Why Your Perfectionism Makes Life Impossible

In today's video, we address the often-misunderstood concept of perfectionism, a trait that many view as a double-edged sword. While perfectionism is frequently seen as a hindrance, leading to stress and unrealistic expectations, we explore how this trait can be transformed into a powerful tool for personal and professional growth.

Our discussion delves into the nature of perfectionism, identifying its roots and how it manifests in daily life. We shed light on the positive aspects of this trait, showing how a perfectionist's attention to detail and relentless pursuit of excellence can be harnessed for success. Our aim is to provide viewers with a fresh perspective on perfectionism, helping them to understand and embrace its potential benefits.

▼ Timestamps ▼
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00:00 - Introduction
01:43 - Types of perfectionism
04:31 - External Concern Perfectionism
06:37 - Personal Standard Perfectionism
08:23 - How do we solve the problem?
11:41 - Slow down when you make a mistake
12:34 - Develop a standard for yourself
14:36 - Conclusion

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All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.

#healthygamergg #mindset #perfectionalism

[pastelteaaniiii]

The divine timing!! I skipped 4 major exams of a semester because of the "I will score full marks if I study better next time" thought pattern. Now I am just crying and pulling all nighters studying this semester's subjects as well as the previous one's.

[TheSillyPiglet]

"Just start caring about yourself" is just as hard as "Just stop caring about others"

[redgreen]

I feel like my life has been a long string of people telling me not to be afraid of making mistakes and then life giving me every reason to be afraid of making mistakes

[flawlix]

Perfect was definitely the norm in my household. From kindergarten on, I was told that I had to get straight As or I wouldn’t get into college. And until high school, an A- wasn’t good enough.

Combine that with undiagnosed ADHD, and it’s a recipe for crippling levels of perfectionism. (Plus, I have trouble sticking with hobbies I enjoy if I’m not perfect at them immediately.)

[ofkgjsl]

I am a perfectionist and exactly what you said, top tier performance was expected to be the standard for me. I am burned out. You ended your video on that note „do this and you‘ll outperform anybody else.“ - no. I don‘t want to outperform. I don‘t want to perform at all. I want to exist and be happy. That‘s it.

[Artofcarissa]

That part about mentally checking out when being confronted with our mistakes is SO goddamn true. It’s probably the reason why I dread conversations with my boss and have so much anxiety if it’s after a fuckup I did. So many times when I messed up as a kid I would disassociate just to get the uncomfortable part over with

[JY]

Setting personal standards seems like a whole topic to explain on its own. Its something I just can't fathom how to do. For a given task I struggle to find where to place the bar for my own personal satisfaction, so I usually just place it at an arbitrary point that I logically think I should be happy with achieving. But even if I meet my personal goal I just don't feel anything. Any feeling of satisfaction or achievement, if felt at all, is immediately fleeting. I always feel like I could just be doing more, and that feeling causes me to start falling short of the personal standards I set since there's no clear point where I'll feel good about myself.

Growing up I was a "gifted kid" who never really struggled with school, but when I hit university I started failing classes and falling behind. At home was made to feel like none of my hobbies/interests mattered and were a waste of time, and nothing I did was ever good enough. I feel like these two factors are the main reasons for my issues being satisfied with my own effort. As an adult I still feel "gifted", like I have this unlimited potential. If I could just not feel empty every time I meet a personal goal, maybe I'd be able to do enough to feel like I'm not falling behind or stagnating.

[ClassyJohn]

I have C-PTSD as a result of being raising in an emotionally and physically abusive, east asian household. Starting from when I was 7 years old, my mom would punish me very severely (I won't go into details) when the report cards came home every semester because I never got straight A's like she wanted. I gained a lot of performance anxiety and I learned to start locking myself in random rooms to try to avoid the punishment (my parents had keys for every door) and eventually, I'd just hide the report card. I wasn't given the resource to succeed yet I was expected to perform perfectly (no one wanted to help me). Outside of this, both my mom and dad would scold me and take over doing a task (think simple household chores) for me when I made a mistake and did not do things to their expectations. I was not given opportunities to make mistakes and to fail in a safe manner and I also learned that its not okay for me to be myself. When you observe that somehow, your actions are making other people suffer and even though you're not doing anything inherently wrong or intentionally hurtful, you ending giving up on trying to be yourself and instead, behave in a way that you know makes other people happy, at the cost of your own happiness.

Probably the most critical aspect here is how I started to perform worse academically because I learned to associate failure with a very negative and scary consequence so it got so bad that I could not tolerate the negative feelings that came up when I made mistakes. I learned to cope with my mistakes through avoidance because when I would make a mistake while reading or working on homework, I'd basically throw whatever I was doing to the side and switch over to playing video games. Additionally, I would feel so much anxiety when family members were observing me while I was studying/doing homework that I'd immediately switched over to video games when they came in my room. This habit has plagued me my entire life because I screwed up college so badly where I took 9 years to get my bachelor's degree and I ended up switching majors out of what I originally wanted to study (my passion) due to my grades not being high enough. Imagine not being able to study or do homework because you're constantly trying to avoid the negative feelings that always come up when you make a mistake. Eventually the feeling of regret from past mistakes was what pushed me to completion through college but thats non-ideal.


To me, my greatest failure is my performance in school and thats why I'm so scared to go back, even though I'm really passionate about the topic I originally wanted to study. I'm scared of making the same failures and I think I'd be crushed mentally and emotionally if I failed again because I've developed this identity around the idea that if I were to make the same mistake, it would indicate that I have not changed from the person that I was 12 years ago who screwed up their opportunities. Its hard. My therapist thinks I have a lot of grit for surviving and coming on top of my situation but this particular issue (of avoidance) is why I think I don't have grit.

[Tati]

Also want to say that the unrealistic standards can sometimes come from growing up in a lower-class family as well. I know a lot of families (including mine) that just tell their young kids, “this family relies on you to make money in the future, so we can get out of this situation. So make sure you have the best grades in school so that you can go to the best university and get the best job. Because our lives are literally depending on your success.”

[wishesandfishes]

I think a lot of this may sometimes stems from parents hiding their challenges and difficult emotions from their children, because they "dont want to put that on the kids", which is well intentioned, and in many cases a reaction to their own disregulated parents, but the unfortunate consequence is that kids never see any model for how to overcome challenging internal problems, and a glossy kind of emotional "perfection" becames normalized at a very deep behavioral level.

[thomaswinzy]

1:30 Albert Einstein asked: What am I good at? What do I love? what does the world need? How can I live of it/make money out of it? the best line of questions i've heard. but you have to find in yourself the motivation to go after it. dopamine is key.

[FalseFCZ]

I guess it was nice knowing I protected myself from this mindset when I was young. I was very rebellious and got bad grades for the sake of getting bad grades because my mom kept telling me to get straight As, then she begged me to at least not fail classes when I was on the verge of failing them. I always did things well when I put my mind to it, even if I wasn’t great at first I would keep trying, but now I lack the ability to follow through things I don’t like unless they align with my core values. Downside of the opposite mindset

[TheWhitepantheress]

I'm very late dx AuDHD who was labelled 'gifted' in school, also adopted, this feeling like I owed high performance.

Instead of attaining high performance, I fucking sucked at every aspect of childhood, was bullied relentlessly by children and adults in school and internalised the struggles I had because I didn't know I needed supports and I sure didn't get any.

I turn 40 in just over a week and it's taken me this long to get to where I should have been at 21.

Maintaining high standards, while letting go of perfectionism is a journey I am on and that has helped me to move forward. So has being able to access disability supports.

I'm 4 years into training do become a psychologist, working at the Uni, active in research and getting Pro-Am roles in musical theatre in my city.

[QueenHalo]

I really struggle with this. My social anxiety makes me think I have to act and be perfect in order to seem ‘normal’ or to fit in. It’s emotionally draining to be in your head 24/7

[dazai]

What if you dont have this examples of perfectionism ? What if you didnt have parents that told you: you should do better etc.? What if you dont care about other peoples opinion and u know that everyone is different and you should not try to be like them? What if you strive for perfection but your own expectations for yourself doesnt hold up and you end up doing worst or nothing at the end and start to be lazy because you didnt accomplish the level that you wanted to be?

[dameanvil]

00:12 🧠 Perfectionism often stems from high or unreachable standards set in childhood, which may come from parents or older siblings who were seen as "golden" achievers.
01:50 🧠 There are two types of perfectionism: personal standard (setting high standards for oneself) and external concern (seeking perfection for others' approval). The latter is often more damaging.
03:27 🧠 External concern perfectionism is associated with a part of the brain called the medial frontal gyrus, which redirects attention away from mistakes to protect from disappointment.
05:30 🧠 External concern perfectionism can lead to avoiding mistakes and not effectively learning from them, creating a cycle of self-criticism and feelings of inadequacy.
06:43 🧠 Personal standard perfectionism is associated with the anterior singulate cortex, leading to slowing down and focused attention on mistakes, resulting in improved performance over time.
08:02 🧠 It's easier to shift towards setting personal standards for oneself rather than trying to stop caring about what others think, which is deeply ingrained in perfectionistic individuals.
11:33 🧠 Two strategies to boost personal standard perfectionism: 1) When making a mistake, slow down and pay attention to the problem without trying to immediately fix it. 2) Develop personal standards by asking, "What would make me happy?" and holding that alongside external expectations.
14:15 🧠 By combining personal standards with the drive for external perfection, individuals can outperform those who only focus on one aspect, leading to higher levels of success and satisfaction.

[patrickschott]

So I have both personal and external perfectionism since my parents always expected me to be top of my class and that mindset rubbed onto me as well. Sure, I definitely outperform 99% of people in academics, but that’s all you’ll get. Perfectionism ruins your perception of yourself and your work and leaves you never satisfied with anything.

[Blu_Maryze]

Wow no wonder I've lost all motivation, I got the "stop caring what other people think" advice much
It eventually felt pointless to even try at all, and it's only until very recently that I've graduated that I realize I never really have motivations of my own?

Ofc I'm not a blank slate, but I instantly pull my needs and opinions back for the sake of helping others or letting others have a good time

And that part of "Start choosing and asking on 'what would make you happy', it's insane how hard it is to answer! As an individual I clearly have a personality, a voice and yet... When asked 'what do you want to do?' it's impossible to say anything

I'm slowly figuring out what it means to be myself and it's certainly helped shaped being the first time I failed to meet any expectations knowing that it doesn't affect the value of who I am or what I bring!

[noah.B]

I grew up with a golden elder brother, and a golden elder sister, and my parents were strict with very high expectations. Basically exactly as you described it.
It's extremely difficult for me to actually like, sincerely believe that this isn't normal, or to imagine a way it could have been different.
Every time I try it just feels like I'm making stuff up or lying to myself to give an excuse for failure or not being good enough.
i hope this changes with time.

[adammartin]

I like this a lot. It does seem like the reactive approach of "when you make a mistake, slow down and move towards your own standard" is only half of the picture. It's also useful to take this into consideration when taking affirmative steps. "I want to have a get together, but I'm worried what my friends will think if my plan doesn't thrill everyone". Slow down, observe that reaction, and look at what you want and your own standard of what seems fun. Maybe you'll realize you don't have a standard because you've always been solely focused on what everyone else wants. Try and bridge that divide.