Perfectionism and Mental health

Every person working in its field need to constantly work to get better , an artist will get better in his or her art by working on it , same goes with any other profession and even with daily simple tasks if you don’t know how to cook and you don’t try to cook and make tasteless food in the beginning you will not make progress. It is all fine to work and try to get better but it becomes problematic when somebody want to work on the level of perfection. We have heard that perfection makes us better, working on the level of perfection increases value of our work, it is right in small scale but when you see the big picture it turns out problematic.

Disadvantages of being a perfectionist :

Perfectionists pull themselves towards unattainable goals , they define their self-worth by productivity and achievement. Perfectionists have that inner voice which tells them that they are not good enough no matter what they do or how hard they try, And because of that they might never be happy with their work because they were not able to reach their standers they have set for themselves. This causes serious mental issues like anxiety and depression.

D.E Hamacheck Argued for two types of perfectionism play normal perfectionist in neurotic perfectionists

• normal perfectionist work for perfection without compromising on their self-confidence and they are happy with their progress and efforts they make.

• Neurotic perfectionists set their high standards and unrealistic goals and become disappointed when can’t reach them.

Perfectionism feels like you fail at everything you try to do, so it’s better not to try at first place. Or even when you have ideas to work on you procrastinate, you have so many ideas you want to work on but can’t because of constant battle going on in your mind, you strive for relaxing and sharing your thoughts and feelings with others.

When you decide that you are just going to do it anyway , again you are not happy with what you are working on you become obsessed with rules, lists work and the same cycle goes on.

How to overcome perfectionism :

You can work on it to overcome this.

• set realistic goals:

Don’t set high standards learn from your mistakes you made last time and avoid them.

• Break up tasks into small steps:

Do one thing at a time and give it all your attention and full focus.

• Everyone makes mistakes:

Don’t be too harsh on yourself everyone makes mistakes until and unless you are trying you are good just keep going.

• be realistic about outcomes:

Take a realistic approach about outcomes results are not in your hand you give your 100% if you do it for yourself at least one person would like it.