What Is Perfectionist Syndrome? Detect It And Solve It
People with excessive perfectionism experience multiple difficulties. Learn how to detect the signs of this syndrome, as well as appropriate guidelines to resolve it.
It is very possible that any of us know someone who insists on getting high grades at a very high cost of effort and sacrifice, who invests many hours a day cleaning the house, or getting ready, or who dedicates too many hours to work. thus losing free time or family or leisure spaces. But is this a healthy thing?
In our Psicomaster Psychology Center we frequently see people who suffer from this problem and we work with them to solve it, since it is a fairly common problem.
Wanting to improve is a very natural desire of the human condition, having aspirations, wanting to improve oneself. It can be considered something positive and that at the same time helps us to set goals in life, to not stay stagnant or be complacent when we can improve. Now, wanting to reach perfectionism to an extreme degree, that is, insisting on doing things “very well”, with no room for error, can cause great suffering and anxiety problems for us and also for the people around us.
The signs that may indicate that we are facing this “syndrome” are the following:
Consider that a job is never finished or done well enough.
Spending a lot of time doing tasks, sacrificing free time, rest hours, family, etc.
Need for control over the environment, having things well programmed, therefore significant discomfort in the face of unforeseen events or things that were not anticipated in advance.
Have a high level of demand with oneself, and often also with others, especially in work tasks.
Not having the ability to delegate to others for fear of the uncontrollable.
Having rigid and inflexible thinking and a tendency to anticipate events in a negative way.
Significant fear of making mistakes.
Frequent use of lists and excessive concern for order.
Refusal to get rid of things in case they might be useful at some point.
Álvarez Romero and García – Villamisar (2011), taking together definitions of perfectionism according to several authors, offer us theirs:
The characteristics that define the perfectionist are: setting unrealistic or unrealizable goals or objectives; setting disproportionate achievement expectations; focus his goals on certain areas (weight, work tasks, sports, etc.); need for approval from others; tendency to delay completing tasks for fear of failure; great need for achievement and personal triumph; extreme competitiveness to achieve its purposes; constant self-criticism and difficulty accepting that of others.
This set of behaviors and ways of thinking end up altering the emotional system of the perfectionist person, causing negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, fear of not controlling situations, etc.; as well as physical discomfort such as continuous headaches, sleep and eating disorders, muscle tension, fatigue, feeling of lack of energy, etc.
Those who live with a perfectionist person also suffer from this suffering and sometimes, they are the ones who sound the alarm to point out what is happening and to seek professional help.
Some recommendations that can help us deal with perfectionism are:
Reduce the level of self-demand.
Learn to be flexible and tolerate changes, to do this we must allow them to happen.
Dedicate time each day to leisure and rest.
Focus on controlling the process of the tasks we perform and not so much the final result.
Set realistic and achievable goals.
Listen to the opinion of others, let yourself be guided.
Avoid loneliness.
Avoid constant criticism of others and excessive self-criticism.
Express emotions and not fight to control them.
Understand that time is limited and select what we can do, delay other non-urgent tasks.
This is a very common problem in our society today, which is necessarily linked to low self-esteem and insecurity, but which improves with the implementation of guidelines such as those mentioned above.
Article by Marta Bermejo Victoriano (Psychomaster Psychologist)
