Perfectionism is a broad personality style characterised by a person’s need to strive for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by self criticism and being competitive with themselves. 

People who suffer with Perfectionism are deeply concerned of being judged by others.

It causes sufferers a great deal of anxiety because they are always looking at their perceived flaws. 

Did you know that Perfectionism is linked to depression, addiction, PTSD, Eating disorder, anxiety and OCD? 

You may identify as a Perfectionist if:

• You set unrealistic standards for yourself
• You’re highly self critical
• You have an all or nothing mentality
• No matter how much you do, you never feel that it is enough
• You find it difficult to relax and kick back
• You procrastinate… You can’t get content out there …. It’s got to be perfect so you end up doing nothing rather that get it wrong
• You have crippling fear of failure or rejection
• You have low self esteem

Women in Business suffering from Perfectionism are often workaholics – their need to be perfect drives them to go above and beyond to prove themselves. 

Often the Clients who come to me with Perfectionism also have Imposter Syndrome. 

The Biggest Mistake People with Perfectionism Make

The drive for perfection, leads people to work harder and longer, and unfortunately it all too often leads to burnout. They think “I’ll just do this” or “I’ll just do that extra thing” thinking that that extra thing will finally validate them, but, newsflash…

It won’t… 

Once you achieve the goal, the mind will just move the carrot on to the next piece of work. 

I’ve seen this all too often. 

Many of my Clients come to me on the edge of, if not totally burn out.

What I say to them is that their subconscious mind is running their life for them. It thinks that if they attain perfection, then they’ll finally be good enough. 

But perfection doesn’t exist – we’re human beings, we’re not meant to be perfect. 

Learn to feel good enough

They have to learn to feel good enough within themselves and self validate.

I take my clients through the Metamorphosis 121 program to change their subconscious beliefs so that they no longer experience the pressure or desire to be perfect. 

It’s all in the subconscious

The underlying reason for Perfectionism is a deep rooted subconscious belief that they are not worthy or  good enough. 

For a person suffering with perfectionism, at some point in their childhood their mind came up with the incorrect belief that they needed to prove their worth in order to be loved. 

Their minds equated being perfect with receiving validation and attention….

Maybe it was a teacher who only paid attention to the 2 kids in the year who got the top grades, thus negating all the other kids, perhaps it was the dad who only paid attention to the kids when they got a certificate, maybe it was the mum who shamed the child that they weren’t perfectly neat, tidy, in every single way. 

If you suffer from Perfectionism, and you realise it’s a problem, it’s easy to start blaming your mind for these thought patterns, but please don’t… 

The subconscious mind is simply trying to protect you and your inner child needs healing, because it is still living those traumas in the subconscious mind. Those deeply rooted beliefs need to be weeded out.

Recognise that part of Perfectionism is self criticism and that now is not a time for more self criticism…. It’s time for you to radically change your behavioural patterns, so give yourself more self compassion and love – your whole being is craving it.

If you’re suffering from the constant pains of perfectionism, be your best friend by giving yourself a break. 

Try This

Self love is so important to heal this wound, and taking action steps to break the perfectionist curse is key – so if a certain type of work usually takes you 10 hours to complete due to endless revisions, encourage yourself to shorten it by 1 or 2 hours. 

If you always make 5 edits of a draft, pledge to only make 3 or 4 this time and stick to it.

See how you feel after. And keep going at it, because it’s really limiting your happiness.