Striving for something can be a healthy and positive attribute, it’s good to aim high however sometimes whatever we do just isn’t good enough. In perfectionism we want to be too perfect and start setting ourselves unrealistic goals or insist on perfecting tasks. These behaviours often lead to the task taking longer, frustrating others around them and causing distress to themselves, as they agonize over the detail and worry about how work may be received. Sometimes even losing confidence in their ability to deliver a worthwhile outcome, whether in work, social situations, leisure pursuits, sport, study or appearance. This type of perfectionism can result in an ever decreasing cycle of self-criticism, low self-esteem and impaired performance. Which over time can develop into an unhealthy obsessions, serious mental-health problems, such as anxiety, depression or eating disorders. Signs you may be suffering from perfectionism include:
Poor concentration
Rumination (e.g. thinking about a mistake made in a task over and over)
Increased self-criticism
Low self-esteem
Repeated checking (e.g. reading an email over and over before sending)
Repeating tasks (e.g. rewriting and editing something over and over)
Excessive amount of time spent on tasks or avoiding them all together
Putting off tasks (procrastination)
List-making
Hating to waste time and, as a consequence, being over-busy
Narrow interests focusing almost all of one’s time on a particular area (e.g. focusing mainly on work)
Limiting pleasurable activities not seen as being related to achievement (e.g. never just reading a magazine or listening to music)
Insomnia
Exhaustion and tiredness
How can I help?
Cognitive behavioural therapy has been found to be a highly effective treatment and with or without hypnotherapy can provide relief from the disabling feelings of not being good enough, helping you to understand the root causes of perfectionism and what keeps it going. It is important we identify and monitor the real problem areas in your life, then together we can build a toolkit of skills to help you target those problem areas. That might involve what are known asbehavioural experimentswhere you can test your beliefs and predictions for what might happen if you don’t see something through to ‘perfect’. Would things really turn out as badly as you predict? Highly unlikely. CBT also helps you get away from ‘all or nothing’ thinking, learning to be more flexible in your approach. It can help you to change your thinking style, to be more positive and kinder on yourself, and to overcome common problems with time management and procrastination.
I offer a free 20 minute consultation, if you have any questions or are still unsure how I can help please feel free to contact me via phone or email.
