Perfectionists get things done, right? They\u2019re more detail-oriented, meticulous, and effective than the rest of us\u2014or so we\u2019ve been led to believe. But new research out of the University of North Carolina\u00a0at Greensboro, published in the open-access online journal PLOS ONE, has upended that longstanding myth: When put to the test, perfectionists don\u2019t actually work harder than the rest of us. They just agonize more internally about the outcome.<\/p>\n
For every deadline achieved, what you don\u2019t see in a perfectionist is the complicated critical self-talk that accompanies his or her every move. Rachel Randall, an editor in Ohio who has identified as a perfectionist for as long as she can remember, says, \u201cPerfectionism is an awareness that everything I do is a reflection of me, not just professionally, but as a person.\u201d While her colleagues and boss likely see only the productive side of her that gets things done, internally, she tells herself, \u201cI beat myself up a lot over simple things. Mistakes that anyone could make.\u201d<\/p>\n
I overwhelm myself with the need to have everything just right, creating more work for myself.<\/p>\n
Negative self-talk is a common behavior of perfectionists, according to psychologist Robin Hornstein, Ph.D., of Philadelphia, who says, \u201cPerfectionists have a drive that is beyond most people\u2019s capacity, including their own.\u201d This naturally leads to beliefs such as, \u201cIt can be better than this,\u201d \u201cI am not good enough,\u201d \u201cI cannot make this happen,\u201d and \u201cI am bad.\u201d These kinds of thoughts don\u2019t necessarily lead to working harder than others.<\/p>\n
The UNC study bears this out. Based on past research that suggests adaptive perfectionism is associated with higher effort, researchers hypothesized that people who self-described as perfectionists would exhibit increased effort on the task. They recruited 111 college students to take the MPS (Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale)\u00a0and a self-paced task where they received a small cash reward for each correct answer. The participants were hooked up to an electrocardiogram device to test their cardiac activity as they performed their tasks.<\/p>\n
What they found was that those who scored highest for perfectionism did not also demonstrate increased cardiac effort in any category. All participants\u2019 heart rates showed similar levels of effort. While it\u2019s hard to make a concrete assessment of this limited test, it does appear to suggest that underneath the fa\u00e7ade of working harder, perfectionists are working neither more efficiently nor harder than others.<\/p>\n
Hornstein attributes this to the critical thought processes that perfectionists engage in, which can also lead to procrastination. \u201cThere is so much pressure that there may be either periods of lethargy or paralysis or rituals that have to be done to get the work done,\u201d says Hornstein.<\/p>\n
Marinda Romesser, a professor in Florida, sees her perfectionism as getting in the way of her work. \u201cI overwhelm myself with the need to have everything just right, and don’t seem to realize that I am creating more work for myself than what needs to be there.\u201d After she becomes overwhelmed, she says, \u201cthen I have a melt down and I shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Procrastination is familiar to Laurel H., a Washington-based writer and editor, as well.Though she describes herself as a \u201ctenacious worker bee\u201d whose employers are often sorry to see her leave, \u201cif I\u2019m nervous about a work assignment, I tend to procrastinate until I\u2019m close to missing a deadline. I often obsess over tiny details, so almost everything I do takes longer than it should,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Oscar Bartos, a graphic designer, feels that he is \u201chalf-assing it a lot of the time\u201d because \u201cperfectionism, procrastination, and self-doubt are all intertwined.\u201d This has had a big impact on his career in that he feels he has ended up in jobs \u201cthat are design-related but require fairly little creativity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Underlying this intense need to get everything right\u2014to make sure that others don\u2019t \u201csee\u201d any signs of their perceived failure\u2014all the perfectionists we interviewed also described suffering from anxiety and\/or depression, as well. Hornstein says that may be due to the fact that what drives perfectionists \u201cis not coming from an inflated self-esteem. Rather it emerges from a sense of being \u2018less than.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Perfectionism, procrastination, and self-doubt are all intertwined.<\/p>\n
Though there are probably as many sources of perfectionism as there are perfectionists,\u00a0Hornstein names family stress;\u00a0a history of failures that are interpreted as a failure of the self, rather than a failed attempt; and trauma and abuse. Each perfectionist may have a different path to healing. All of our interviewees either have had therapy or currently\u00a0attend some form of therapy, and several have tried medications. Hornstein recommends trying those approaches, as well as any sort of meditation or spiritual practice that is useful\u2014along with\u00a0simply replacing negative self-talk with more positive. \u201cIf your normal go-to is, \u2018I suck at this,\u2019 replace it with \u2018I can do this,\u2019 or \u2018I can try,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
While there may be no cure for perfectionism, Randall says she reminds herself \u201cthat I\u2019m human and I can and will make mistakes.\u201d Romesser is trying a new anxiety medication and using cognitive behavioral therapy to retrain her brain. Bartos has had some success being \u201ccreative on the spot\u201d in more spontaneous situations, and Laurel H. concludes, \u201cI\u2019ve accepted that experiencing failure is part of being alive, but the real turning point was realizing that the fear of failure is worse than failure itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Perfectionists get things done, right? They\u2019re more detail-oriented, meticulous, and effective than the rest of us\u2014or so we\u2019ve been led to believe. But new research out of the University of North Carolina\u00a0at Greensboro, published in the open-access online journal PLOS ONE, has upended that longstanding myth: When put to the test, perfectionists don\u2019t actually work…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}