Perfectionism: Changing My Perspective

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Last week I focused on thinking realistically and not placing unreasonable expectations on myself through encouragement. Instead of my typical working one million things into my already limited schedule, I took things one step at a time. To moderate my anxiety towards “failing” my French homework - by not understanding the text perfectly when reading it - I focused on my psychology and catching up on the readings while planning new ways to study the information. There was a bit of procrastination since I decided to research careers in psychology, master’s degree programs, and Ph. D programs, but I got back on track and completed my assignments. I am not a failure for doing the homework I consider easier first, nor am I in the wrong for taking the breaks I needed to take to relax and calm myself.

This week, my goal is to alter my perspective. Perfectionists tend to think in the extreme (perfect or failure, beautiful or ugly, lazy or hard-working) which can be counterproductive and cause us to procrastinate out of fear of not meeting the expectations we believe others have for us. Changing my take on events will allow me to see the reality others see and better handle stressful situations. First, I will picture how my closest friends and family would treat an obstacle. Next, I’ll try to come up with other explanations for why I was unable to do something, and whether I should even believe I should. Finally, I will follow my own advice. You see, I give advice to people I want to help but I don’t follow it; this time I will do as I advise others to do.

This will be difficult because I enjoy pushing myself to my limits, but I’ve learned that I push too hard and need to treat myself better. Just today, my professor asked for our reflections on the reading, but I didn’t have it. I read the article, spoke about the article, participated in class as usual, but forgot to write a reflection. Maybe my exhaustion helped, but I didn’t panic. After class I told her I’d do better and she wished me luck. Progress!

I hope you enjoyed my second update, make sure to read next week’s post to see how well I’ve done at following Anxiety Canada’s advice.

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Sources

https://www.anxietycanada.com/sites/default/files/Perfectionism.pdf