[HN Gopher] Unlearning perfectionism
___________________________________________________________________
Unlearning perfectionism
Author : akprasad
Score : 536 points
Date : 2022-02-05 17:44 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arunkprasad.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arunkprasad.com)
| witweb wrote:
| Great article, in which I find myself partially. I have tried for
| many years to be quite perfectionistic but mostly because of the
| feeling of not being good enough. It's a pretty destructive
| behavior as you're always anxious and imagining the worst. At
| some point at university, I was able to slowly discard this
| behavior, although this development is certainly not over yet.
| What helped me most were good friends and a part-time job in a
| consulting firm, which I absolutely hated btw. But overall I
| learned to focus more on the important things and generally to
| care less. I'm generally happier with my work and don't let
| setbacks get to me as quickly. Rather, I take them as a challenge
| to become even better. (Starting my first job as an engineer
| after university soon btw! :))
| pessimizer wrote:
| Hillary Rettig writes a lit about this stuff. Here's an excerpt
| from one of her books: https://hillaryrettig.com/perfectionism-
| is-rooted-in-grandio...
| waingake wrote:
| If you enjoyed this I'd recommend Simone De Beauvoir's book; The
| ethics of ambiguity. It's short and accessible and describes a
| number of character traits, which hinder personal and collective
| freedom, focusing on the outcome of projects rather than the
| ongoing process is discussed, but additionally she wraps an
| ethical framework around these discussions so that it becomes
| more about how to live in general.
| soheil wrote:
| Arun is describing almost every flaw a human being can have and
| wrapping it all in what he calls perfectionism. A good way to see
| if the scenarios he paints qualify you can just ask the question,
| if I did those things differently would I then be less of a
| perfectionist? I'm not sure the answer is an emphatic yes.
| akprasad wrote:
| I use the term "perfectionism" to describe the space of
| behaviors around the traditional description. Like any
| generalization it can be expanded so much that it includes
| everything. But what separates perfectionism from normal
| fallibility, to me, is the degree of identity investment in the
| outcome. Disappointment _per se_ is not perfectionism. What
| makes it a tendency worth naming is the intensity of mental
| stress and self-recrimination that follows.
| soheil wrote:
| I don't disagree that any _clearly defined_ tendency that
| causes intense mental stress and self-recrimination would be
| worth naming. It seems to me a lot of various behavior can
| lead to or stem from "identity investment" in the outcome
| and therefore be called perfectionism.
| raziel2701 wrote:
| I disagree, I can think of a whole lot of other human flaws
| that don't fit under the umbrella of perfectionism the author
| describes. Narcissism, hypocrisy, abuse, violence, anger-
| issues, being Scottish, etc. Fear of failure/uncertainty seems
| to be a common thread under the umbrella of perfectionism, as
| well as an inability to really see ourselves and our conditions
| for what they really are.
|
| As I was reading the article there were sentences where how I
| view myself and the reality clashed and it elicited a familiar
| feeling of avoidance and discomfort. I am not that biased
| towards action as I'd like to believe. Let me hide from that
| ugly truth.
| soheil wrote:
| I just think that if you dig one level deep you'll find the
| root cause is the same. If someone's narcissistic they're
| doing that probably because they have a certain self-image
| that is all tied up to their self-worth that they want to
| preserve.
|
| It's all about you at the end.
| mch82 wrote:
| Two techniques I've found that are helpful...
|
| 1. Make sure to find a launch customer. It's easy to get stuck in
| endless trade studies without a real customer. Real customers
| bring real constraints that make decisions easier.
|
| 2. Focus on improving upon the baseline rather than achieving
| perfection. It's still important to ask if the improvement is big
| enough to warrant the investment, but don't get trapped into
| rejecting better solutions simply because they aren't perfect
| solutions.
| billti wrote:
| Great article. I saw myself a lot in it. I find myself on this
| orange site multiple times a day largely for some of the reasons
| outlined.
|
| > She dwells in puddles for fear of the ocean
|
| woah. Beautiful line. Great writing can really make the content
| more impactful. I find myself regularly absorbed in the minutia
| of a technology used in a project. I tell myself it's because I
| find the subject fascinating and knowing it deeply will make the
| solution (and me) better (which is partly true), but I often have
| that thought niggling in the back of my mind, "Am I spending too
| long on this detail because I'm avoiding tackling the bigger
| problem because I'm worried I might fail?". This punchy quote
| sums that up nicely.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The article is correct, in that attaching our identity to an
| outcome is a problem.
|
| It doesn't just have to be perfect results. It can also be
| emotional relationships with other people, getting a job or a
| promotion, winning a contest/game, an imagined endgame, etc.
|
| I don't think there's a damn thing wrong with setting a high bar;
| possibly unreasonably high, as long as I have a healthy reaction
| to that bar not being met.
|
| I remember reading about "fuzzy logic," way back, when that was
| still a thing. One description had "levels," where you had things
| like "On, almost on, not on, cat in a box, not off, almost off,
| off," etc. Basically, a continuum, with "detents."
|
| That's sort of how I work. I set a bar for "perfect," but will
| settle for "almost perfect," or maybe even "very good." I will
| _not_ settle for "good," or lower.
|
| My identity is not tied into my work, but I am constantly
| striving for approaching perfection in my work.
|
| If I don't at least get "very good," I don't beat myself up, but
| the job's not done.
| rochak wrote:
| I understand your methodology but struggle to understand how
| you draw the line for the different levels? Is there a measure
| to realize that what you have got at the moment is just good
| and not very good?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| In my case, it's very much a "gut feeling," but I work on my
| own stuff.
|
| I like to stay at a 1-digit bug count, with that digit being
| "0," if at all possible.
|
| I have a development technique that is afforded by the tools
| I use, and the platform. I call it "Constant Beta." I also do
| what I call "Evolutionary Design," where I refine the actual
| project plan and design, as I proceed.
|
| Basically, I keep the app at ship quality, from the very
| beginning. If I encounter bugs - _any_ bugs- at any time
| during development, I stop all forward development, until the
| bug has been fixed.
|
| I test _a lot_. I tend to use test harnesses, or the
| integrated app, as opposed to unit tests. Unit tests are
| applied, once functionality has been established; and only
| for those parts of the system that makes sense. I like to
| break projects out, into standalone packages, with discrete
| lifecycles. I often publish these, as open source.
|
| I like to do full integration testing, as soon as possible.
| Almost all of my testing is done on the whole system (which
| might be incomplete, with stubs and mocks).
|
| "Constant Beta" means that I start releasing TestFlight beta
| to my team, as soon as possible. As an example, I have been
| working on the project that is my current obsession, since
| September 5th, of 2020 (first commit). I have been making
| TestFlight releases, since October 6th, 2020. I've made well
| over 500 TestFlight releases, in that time. I'll have to
| count the tags, but it may be over 600, by now.
|
| If you know anything about TestFlight, you know that Apple
| vets the releases (but not as stringently as for release into
| the App Store). They won't approve a TestFlight release,
| unless the app is already quite substantial, and doesn't
| crash. In fact, in one release, Apple helped me to spot a
| bug, because they made it crash in a way that had escaped my
| testing, and rejected the build.
|
| I can scare up a full-fledged, "shippable" app, in a few
| days. All the time since, has been spent adding functionality
| to the app, testing, refining, testing, pivoting, testing,
| refactoring, testing, removing functionality, testing, going
| back to the drawing board, testing, etc.
|
| All the while, keeping a cadence of multiple releases per day
| (once the first release has been made of a version, builds
| are approved almost immediately).
|
| Tends to keep the quality high.
| cardosof wrote:
| My wife is a perfectionist, she spends unreasonable amounts of
| time even in little tasks (like making the bed) to make sure it's
| "perfect". We all talk about perfectionism in the workplace or
| job-related activities but in reality it's a PITA in every aspect
| of life.
| rochak wrote:
| +1. I can't imagine how many hours I must have wasted on
| perfecting something only to realize that most of them don't
| matter, at least not more than the other aspects of life. It is
| a PITA and there are times when I feel that it could be due to
| this CS field I am in. I had been ignoring it for years and
| only recently decided to think about switching fields that are
| less demanding.
| jollygoodshow wrote:
| Does the state of being someone who strives for excellence
| instead of perfection not carry with it it's own downsides? I
| know the article is more about unlearning perfectionism, but I'd
| also want to know what I was getting myself into if I did decide
| to change and if I would prefer it: e.g better the devil you
| know, though this is probably tinged by my resistance to
| change...
| akadeb wrote:
| Great article. Incidentally, CBT, ERP and mindfulness with self
| compassion are also the same therapies prescribed for people
| suffering from various forms of OCD
| agumonkey wrote:
| Superb article. One thing though, it's difficult to reconciliate
| job markets / interview tests with not being a perfectionnist to
| an extent. Hopefully not a crippling but a mature for of
| skillfulness.
| thealig wrote:
| It will massively help you to be a perfectionist when preparing
| for an interview, but once you get the job, becomes unnecessary
| or even counterproductive to pursue perfectionism on the job.
| (for the most part IME)
| vmoore wrote:
| "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add,
| but when there is nothing left to take away."
|
| -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
| moffkalast wrote:
| When there is nothing more to take away you're left with
| nothing. As they say, "Nothing is perfect."
| naveen99 wrote:
| 1 nothing, 2 nothing, countably infinite nothings... pairs of
| nothings.
| gridspy wrote:
| Even this quote implies that reaching perfection is a process.
| One in which you create a rough solution and remove
| imperfections and extra parts until the minimal and perfect
| solution remains.
| shitpost wrote:
| onion_knight wrote:
| Mental health issues too often remain untreated among high-
| achievers who are able to maintain a surface appearance of
| holding it together. It's a good trend that nowadays we feel able
| to talk more openly about struggles like this.
|
| I see myself in this article but for me, the word that was the
| key to find resources to get better was the broader acronym RNT,
| "Repetitive negative thoughts". Perfectionism themes are one
| common type of thought for me, but I also have several other
| categories that don't fit in that frame. Two resources I found
| particularly useful:
|
| * https://www.amazon.com/Negative-Thoughts-Workbook-Repetitive...
| "The Negative Thoughts Workbook" A practical self-help book with
| chapters to work through each common category of negative thought
|
| * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672052/
| "Constructive and Unconstructive Repetitive Thought" A survey in
| the clinical literature which I found particularly helpful for
| identifying the subset of negative thoughts which has been
| actually helping me. This helped me ease up on the majority of
| unhelpful thoughts with greater confidence that I'm still
| preserving the small subset of my thought pattern which has
| helped me succeed.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I believe, in every system, that includes humans, the ability
| to pause is key.
|
| If you can't stop whatever is fueling negative habits /
| emotions, even if it looks noble or whatever (learning, art,
| sport, perf, love) .. it's probably not good.
| etherio wrote:
| I agree. I think there are several reasons high achievers'
| mental health issues go untreated:
|
| - like you say they maintain a healthy surface because part of
| their perfectionism is no one knowing about their anxiety /
| having a good image
|
| - if they do share, often their goals / expectations will be
| inflated compared to that of their peers such that for others
| it feels like they're bragging or being ridiculous, instead of
| taking their pain seriously. I notice this especially with when
| I share dissatisfaction about my school results - disparate
| expectations create a true divide.
| RobRivera wrote:
| >what are you complaing for, you're doing great.
|
| dismissive comments at a young age evolve to be tactful but
| still echo deafeningly from adolescence, in my exp.
| wilkommen wrote:
| I think mostly everyone's mental health issues go untreated.
| High achievers and otherwise, maybe for different reasons in
| different cases. Even people whose mental health issues cause
| them obvious distress often don't get treatment.
| lnenad wrote:
| Yeah, exactly, I think this article or the general consensus
| in this thread relates to the fact that high achievers' (or
| other positive-on-the-surface kinds of people) mental health
| is often overlooked due to the fact that they "don't have any
| real issues".
| the_arun wrote:
| Regarding negative thoughts - I escape them thinking we all are
| temporary. People around us forget/forgive the unconscious
| mistakes we do. So we too need to ignore them for greater good
| of tomorrow.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Sad to say, it's still a somewhat uphill battle to get
| diagnosed with something, if you've been able to graduate, can
| hold a job, and have an otherwise "normal" life.
|
| The first time I went to a psychologist, they couldn't rule out
| things like ADD/ADHD, but simply ended the examination (after 3
| interviews), and concluded with "could be due to traumatic
| childhood" - which I did not have. In the journal, they noted
| that I had graduated from University, had a steady white-collar
| job, no crime record, in a relationship, and other things which
| ADHD patients would apparently struggle with.
|
| Went for a second opinion, and got diagnosed with non-
| hyperactive ADHD (previously called ADD).
| [deleted]
| stopnamingnuts wrote:
| I concur. And I'm saving these links.
|
| As a tangent I would add that the damage isn't limited to the
| perfectionist. At some point one has to consider how the
| rigidity of perfectionism affects their relationships. It can
| be a self-indulgence in which one engages at the expense family
| or friends.
| zwkrt wrote:
| > It can be a self-indulgence in which one engages at the
| expense family or friends.
|
| It's even worse if the perfectionism is applied to those
| around you directly. The thought process is something like
| "well I hold myself to a high (but maybe poorly defined and
| changing) standard, so why not hold those in my life to that
| same standard!?"
|
| Of course it is impossible for anyone to live up to your
| nebulous and nonverbal "standard", so you see your close
| relations primarily in terms of how they are deficient. And
| because what comes around goes around, you assume others are
| perceiving you in the same way.
|
| You may actually find yourself surrounded by people with
| obvious issues like addiction and depression so it easy for
| you to perceive exactly how much more perfect you are than
| they are, and of course you remind them of this frequently
| through backhanded comments that let them know that they are
| _almost_ good enough to be your equal. It takes a certain
| kind of person to regularly take that abuse, so your warped
| reality self-selects for friends that are obsequious puddles
| or anxious wrecks. Thus begins a feedback loop that
| reinforces everyones mental health issues, with you being the
| pump that brings water from the well.
|
| It's a bucket of fun for everyone!
| jancsika wrote:
| > The thought process is something like "well I hold myself
| to a high (but maybe poorly defined and changing) standard,
| so why not hold those in my life to that same standard!?"
|
| Seems like a lot hinges on your parenthetical.
|
| If Bob has a well-defined and consistent standard that
| works for him, what's wrong with filtering Eve out of his
| life with it?
| zwkrt wrote:
| Oh no of course we should all be discerning. But TFA
| talks about pinning self-esteem to the outcomes of
| projects in the world. I was describing a situation i saw
| where an individual's "projects" were their close
| relationships. People are not projects to be worked on.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Wrong cosmically? Nothing, prejudice is a self-punishing
| mistake. Wrong for Bob? Well, he's lost a friend and not
| gained anything.
| [deleted]
| Mazgas wrote:
| I kind of wish I could train myself to be a bit more towards
| perfectionism than I am. I know it is a different problem than
| y'all are having, but sometimes it feels that when everyone is
| stressed about a project I am the only one laid back like "it
| will work, even if we're a little late" or, which is worse,
| "readers will point out a mistake if we missed it on the
| overview". I call it "community feedback", but others see it more
| accurately as "forgiving errors before tgey are even made".
| bee_rider wrote:
| > "forgiving errors before tgey are even made"
|
| this is brilliant if it was intentional.
| Mazgas wrote:
| It was. Or wsa ti?
| gridspy wrote:
| Real perfectionism doesn't mean you do perfect work. It means
| you never (or rarely) ship, or perhaps never start. You don't
| ask for help, you feel anxious about perceptions. You reduce
| the scope until a task is trivial, or increase it until it is
| impossible. In both cases you give the job up as worthless or
| unreachable.
|
| You don't want perfectionism.
|
| > "It will work, even if we're a little late"
|
| We should all aspire to reach this attitude in development
| teams. As long as you keep putting the work in until the
| product is polished we're fine.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| there is no such a thing as "real perfectionism"
|
| perfectionism, like many other behavioral styles, is a
| spectrum
|
| Most of the "perfectionists" are people that simply care a
| lot more than the average about details, not sociopaths.
|
| Katsuhiro Otomo is a perfectionist, but he also enjoys his
| life and creating his art.
|
| p.s. perfectionists most of the time acknowledge that thinks
| will work anyway, they simply also believe (and rightly so)
| that things could be better than they currently are. Most of
| the times they also know that perfection (or an incarnation
| of it) takes a lot of time.
|
| We only talk about the extreme cases because of survival
| bias: they are the ones who will make extreme sacrifices,
| while the others will give up on perfection sooner or later,
| because they are not actually obsessed with it.
| emrah wrote:
| I like the concept of "defining a spec to meet for achieving a
| goal". Perfectionism is spec for "flawless" and that may very
| well be what's required to achieve one's goal but usually it's
| not necessary.
|
| What spec you need is based on the goal. You can build cars using
| different specs and you may achieve a luxury car or an every
| sedan and both have "succeeded" if they meet their specs and sell
| to their respective markets
| d-d wrote:
| Unlearn perfectionism by becoming mentally perfect. Hmm, could
| take a while.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I'm a recovering perfectionist who has read their fair share of
| Brene Brown, Steven Pressfield, Seth Godin, Tony Robbins, Anne
| Lamott, and many more.
|
| The best metaphors I've read is in Bird by Bird. The author
| describes two different scenarios.
|
| The first is that perfection & progress is much like driving late
| at night with headlights. You will only be able to see as far as
| your headlights allow. You might be going through a canyon, on a
| straight and narrow highway, or going the wrong way. But all you
| know for certain is what is in front of you.
|
| The second is that you have to frame your perfectionism around
| something. That could be your loved ones, your dreams in life,
| whatever. If it's always framed around your past achievements,
| you're comparing to the past and not to the future version of
| what could be. Getting clear on why you're doing it is very
| important.
|
| I truly believe you can devoid yourself of perfectionism. I've
| gone from being afraid to publish work to the public, to only
| publishing in the public and shaping my work based on the
| imperfections being pointed out in my shitty first attempts.
|
| Your first attempt will be shitty. Your second attempt will be
| less shitty. Do this for long enough and you'll start to get a
| feel for proficiency and what others see as "perfection".
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > The first is that perfection & progress is much like driving
| late at night with headlights. You will only be able to see as
| far as your headlights allow.
|
| that's all you need to drive ar night though (and driving in
| general)
|
| if you drive looking around you, you can become a danger for
| yourself and others.
|
| What I mean is that perfectionism is doing things the right way
| and make the best out of the limits you encounter.
|
| I feel like many confuse perfectionism with obsession.
|
| Perfectionism = not bad
|
| Obsession = bad
| tdsamardzhiev wrote:
| > perfectionism is doing things the right way and make the
| best out of the limits you encounter
|
| This is 'being a reasonable homo sapiens'. Perfectionism is
| having absurd expectations and refusing to do anything unless
| they're met.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "I feel like many confuse perfectionism with obsession.
|
| Perfectionism = not bad
|
| Obsession = bad "
|
| It just depends how you define terms. What most people here
| mean with perfectionism, would be probably a obsession with
| perfectionism under your terms.
|
| I am also fine with my perfectionism, after I learned the
| concept of "good enough".
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > It just depends how you define terms
|
| It only depends on where you are in the spectrum
|
| Everyone is a perfectionist in something, but only someone
| is obsessed with perfectionism to the point it becomes bad
| for you.
|
| That's what usually people think about when they talk about
| perfectionism, but that's the worst case scenario.
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _perfectionism is doing things the right way and make the
| best out of the limits you encounter._
|
| My dictionary defines perfectionist as "a person who refuses
| to accept any standard short of perfection". That is the
| standard definition you will find most people understand as
| the meaning of the word. For more precise use in a technical
| context, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfectionism_(psychology)
|
| >> _Perfectionists strain compulsively and unceasingly toward
| unattainable goals, and measure their self-worth by
| productivity and accomplishment. Pressuring oneself to
| achieve unrealistic goals inevitably sets the person up for
| disappointment. Perfectionists tend to be harsh critics of
| themselves when they fail to meet their expectations._ [...]
|
| >> _Perfectionism can be damaging. It can take the form of
| procrastination when used to postpone tasks and self-
| deprecation when used to excuse poor performance or to seek
| sympathy and affirmation from other people. These, together
| or separate, are self-handicapping strategies perfectionists
| may use to protect their sense of self-competence. In
| general, perfectionists feel constant pressure to meet their
| high expectations, which creates cognitive dissonance when
| expectations cannot be met. Perfectionism has been associated
| with numerous other psychological and physiological
| complications. Moreover, perfectionism may result in
| alienation and social disconnection via certain rigid
| interpersonal patterns common to perfectionistic
| individuals._
|
| "Doing things the right way" is an idiosyncratic personal
| definition. You should find a different word for this if you
| want people to understand you. Or perhaps you could use
| "competence", "proficiency", "fastidiousness",
| "judiciousness", "practicality", "adaptability", "success",
| or some other existing word, depending on the context.
| syntheweave wrote:
| The most important aspect for me is in setting reasonable,
| concrete benchmarks that you can self-assess. Although good
| teaching and mentoring can be helpful, external opinion is also
| the source of many bad benchmarks - all too often nobody will
| be there to give advice more specific than "this is good, that
| is bad".
|
| To get better benchmarks, you have to do some philosophy to set
| up principles that you can judge yourself with. This can be
| daunting but is much more effective than trying things at
| random. Once you have them, though, your self-assessments
| become much more reasonable and perfectionism will recede: You
| know what it takes to go from 90% to 99%, and can weigh that
| against developing in other respects.
| rednalexa wrote:
| I like the idea: do you have any examples of it in practice?
| syntheweave wrote:
| I often apply it from the beginning for creative projects.
| For example if I am writing a story, I will need to
| consider "what makes a good story". If I were to develop
| the benchmark for this by consulting a list of "top 10 ways
| to make a good story," or did my research by looking at
| best-sellers, then I would only be capable of writing
| cliches. It would be very hard to get off of the blank page
| without just copying a complete work and then trying to
| modify parts.
|
| But if I decide on particular concepts of good for _this_
| story, suddenly the path becomes clarified. And so I might
| select a theme to explore, a word or a phrase like
| "sunshine on a cloudy day", and then develop the basis of
| the story by making the contents abductively(as in
| abductive reasoning) similar to that theme - by inventing
| characters, settings and plot devices that would suggest
| similar ideas and then seeing how I could make them work
| together. As I add more, additional themes and principles
| might come up and I would navigate their use by looking for
| ways in which they are compatible with the primary theme.
| If there are contradictions between two themes, then I will
| have to resolve them or else drop exploration in that
| direction.
|
| And you can see that there is a lot of work that would go
| into developing the story from a set of themes into a
| finished narrative, but it is also not work that would go
| in circles; there is a start and end to it, a point at
| which it definitely communicates the theme, and does so
| efficiently. The rest is a matter of adding some polish,
| smoothing out the particulars of the telling. It would only
| grow unbounded and become a truly "perfectionist" endeavor
| if I allowed too many contradictory elements to slip in and
| create problems, or burdened myself with too many technical
| constraints like those found in a top 10 or "do's and
| don'ts" list of quick-fixes. That advice can solve
| particular problems, but it comes after having a good
| foundation.
| pmorici wrote:
| I had a professor once that said he found his most professionally
| successful students weren't the ones who got A's but the B
| students and he calked it up to the notion that the B students
| were better able to know where the maximum return on their
| invested effort was where as the A student invested whatever it
| took to get the A even if the incremental effort required wasn't
| proportional to the incremental benefit of the next hire grade.
|
| The notion that perfectionism can be harmful reminds me of that.
| [deleted]
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The
| ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life"
|
| .. Paul Morphy
| qqgg231 wrote:
| If you like this article, you will like this book, which is very
| similar: "How to be imperfectionist" by Stephen Guise. It helped
| me tremendously to heal from perfectionism.
| hgomersall wrote:
| I found imposter syndrome went away when I realised everyone else
| was an imposter too.
| [deleted]
| amelius wrote:
| I'm not.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| That's a bit suspicious. Sounds like something an imposter
| would say.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Did anyone see amelius doing the tasks?
|
| ---
|
| Jokes aside, I think we all are and aren't imposters, in
| different areas of life.
| moffkalast wrote:
| _Dead body reported._
| ribasushi wrote:
| Where?
| agumonkey wrote:
| you're at least a poster ;)
| boh wrote:
| Perfectionist is an overindulgent term that fails to capture the
| experience of its debased realities. Dealing with perfectionists
| you never see an attempt at perfection as much as you see
| neurosis and control issues. "Perfection" is a fake endeavor with
| no contingent expression that can even verify its attainment. The
| concept of perfection is dehumanizing and anyone attempting to
| have it materialize keeps themselves stuck in a false reality
| that plays exclusively in their own imagination. To be seduced
| into the perfectionist narrative is to be subject to a fantasy
| that can do as much to paralyze an endeavor as much as it
| purports to cultivate it.
| ipython wrote:
| Just read through this and my first thought is Scott Adam's book
| "how to fail at almost anything and still win big" which I feel
| like is a humorous adaptation of the authors suggestion to focus
| on process not outcomes.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > So she feels threatened by moderate setbacks and finds any
| number of excuses to procrastinate: she's not in the mood, not in
| the right place, too busy, not inspired, too hungry, too full,
| too alert, too tired. So she retreats into the safe and familiar.
| She checks her email for the hundredth time.
|
| Feeling personally attacked
| voisin wrote:
| The most apt description I have come across of perfectionism is
| that it stems from some unresolved trauma that led to a fear of
| not being accepted and resulting lack of confidence.
| lazide wrote:
| Or being required to do something really important, but failing
| and suffering/seeing bad things happen in part because they or
| someone they depended on was unprepared (even if knowing how to
| be prepared, or being prepared was not really realistic in the
| circumstance).
|
| It can come from something as simple as the family losing their
| income and having serious problems due to economic issues, to a
| parent dying, or a major childhood illness, death of a friend,
| etc.
|
| Over preparing/over doing it to the point where most would call
| it 'perfectionism' has saved my ass many times, because it
| meant when I got put in a situation that turned out to be much
| harder or scarier than I had imagined or knew was possible, I
| actually had the bare minimum necessary there to pull it off or
| get out of the situation successfully.
|
| Many, many people I have known over the years have not been so
| lucky.
|
| Pretty sure it never hit a pathological point though, which
| something like OCD definitely is.
|
| The way to turn it into a better coping skill is to evaluate
| where it is and is not helpful - it's almost certainly has not
| always been wasted effort, though for folks in particularly bad
| places, maybe it has. CBT has a really useful 'Worry Worksheet'
| which can help walk people through and reality test things like
| this, which can help tease it apart.
|
| Prioritizing self care is also key, as when it is a problem
| it's usually because other important things aren't getting
| addressed (like rest, or positive social interactions) because
| someone is hyper focusing on perfecting one specific thing, and
| necessarily unable to tackle the other things that are
| important to be functional. This leads to a spiral of less and
| less ability to be functional, which rightfully will trigger
| anxiety and the maladaptive behavior even more. Hopefully the
| person is able to snap out of it, or environmental/external
| factors stop it, but that doesn't always happen.
|
| If someone was in a situation where they ended up in a
| unexpectedly bad situation or emergency as a kid, this is
| probably one of the better 'bad coping skill' ways of handling
| it.
|
| Other, even less helpful but common coping skills for that kind
| of trauma include:
|
| - pretending that the problem is not or could never actually be
| a problem (delusion)
|
| - avoiding any reminders of the problem (avoidance)
|
| - attacking others as the cause of the problem, when they
| aren't (deflection, finger pointing)
|
| - making the problem someone else's problem in a destructive
| way (usually using manipulation, gaslighting, abuse)
|
| And many more.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| > Over preparing/over doing it to the point where most would
| call it 'perfectionism' has saved my ass many times, because
| it meant when I got put in a situation that turned out to be
| much harder or scarier than I had imagined or knew was
| possible, I actually had the bare minimum necessary there to
| pull it off or get out of the situation successfully.
|
| That bit really resonated with me. Having a fixed mindset in
| certain cases has allowed me to get away in some extreme
| challenges where a growth mindset surely would not have.
| lazide wrote:
| Nod, the challenge with it, like many things, is if it is
| appropriate/helpful/most useful for the actual situation at
| hand.
|
| There are a whole class of issues, including PTSD, Anxiety,
| Depression (and related or semi-related stuff like
| perfectionism), that are not so much that the behavior or
| feeling is bad or wrong in any absolute sense - it's just
| not useful or appropriate in the current environment and it
| is causing distress and life problems because of it. There
| are plenty of life circumstances where any of those states
| could be appropriate and would help the person. PTSD in the
| checkout line at the grocery store is clearly not one of
| them.
|
| More nuanced research over time seems to be discovering
| it's sometimes less about 'smash the symptoms with a hammer
| forever' (heavy medication) and sometimes it's more about
| unblocking whatever is stuck that is stopping the person
| from learning and adjusting appropriately to what IS
| actually happening, and process whatever was going on
| before, so they can get out of the 'stuck' bad state.
|
| This does include medication, among other things sometimes.
| Sometimes it's also changing environment, removing bad
| influences/people, living support, etc.
|
| Definitely not applicable to everyone. But applicable to a
| surprising number of cases.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I second that idea. That's why it ties to identify and deep
| fears. Self image and social rejection are deep human nerves.
|
| I also think the forces you mention are at play across all
| society.
| walleeee wrote:
| The unresolved trauma part seems plausible but at least from
| personal anecdote the corresponding fear may not be of social
| ostracism in particular but any of a larger family of undesired
| social consequences (self-image could be considered "social"
| insofar as it concerns one's relationship with oneself)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| Yea, I find when I seem to be the most plagued by it is when I
| want to control how other people are feeling (and also behaving
| as a result). I fear that if I publish a thing, people may feel
| confused or angry or sometimes worse: indifferent. But also
| that someone will feel so smitten and overjoyed that they come
| to me saying that I'm a god or a superhero/savior. I can
| sometimes deeply fear people feeling things that I don't want
| them to feel, and more so, responding in ways I don't want them
| to.
|
| I think a lot of it comes down to uncertainty: I don't know
| what will happen and I want to know what will happen. I don't
| know if people will love me, hate me, or ignore me, and if so,
| how they'll do it, and so much of that uncertainty can drive me
| into trying to control as much as I can (or think I can).
|
| For me, perfectionism seems to lie in that fear of the unknown
| and trying to mitigate as much (read: squash/eliminate) of the
| uncertainty instead of recognizing that we're human beings and
| so many things are outside of our control.
| ibi5 wrote:
| I know that you didn't exactly invent the term unresolved
| trauma, BUT...
|
| As a person with a lot of unresolved trauma (and perfectionism
| issues), I hate the term "unresolved trauma". I've been working
| hard with a therapist and a psychologist for years, and I've
| made a ton of progress, but my trauma will never be truly
| resolved. Every few years some new facet of damage will pop up
| that I won't expect and will have to work through.
|
| It's a never ending process, and (imo) the term unresolved
| trauma implies that there should be a point where it becomes
| resolved. That's just not realistic or true for a lot of
| people.
| wnolens wrote:
| Thanks, I've felt the same thing.
|
| I've even seen therapists who claimed that I could completely
| 'heal'. But that's a perfectionist attitude itself, which had
| me banging my head against the wall for too long.
|
| I think the truth is far closer to 'able to live a satisfying
| life in spite of'
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| One could argue that there will never be an accurate term,
| and thus hating the term for not being completely accurate is
| perfectionism.
|
| But I could be wrong.... (Says the perfectionist, letting
| himself off the hook if he is wrong, which he may very well
| be because he's talking out his ass)
| InfinityByTen wrote:
| "Resolution" of trauma is generally nothing but an imaginary
| "perfect" state. It doesn't exist and usually chasing that is
| another form of the same dynamic rather a departure from it.
|
| Kudos to you for identifying that for yourself and trying to
| distance from it!
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Instead of spending all this time and effort "unlearning
| perfectionism" so you can let yourself off for half-assing the
| thing, just do the thing perfectly
| savant_penguin wrote:
| To me a good trick to avoid perfectionism is to call something a
| v1 and just finally finish it
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Nope. The Rust community's embracing of version 0.x is what did
| it for me. 1.0 is a big deal. It's what you get judged by (in
| my book). 0.x? You can bungle that. It's ok.
| Tabular-Iceberg wrote:
| Two major problems that I haven't seen described in terms of
| perfectionism anywhere, but should fit the pattern precisely are
| incels and hoarders.
|
| Incels want their life to read like the perfect romance novel,
| and hoarders want to achieve the perfect utilisation of
| resources.
| sfifs wrote:
| To share a contrarian view, what I have always observed is that
| if an organization has an ingrained culture of 80-20, then by the
| time something percolates 3-4 hand offs, the org half-asses the
| execution and more often than not fails. Organizations that can
| execute even somewhat more consistently instead run rings around
| and completely destroy the 80-20 organization over time and
| people lose their jobs.
|
| The secret is to figure out from an organization standpoint what
| is really a "good enough to succeed" end-deliverable or end-
| execution and organize to deliver that "good enough" thing
| consistently with perfectionism. Paired with this , there needs
| to be a process which continuously stretches what it means to be
| "good enough" over time with productivity and feature enhancement
| investments.
| rsanek wrote:
| How would 90-10 work vs. 80-20 -- _even less_ work for 10% more
| gain? Perhaps you could have 90-25 or 90-30 but it seems to me
| like 90-10 is impossible in comparison to 80-20 unless the 10
| is not a subset of the 20.
| sfifs wrote:
| yeah - you're right, the analogy doesn't really convey the
| point i'm trying to bring across. I'll edit it :-)
| hinkley wrote:
| Power laws and fractions man, they'll get you every time.
|
| (I'm actually pitching the reverse situation at work. People
| keep chasing big wins to improve our system and then taking
| forever to deliver half of what they suggested at the start.
| Especially where performance is concerned. Meanwhile I'm
| knocking out little gains that are 20% of what they're chasing
| but doing it every fortnight to a month. Six months of 2% a
| week is 40% overall, and that would beat anything these jokers
| have delivered in four years.)
| nickvec wrote:
| As someone with diagnosed OCD, this is a great article.
|
| I'm glad CBT and mindfulness is coming more to light, because it
| really did change my life. I no longer let my thoughts control
| me, but rather, I control my thoughts.
| svat wrote:
| Everyone's experience is different, so it is unsurprising that
| are parts of this article that resonate very strongly and other
| parts not at all -- overall, very valuable to have read this.
|
| The philosopher John Perry has a humorous essay called
| "Procrastination and Perfectionism" that gets to the heart of the
| matter in a different way:
|
| > _Many procrastinators do not realize that they are
| perfectionists, for the simple reason that they have never done
| anything perfectly, or even nearly so. [...] Perfectionism is a
| matter of fantasy, not reality._
|
| (More at
| https://web.archive.org/web/20111120152858/http://www.struct...)
|
| Minor pedantic point about the aticle: IIRC, the quote about
| Gauss from E. T. Bell was more about Gauss "hiding his tracks"
| like a fox with its tail ("Had he divulged what he knew"...)
| rather than taking too long because of perfectonism.
|
| (This comment was typed with a 5-minute timer! It feels very
| uncomfortable to just hit submit without cleaning it up, but I've
| come to realize that that discomfort is part of growth.)
| dimal wrote:
| Interesting that the behavior Perry describes is now being
| called "maladaptive daydreaming". It's not in the DSM yet, but
| it probably should be. It's highly comorbid with obsessive
| compulsive disorders, which is also associated with
| perfectionism.
| kettleballroll wrote:
| "Comorbid" implies that it's lethal, doesn't it? Wouldn't
| "correlated" be better here?
| cloudier wrote:
| No, it's a medical term that just means one condition often
| appears with another condition (e.g. maladaptive
| daydreaming often occurs with OCD).
| svat wrote:
| Tangent: I was wrong about E. T. Bell's quote about Gauss: the
| page (229-230) discusses both:
| https://archive.org/details/menofmathematics0000bell/page/22...
|
| The quote about the fox does not seem to be in Bell's book, but
| some stuff about it here:
| https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/3610/what-is-the-ori...
| jack_pp wrote:
| That and the previous Structured Procrastination essay which I
| have read but forgotten about are great complementary essays to
| the posted article. Thank you for sharing them. I am in a deep
| hole due to these problems and serendipity has it that I came
| upon these resources at the best of times. Thank you again
| [deleted]
| projektfu wrote:
| From my experience, I wonder how much "perfectionism" is itself
| the self-deception to cope with an executive function disorder.
| Most narratives of perfectionism start with the person having
| unrealistic outcome and that leads to procrastination, difficulty
| starting, etc. I wonder if it is likely that the problem is an
| inability to get started and stay on task, and then the person
| does a 180 and tells themself that they just can't get started
| _the right way_ , or it wasn't _going to be perfect_ , and so
| they abandoned the task.
| Comevius wrote:
| The current scientific literature of procrastination supports
| your idea.
|
| Procrastination appears to be determined by interactions
| between the cognitive-related (prefrontal cortex) and
| affective-related (limbic system, default mode network)
| functions. There is a trade-off between the top-down cognitive
| and bottom-up affective systems.
|
| It appears that affective processing can override top-down
| control signals for short-term satisfaction, or worst since the
| hyperactivity of the default mode network was observed in
| mental disorders.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308046561_Identifyi...
|
| Perfectionism could be how the mind copes with the failures of
| top-down control.
|
| Makes sense, I had an unfortunate childhood, and it took a long
| time to gain control over my hyperactive affective functions,
| and I'm a recovering perfectionist. Self-compassion works.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-06 23:02 UTC)