The Flaw In Perfectionism
Written by Erin Nelson, RD
I recently saw a poll on social media asking if the viewers saw perfectionism as a positive or negative trait, and it got me thinking. The outcome of the poll was split very closely down the middle, with people citing perfectionism as a motivating factor to improve on ourselves and our skills, while those against perfectionism strongly stated that it can be debilitating and hinder us from growth out of fear of not doing something well right out of the gate. So which is it? And how does this have anything to do with food and our bodies? The nuanced answer is this: perfectionism has everything and nothing to do with food and bodies.
I think, to get really clear about it, we first need to define what perfectionism is:
The tendency to demand of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, in excess of what is required by the situation. It is associated with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and other mental health concerns (1). Perfectionism is driven by the excessive concern of others evaluations.
The flawlessness and perfection we are striving for is dictated by our society, our outside world. Our society decides the “acceptable” clothes we wear, our eating pattern, body shape, body size, hair, and make-up. We are encouraged to compare ourselves to the “standard” that society is currently promoting in order for us to feel worthy or valued. This comparison often drives us to pursue a certain way of eating, moving, and looking, even when our minds and our bodies have little capacity to engage with the associated behaviours. Many of our clients share stories of the harm they experienced to their mental, physical and spiritual health along this pursuit of flawlessness and perfection. Perfectionism is striving to meet the current standard no matter what, and then placing the blame squarely on our own shoulders if we aren’t able to achieve this.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Aiming to change our bodies only happens when we think we are not enough as we are. We live in a society that devalues who we are (especially female identifying folks) over how we look, in an effort to undermine our self-worth. Then we are sold the promised “solution” to that “problem”. The perfectionist paradigm creates a scenario where our self-worth is tied to our physical appearance rather than who we are as individuals. The thing is, our physical appearance changes day to day and overtime, because it is meant to. Our perception of our physical appearance also changes day to day and because of this, our self worth waivers. We don’t want our self-worth to fluctuate daily and over time because we all deserve our self-worth to be solid and steadfast, no matter how we feel we look.
Perfectionism turns us into a yes-folks, even if it isn't in our best interest. We often think if we could just perfect all of these different aspects of our lives, we would be happy and content. It will never be enough. And each time we “level up” how our lives or bodies appear to others, the further away from perfection we feel. It can be a vicious spiral as our inner critic continues to get louder and louder.
Perfectionism keeps us in the mind frame of what we lack as individuals, rather than highlighting what we intrinsically have to share with the world. And that has nothing to do with what we look like or what body shape or size we are currently in. There are a few ways we can begin to shift our self-worth from our appearance:
Make a list of the things we like about ourselves that do not have anything to do with the way we look and reflect on it often. This can be the start of a shift from emphasizing who we are instead of what we look like.
Try out self-compassion. It is often so easy for many of us to have all the compassion for the people around us and it is equally as difficult to extend that same compassion to ourselves. Practicing self compassion may feel awkward at first but with time and practice, it will come more naturally. You can even download your own copy of our free Self-Compassion Workbook here.
Clear out our social media feeds of the people that cause us to compare how we look with others. This can include anyone who posts what-I-eat-in-a-day’s, eat-this-to-look-like-me’s, fitness influencers who promise you can change how you look if you stick to their plan. We can even go one step further and bring in accounts with a wide variety of body shapes and sizes, abilities, ethnicities, sexual orientations, genders, etc.
I think there may be quite a few who are reading this that can relate to the immense and constant external pressure, turned internal pressure and criticism of perfectionism. What I have learned about perfectionism is that it takes up so much time and energy trying to appear perfect that it actually gets in the way of showing up as who we are meant to be in this world.
So let’s start the process of choosing ourselves over the outside world more often. We can choose to drop society’s narrow view of what beauty means. Let’s focus on a more holistic version of health, one that takes our minds and souls into account, not just our physical bodies. Let’s take back the time we spend engaging with perfectionism and put it into something we love, something that charges us instead of depletes. Think of all of the possibilities and heights we could reach with all this new found free time.
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