code on your first try, keep this in mind. NO ONE WRITES PERFECT CODE ON THEIR FIRST TRY. Programming is a process of planning, deep thinking, and trial and error. We admire beautiful code precisely BECAUSE it isn’t easy to do. So why are you punishing yourself for not finding it easy?
Perfectionism can stop us from even TRYING something because we think we know ahead of time we won’t be good at it. We turn away from opportunities before they even start. This is an example of All or Nothing thinking. If you’re not the best, why bother. Really? Imagine, it’s the Olympics, they give the gold medal to the fastest runner. Everyone else in the world should stop running? Don’t cut yourself off from an enriching pursuit, learning, growing - just because you’re not measuring up to some arbitrary standard on this day.
This is the saddest consequence of perfectionism. Not too be over the top about it, but honestly - you are denying the world your brilliance. What if Beethoven didn’t share his music, because it took him years to write, compared with Mozart who seemed to write down finished compositions on his first try. We need Beethovens just as much as we need Mozarts. {a triumphant Beethoven finale plays} YOUR perfectionism might look a little different.
In fact, you may not even recognize that perfectionism is what’s behind your actions. For example: you might find yourself procrastinating. Do you put off writing a paper until the last minute? Why do we do this? If you’re a perfectionist, it’s because you KNOW you won’t write a perfect paper. No one can. That’s not a thing. But for some reason, you THINK that’s what’s expected of you! By putting your work off, you give yourself an out. Now you can say to yourself - “well, that wasn’t a fair test of my abilities.
I wrote it in two hours.” This might surprise you that often, what looks like a half-hearted work ethic is really perfectionism in disguise. This is another negative consequence of perfectionism - you’re denying yourself the satisfaction of rising to a challenge. How gratifying is it to do something perfectly the first time? Fleeting at best - we may not even acknowledge it. But when you’ve had to really put in effort and time, and even a little struggle - the success is that much sweeter when it finally comes.
Another way perfectionism shows up is when you’re reluctant to say you’re finished with something, because it’s just not perfect yet. That painting you started months ago. The novel you’ve been secretly working on for years, that you keep re-writing before you’re willing to show it to anyone. It happens to us all the time when we make our videos! We have a phrase we like to say to each other here at Socratica, to try to nip our perfectionism in the bud. “Done is good.”
You see, we spend a LOT of time writing, filming, and editing our videos. It probably takes us longer than it should to get a video out, because we’re always fiddling with our lighting gear, or trying to get a transition in a video just right, or tweaking the audio... we’re never going to make an absolutely perfect video, and we’re trying to learn to accept that. It isn’t easy. We don’t have it all figured out. One way we’re hoping to improve is by getting some help editing. If you’d like to see us make videos faster,
you could help by becoming our Patron on Patreon! That way we can hire an editor who has a little bit less of this perfectionist streak - but someone who is still good! Obviously. I mean, we are Socratica. We still want to make EXCELLENT videos for you. Just...a little faster. So what’s the PERFECT way to fight Perfectionism? It may help to recognize the emotional reasons for perfectionism. Research professor Dr. Brené Brown sums it up spectacularly.
You might say IMPECCABLY. “When perfectionism is driving, SHAME is always riding shotgun. And FEAR is the annoying backseat driver.” There they are, those emotions we’ve been trying to cover up and push under the sofa so we don’t have to deal with them. SHAME and FEAR. On the surface, we think we’re trying to be perfect, but what we’re really doing is finding a way to not get hurt. Subconsciously, we’re saying to ourselves - if I’m perfect, I can avoid criticism.
If I never make a single mistake on the job, I won’t have to worry about being laid off. If I behave exactly the way they expect me to, they’ll like me. Our perfectionism is all about what other people will think of us. How do I measure up. The sad thing is, perfectionism is such a shield against being vulnerable, that it also prevents you from being recognized for who you really are. You never feel secure that people know the real you, because you’re working so hard to put up this false, PERFECT image.
So what can we do to squelch perfectionism, since it’s such an irrational set of emotions and behaviors? Maybe the answer isn’t to push it down out of sight, but rather to bring it out into the light. Journaling is great for this. Write your most unreasonable expectations down. Like - I should get 100% on all of my tests always forever and ever. Imagine that someone else was saying that to you. You’d tell them they’re being ridiculous, right?
Getting these thoughts out of your head and onto paper can take a lot of their power away. You can also try DELIBERATELY leaving something unfinished or not quite perfect. This can be VERY uncomfortable. We’re not saying you should do this for something really important, like your term paper or a grant application. Start with something small, maybe something in your personal life, like how you fold your towels. When you can let a few things slide, and see that life goes on, and people still like you for who you are,
perfectionism loosens its grip on you, just a little. Another exercise to try is to do your job once, on a basic level. Then return and add some details. Finally, give yourself one last pass to finish the job. If you can’t get it done to your desired degree of perfection in three passes, make yourself let it go. Remember, this isn’t your one and only project ever - another project, another paper, another presentation - is coming up, and soon. We’ve been trying this for our video production - we do one basic edit, next we add in some details,
and then one final pass to check for mistakes and little special tweaks. We could easily, easily keep making more passes through a video, but the more time we work on this video, the less time we have to work on our other ideas. Big picture, Socratica Friends - remind yourself that perfectionism isn’t helping. By increasing your anxiety, it actually means you’re less likely to achieve your goals. And what a relief to be able to go through life knowing that
your friends and colleagues know the real you, not some fake perfect robot. Being perfect isn’t human. You can open yourself up to more truthful relationships when you stop pretending to be perfect and start being who you really are. When you’re immersed in academia, or a high-stress work environment, it’s easy to lose track of this simple fact: You are more than what you are good at. Focus on being proud of yourself for showing up, doing your job, being reliable, being kind.
All of those things are in your control. We’re all about stretching yourself and getting better here at Socratica. There’s nothing wrong with striving. But you can find a way to strive for HEALTHY striving. It’s all part of being a GREAT student. Socratica Friends, we literally WROTE THE BOOK on How to Be a Great Student. Buy your copy today! (available on Amazon.com)