The Trap Of Perfectionism And Its Effects On Mental Health!

Re-reading an email 12-15 times before hitting off the send button really makes us feel is the mail is PERFECT?

Wearing your favorite trousers and just after a minute pulling them off because it didn’t seem PERFECT for the day out.

Or just say, thinking a lot before speaking a few words in front of a crowd because you thought, your words won’t be PERFECT.

While there’s nothing wrong with perfectionism, but trust me that there’s nothing everything right about it too. Perfectionism does affects your mental health. Let’s look at it this way, you want everything to be perfect because things must not go wrong. But aren’t you at the same time scared of failures?

The All-Or-Nothing mentality can truly lead to failure for you, and here’s how it eats you all up before you get to know it all!

You always feel incomplete (say discontent or stressed)

Perfectionists often try maintaining high standards every time, which is something quite unrealistic. Sometimes you don’t even try working on a project because you didn’t find the criteria to be a perfect one. And because of this, you always find yourself either stressed out or discontent.

This feeling of incompleteness often happens because you avoid sharing ideas, and there’s some best part always hidden inside you. Since you start feeling that nothing is ever good enough, to begin with, you start feeling less satisfied or discontent every day.

You Hamper Your Creativity

Because you are constantly stressed about whether you are doing your things the right way, you start messing it all up. For example, you don’t let your mind do its work, instead, you create rules, or build boundaries. And that’s how your imagination and creativity get squashed.

Know that for positive change and success you have to let down your idea of Perfectionism.

You Stop Taking Risks

As mentioned above, perfectionism is actually fueled by an intense fear of failing. You start adopting a mindset for yourself, like, If I can’t do this perfectly, I won’t even try it, Or simply, what will people think about me?

Basically, your fear of failure never allows you to explore new horizons, and can sometimes actually make you fail!

You Wish To Make Everyone Happy Around You (Which Is Clearly Impossible)

Because you are a perfectionist, you don’t want any person around you to feel sad or worried. You start getting people, pleaser. Moreover, you start seeing yourself as the only Good person in the room. But since pleasing people is not truly a good idea, your work and mind get crippled.

Delegation Isn’t Your Thing Because Of Perfectionism

You can’t always do everything, and at least once in your life, you’ll have to delegate tasks to other people. But because you have this all-or-nothing mentality, you don’t like your work to be done by others (simply because they would do it in the wrong way).

Also, if ever you passed out your work to somebody else, you face a hard time approving or accepting their work. As a result, you start thinking let’s do it all by yourself, which in result can stress you up ALOT!

You Start Personalizing EVERYTHING

No With perfectionism comes a sense of higher self-love that can sometimes become toxic, not for others but for yourself. Any negative feedback starts hampering you a lot because you personalize it.

The perfectionist thinking goes this way – Either I’m perfect at this specific work, or I’m a failure!

This personalization prevents you from taking feedback constructively, which can sometimes lead to real failure.

Taking Rest Feels No Less Like Leaving The Battlefield!

Many perfectionists believe that they should only rest when the work gets completed. And sometimes the job never gets done because you don’t feel it to be perfect. This state of mind that is the quest to become perfectionist can badly affect your mental health. You will have stressed days and an increased risk of burnout.

You Get Highly Critical Of Others

Last but not the least, because of perfectionism you start judging other people’s actions a lot. You might even get passive-aggressive or would start abruptly pointing out other people’s mistakes. And since you are being highly critical of others, it gets difficult for your team members to stay with you which can directly hamper the team’s productivity.

Start relishing the imperfect life before it gets too, too late!

It’s never bad to choose to cut yourself a break. Instead, think it off as a recharge or simply a booster dose to live life to its fullest.

Eliminate the word perfect from your dictionary as soon as you can! Before perfectionism becomes an addiction, before it becomes a mental illness.

The sooner you realize how toxic it is to have the all-or-nothing attitude, the better it would get for you. Know that, LIFE NEVER ASKS YOU TO BE PERFECT, IT JUST ASKS YOUR PRESENCE.

BE HAPPY FOR YOURSELF, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECT!

Further Reading: 9 Everyday Activities to Boost Mental Health

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