r u l y

It’s the end of the month and time to recap our discussion of perfectionism.

Arhat (Chinese: luohan), dated 1180 from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. An arhat is a Buddhist deity who who has reached a stage of perfection through study and meditation. Photo by Didactohedron from the Wikimedia Commons.

• We started the month defining perfectionism and dicussing Pavel Somov’s 3 types of perfectionistic hunger.
• The Ruly Challenge this month was to keep a perfectionism diary to make you more aware of the areas in your life you expect perfection.
• The big blizzard of 2010 came to east coast and we discussed snowstorm survival skills, including my 4-year old’s blizzard cupcake recipe.
• We profiled perfectionist extraordinaire Martha Stewart and reviewed her Valentine chocolates.
• We also gave instructions for perfectly fun crayon valentine hearts for kids.
• We contrasted two authors approaches to perfection and happiness, Alice D. Domar’s, Be Happy Without Being Perfect and Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project.
• Joe Hanley gave us the perfect Ruly Mix to remember the 2010 Winter Olympics.
• We discussed lessons learned from professional sports and public safety professions on perfectionism and learned that perfectionists might not make the best law enforcement officers.
• We discussed the roots of perfectionism, the parent-child relationship, and gave suggestions for perfectionist parents and perfectionist kids.
• We discussed perfectionism in the workplace, including how to cope with the perfectionist boss and manage the perfectionist employee.
• Finally, Ruly Ruth gave her perspective on perfectionism in friendships and discussed her love of perfectionistas.

I hope this month’s discussion has been as enlightening for you as it has been for me. Now that I am aware of the attitudes that define perfectionism, I am better able to evaluate numerous situations in my personal and professional life.

One of the most important quotes this month for me came from Hara Estroff Marano’s article, “Pitfalls of Perfectionism” that we discussed in the context of perfectionist parenting.

“[P]erfectionism is a crime against humanity. Adaptability is the characteristic that enables the species to survive—and if there’s one thing perfectionism does, it rigidifies behavior. It constricts people just when the fast-moving world requires more flexibility and comfort with ambiguity than ever. It turns people into success slaves.”

–Hara Estroff Marano, “Pitfalls of Perfectionism”

I still have a lot to think about perfectionism. My current view is that we need “tempered perfectionism” in our lives. While in yoga class last Saturday standing in triangle pose, I had a moment where I thought, “Why am I doing this to myself?” and realized that I must be doing these difficult exercises in the belief that they are somehow the perfect means to strength and flexibility. In the right doses, perfectionism is a powerful motivator. Move a notch beyond the ideal dose of perfectionism, however, and we end up with rigidity, inflexibility, fear of failure and our creative powers suffer.

Going in to the Ruly Challenge this month, I knew that I have a lot of perfectionist tendencies but I was confident that I was confining my perfectionism just to expectations for myself. Wrong! As I reviewed my diary at the end of the month, I was shocked to see how often I was disappointed when I expected other people to act perfectly as well.

A recent conversation with my husband brought home two key examples of perfectionism for us. My husband was playing a game of tag with my youngest daughter around the kitchen island. It was adorable. “Let me grab the video camera!” I said. “No way!” he responded “This kitchen is too much of a mess!” This brought on a semi-heated discussion about perfectionism. I chastised my husband for believing that anyone watching the video would be thinking about what our kitchen looks like rather than enjoying a tender moment between father and daughter. He ultimately agreed that he was being ridiculous. He showed me to be ridiculous too, however, when he suggested we spend a day cleaning the kitchen together and I became upset that he did not offer the “perfect” suggestion of not spending an entire precious weekend day cleaning but rather spending a few hours cleaning and then doing something enjoyable as a family. We both had to laugh and learned a lot.

You see perfectionism at work in today’s business headlines as well. This weekend I was shopping at IKEA, one of my favorite stores. While I was looking up products on their website, I was surprised to find how many recalls their products have had. The current product recall list identifies hazards including “strangulation,” “laceration injury,” “injury to the head,” “choking hazard” and “flammability.” IKEA doesn’t hide these defects and puts a prominent link on the main U.S. page of their website. Strangely, these defects don’t seem to have harmed IKEA in any way. People still trust and like IKEA products very much. The fact that IKEA is so upfront about telling people about defects shows their commitment to safety. Also, IKEA’s products are generally so affordable that it is not a big deal to just throw something out and get a new one in the event of a defect.

Contrast IKEA with the current focus on Toyota’s gas pedal defect. It is my understanding that Toyota is not entirely sure why this defect is occurring and therefore doesn’t really know how to fix it. I find it interesting that people are absolutely unforgiving about this. While it could be that Toyota hid a known defect, it is also possible that something unknown happened or that it will never be fully understood why some cars have the defect and others don’t.

The Toyota recall shows an important aspect of human nature that when large amounts of money are involved more perfectionism is expected. For many people, Toyota’s mistake has become their mistake as well and they may be faced with losing money by purchasing another car or losing money on the sale of their defective car. Threatening people’s financial security puts people into hyper-control mode and perfectionism abounds. It is an important lesson to all of us that we can never guarantee perfection in any situation, even when we spend a lot of money, and that we should always have “Plan B” ready.

Finally, I wanted to give you the update on my amaryllis plants. The perfectionist plant featured in earlier blog posts, collapsed from exhaustion after putting out 4 perfect blooms. It is currently being supported by two wooden stakes and looks spent and sad. The other “Type B” plant has still not flowered yet but it has many lush green healthy leaves and is still going strong. Ruly Ruth might say the Type B plant is boring and the life of the perfectionist plant was dramatic and exciting. She might be right. I think we are all searching for that happy medium between perfectionism and mediocrity.

On Monday, we start a new month and a new theme. Please check back then and in the meantime, please feel free to share in the comments your thoughts on perfectionism.

Have a great weekend!

Four Miss America candidates: Jacque Baker (Miss Iowa), Linda(?) Mead (Miss Mississippi), Sharon O'Neal (Miss Kansas), Suzie Jackson (Miss Arkansas) / World-Telegram & Sun photo by Al Ravenna. From the Library of Congress prints and photographs collection.

Perfectionista: A woman who shows a level of perfection in one or more aspects of her life.

I don’t have average friends.  All of my girlfriends show levels of perfectionism somewhere in their daily lives. For example, I have friends who are perfect about their hair, makeup, clothing, housework, children, cooking, art, photography, career, and interior design. But I will say that not one of these amazing women is perfect at all of these things all of the time. Thank goodness!

It is energizing to be around people that are perfect at what they do. Average, is well . . . boring.  Friends that are amazing at their careers always have fascinating tales from their jobs and industries. I love being seen at lunch with my impeccably dressed girlfriends. I love to get perfectly made homemade arts and crafts from my domestic perfectionistas. My passion for food and cooking mirrors several of my friends—we LOVE to cook, eat, and share special ingredients we’ve found. For me, that is bliss.

Being friends with perfectionists is not always easy.  If you are the jealous type, there is a lot to be jealous of.  Competition can be fierce, particularly in two key areas.

Appearance is often the number one jealousy-inducing factor–the prettier you are the more envy you induce.  Among my friends, there tends to be two general trends in appearance strategies.  Some women work very hard on their physique and sport a lean, trim appearance.  Others focus on clothes, hair and accessories.  Both are gorgeous!  It is the rare person, however, who pulls it all together with a perfect body, hair, clothes and accessories.

The second major area of competition among my friends is houses.  Both men and women can develop house envy.  Where women focus on details like granite countertops, cabinetry and furniture, men zero in on the size and functionality of the garage, the outdoor barbecue pit and the size of the TV.  House envy isn’t always a question of money, though.  It is more about the time and effort invested in the result.  Creative decorating can still give you that perfectionist wow on any budget.

I have remained good friends with all my perfectionistas probably in large part because I am not the jealous type.  I don’t want to be these women or even have all the skills that they do.  I just want to be associated with them–to be surrounded with excellence in the hope that maybe some of it might rub off on me.  It also gives me a great network of experts to draw on.

Perfectionistas have a variety of personality types but tend to fall in the following categories:

1. The introverted perfectionista. This person is usually very detail-oriented and has encyclopedic knowledge in their areas of expertise.  Often the perfectionism is rooted in the home setting or personal pursuits like hobbies or crafts.  Rarely will this type of perfectionista focus her perfectionist efforts on appearance. This perfectionista will have great ideas but is often afraid to volunteer them.  If you take the time to work to draw out the ideas from this perfectionista, however, you will be richly rewarded!
2. The extroverted perfectionista. More often you will find that this type of perfectionista is focused on appearance and the home.  Brand names like Coach and Pottery Barn are more important to extroverts.  The extrovert is motivated by social interactions but doesn’t fear them the way an introvert might.
3. The know-it-all perfectionista. None of these perfectionistas are my friends and it is very hard to be friends with them.  The superior attitude and the superficiality of the relationship are hard to overcome.  Often these types of perfectionistas are the first to flee should any hardship befall you.  They are there for you in the good times but the imperfectness of any sadness or disaster is too much for them to bear.

Embrace your inner perfectionista!  I challenge all of you to find your areas of perfection and to apply them in a positive manner to your life.  If you do this, I believe you’ll find a new passion for life, have more confidence and look forward to meeting others that offset your perfections.

Joi de vivre, perfectionistas!

Hokusai Katsushika, "Yoshiwara" (1804). From the Library of Congress prints and photographs division.

Perfectionism is frequently found in the work environment. For many of us, our jobs are the means of survival for ourselves and our loved ones, allowing us to provide shelter, food, health care and occasionally some fun indulgences as well.

It is important for job security to be viewed as a valuable employee– one who does the job well, perhaps even perfectly. But as we have seen all this month in our discussion of perfectionism, while a little perfectionism is good, too much has negative consequences. In the context of employment, some big problems arise with perfectionist bosses and perfectionist employees.

The Perfectionist Boss

The perfectionist boss is one of the most dreaded of bad bosses. The perfectionist boss expects everything to go according to his or her expectations, which may be grossly out of touch with what is reasonable or appropriate for ordinary people. The perfectionist boss tends to micromanage everything, makes decisions at a snail’s pace, is afraid to stand up for the team on controversial decisions, and erodes morale with a constant stream of negativity and criticism.

Why is the boss such a perfectionist? There could be many causes, ranging from genetic predisposition to toxic home environments to an irrational fear of losing one’s job. The boss might also be demonstrating delegated perfectionism–the boss’s boss is a perfectionist so therefore the boss is a perfectionist too.

How can you work with a perfectionist boss? Most of the advice I have read says essentially, “Become a perfectionist.” Sadly, this is probably true in many cases since perfectionists fear change and believe that their way of doing things (and only their way of doing things) is the best. If you find yourself working for a perfectionist, it may be time to start looking for another job.

Since not everyone has the luxury of moving on to another job when a perfectionist is at the helm, what else can you do? There are two options to pursue: 1) managing from below and 2) defensive documentation.

Managing from Below

Managing from below is a key skill that almost everyone needs to learn in any job. Managing from below essentially refers to strategies to influence your boss’ decision making process to try to help the boss correct for bad decisions. Often the only “strategy” you can use is careful marshaling of objective facts. It is a lot like being your own lawyer. When your boss makes a decision you don’t agree with, before you simply agree to the decision, state the reason why you disagree in as friendly and respectful of terms as you can. For example, “I will be happy to do that but it will mean that I have less time for the other project which I understood was more important.”

Don’t be surprised if the response you get from the perfectionist boss is “If you can’t do it perfectly, I will find someone else who can.” or even, “I will just have to do it myself.” The perfectionist boss would rather wear everyone out to the point of exhaustion rather than make a calculated trade-off for less perfection on something in exchange for more perfection on something else. The perfectionist boss struggles greatly with prioritizing and cannot prioritize either his or her own work or the work of the people the boss manages.

Defensive Documentation

It is not an unrealistic fear that a perfectionist boss may become disillusioned with your imperfect work and decide that a more perfect candidate would be a better replacement for you. When you are working for a perfectionist, it is important to document your accomplishments, how you spend your time and praise from others who appreciate your work. All of this documentation will not necessarily save your job but it will help you either in applying to other jobs or having to explain to someone else why you think you are performing at an exemplary level. It can also be a source of maintaining your own self-esteem, reminding yourself of all the great things you accomplished.

Ultimately, when working with a perfectionist boss, you have to hope for one of the following outcomes: 1) the boss has an epiphany and changes the perfectionist behavior once the reality of the demands of the position sink in; 2) the boss suffers a nervous breakdown from overwork and takes a leave of absence; or 3) you find another position. While you can temporarily compensate by adopting more perfectionist qualities in yourself, this is ultimately not a healthy, effective or sustainable solution.

The Perfectionist Employee

Perfectionist employees can be detrimental to an organization as well. Procrastination due to fear of making mistakes, excessive time spent on performing tasks perfectly, and failure to prioritize projects can destroy productivity as well. When the perfectionist employee performs something well, the praise is intoxicating to the employee. When the praise is not there, the employee feels unvalued.

It is much easier to handle the perfectionist employee than the perfectionist boss, however. A perfectionist employee will be motivated to make changes to their behavior by any negative feedback which threatens their job security. The formula for success in working with a perfectionist employee is to be generous with praise (which is a good idea whether your employee is a perfectionist or not) and to assist the employee in setting reasonable priorities based on specific expectations. Also, make sure the workload is structured to allow the employee to exercise their natural perfectionist tendencies on some projects where the effort will be appreciated. For example, “You always do such great work! We have a lot of work to accomplish by the end of this week. I would like you to focus the most on Project X. Project Y and Project Z are less important because _____.”

Once you tell a perfectionist employee that a particular project is not as important, you will lose all credibility if you then change your mind and criticize how the work is done without a good explanation. “It is better to say, for example, “The situation on Project Z has changed. It is now the most important project. Could you revise your work to make the following changes?”

Avoid Becoming the Perfectionist Boss or the Perfectionist Employee

If you see yourself in any of the above examples, you are probably in good company. What are some steps you can take to improve your perfectionism at work? One of the strategies that has worked best for me is to document how long certain tasks take and the steps they involve. This can be a major pain. You don’t have to do it for every task that you do but certainly every big task or a task you are doing for the first time. This helps enormously in terms of evaluating where you are spending too much or not enough time and in budgeting your time and energy.

For example, if you know that a project will take you 18 hours to complete, and you only have two hours a day to focus on that project, you will be less likely to promise it will be completed in just a few days. If someone tells you that it must be done in a few days, you will have to back off on other projects, work overtime or do lower quality work. You need input from your manager on which course to take.

If you are managing people, you should create your own documentation of how long things actually take to get done. Don’t ask your employees to document this for you as they will feel threatened and might be prone to lie to prove their efficiency. Rather, on an informal, observational basis, figure out how long it is taking people to get things done, who is working overtime, etc. It is your job as the manager to make sure people are spending their time effectively and that people are not burning out from overwork.

If you think you might be the perfectionist boss, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

1. You don’t have to be the best at everything to be the boss. Some of your employees could have better skills than you do in certain areas. You need to avoid the competitive perfectionist tendency and take comfort in the fact that you were chosen to be the boss. Being the boss involves more than just being functionally good at something. Don’t sweat it if your employee has to correct you on something.
2. Setting unrealistic expectations for the work of your team is harmful to you and your employees. No one can keep up with the mental strain of so much perfectionism. People will respect you more if you say, “I would really like to get Project Z done in two weeks but there are a lot of factors there beyond my control. Planning for that deadline might not be realistic.” or “I can get Project Z done in two weeks but I will need to spend some money for extra help or we will have to stop our work on Project X.” If you are unwilling to set these expectations, you will need to plan for employee attrition and even your own eventual job change due to burnout.
3. Be generous with praise and careful with criticism. If you can’t stop yourself from compulsively correcting everything everyone does for you, at least have a sense of humor about it and encourage your team to have a sense of humor about it too.
4. Accept that you will make mistakes and so will people who work for you. It is better to manage to allow for some mistakes that you will have to answer for as a boss than to manage to prevent any mistakes. A good boss appropriately prioritizes the areas where mistakes can be tolerated and the areas where they cannot and communicates these priorities. A good boss also remembers the positive more than the negative and has a ready list of why each employee and the team is valuable.

Have you struggled with perfectionism at work? Please share in the comments. Back on Wednesday with Ruly Ruth!

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - Maternal Admiration (1869). Image from the WIkimedia Commons.

We know from our prior discussions of perfectionism that perfectionism has genetic and environmental components. Because personality is thought to develop during childhood, the interactions between parents and children have an important impact on the forming personalities of young children. By examining the parent-child dynamic we also gain insight into the possible roots of our own perfectionism.

The parent-child relationship is prone to perfectionism problems. The natural tendency is to focus on transmission of perfectionist tendencies from parents (especially mothers) to children. We don’t need a scientific study to know that many parents see an opportunity in their children to live their own lives anew, perfecting any mistakes the parents made. When children make mistakes, some parents internalize these mistakes as their own mistakes and blame themselves rather than developing an appropriate distance to realize that the child is a completely separate personality. We also know that good parents have the best intentions for their children and want their children to have the best opportunities and lives with less struggle and more joy.

Rather than lay yet more blame on already guilty-feeling parents, however, I would like to focus this discussion along two themes: 1) what are the environmental triggers that tend to result in perfectionism in children and 2) how can you help a perfectionist child cope with life?

Avoiding Perfectionist Parenting

There is not one sure-fire formula to raise a child with a healthy perspective on perfectionism but it appears that one of the most important things you can do for a child is to avoid any messages of conditional love. Children should never be made to feel that you love them only when they are successful and that you feel less toward them when they are struggling or have failed.

Concern with mistakes. . . . It is the element of perfectionism most linked to psychopathology. And it comes about because a child has been made to feel that approval is contingent on performance.

The conditionality of love doesn’t have to be stated. It can be communicated in simply “the way the whole environment is structured,” . . . “If the parent is enthusiastic only when the child accomplishes something or spends a lot of time working at something, then it’s unspoken yet demonstrated by the environment.” . . .

The truly subversive aspect of perfectionism, however, is that it leads people to conceal their mistakes. Unfortunately, that strategy prevents a person from getting crucial feedback—feedback that both confirms the value of mistakes and affirms self-worth—leaving no way to counter the belief that worth hinges on performing perfectly. The desire to conceal mistakes eventually forces people to avoid situations in which they are mistake-prone.

–Hara Estroff Marano, “Pitfalls of Perfectionism,” Psychology Today. (This is a wonderful article and is really worth the click-through. Lots of great information on parenting strategies for healthy kids.)

As you can see, it apparently means as much or more to children to say, “I love you” or “You’re great!” when they have failed or when they have done nothing particularly special than when they are successful.
Some studies show that the influence of the same sex parent (mother-daughter, father-son) is the most important in terms of perfectionist tendencies.  However, some authors have noted that either perfectionist parent has a huge impact on their children. More from author Mary Edwards Wertch’s book, “Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress,”:

“From the beginning, Georgia remembers, her father labeled her ‘disobedient.’ Always critical of her, be began to harass her about her weight when she was ten years old. It became the central issue of their relationship. . . . He imposed strict regulations on Georgia and supervised her himself, even to approving the contents of her lunch box. Most nights she was not permitted to join the family in dessert. On holidays when candy was given, hers was rationed. There were special exercise programs which he designed and oversaw. And her father weighed her every three days.”
. . .
A son of a Navy commander relates:
“My dad was a perfectionist; he couldn’t make mistakes. At Christmas, Dad wouldn’t let us decorate the tree, because it had to be perfect. He laid the tinsel on one at a time; he’d let us put the Christmas balls on the tree, then we’d go to bed and he’d put the tinsel on. I remember once I got up and he’d moved all the balls, because they weren’t in the right place.

–Mary Edwards Wertsch, “Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress.”

While we might think these parents are extreme examples or rare, when you look closely at yourself as a parent, you will be sad to find examples of your own perfectionist behavior. For many parents, the issue is academic success, demanding excellent grades. Others may choose sports, popularity or appearance. Knowing how much self-worth children derive from their parents’ approval, it is a warning to us all to be very careful with the messages, intentional or unintentional, we are sending to our children.

Raising the Perfectionist Kid

We also know that because perfectionism has a genetic component, some kids will become perfectionists regardless of how non-perfectionist their parents are. What can you do to help the perfectionist child develop a sense of balance?

The National Association of School Psychologists has developed a wonderful parent/teacher handout on “Children and Perfectionism” which you can read here. Some of the suggestions (excerpted below) are a little surprising:

• encourage becoming comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.
• model and encourage graceful acceptance of your own mistakes.
• have the student sign a “contract” not to be perfect: sleep late, get a “B,” etc.

–Virginia Smith Harvey for the National Association of School Psychologists, “Children and Perfectionism.”

Delving into the subject of parent-child perfectionism is not easy and forces us to confront our own mistakes and the hugely important role we have in shaping the lives of those around us. These lessons could also be applied in the work context and on Monday we will explore exactly that.

Have a great weekend!

Update! If you enjoyed this post, you may be interested to know that Ruly dedicated the month of July 2011 to the topic of perfectionist parenting. A summary list of those posts can be found here.

The discussion of perfectionism this month is not just limited to personal traits displayed at home. Perfectionism has broad impacts in professional settings as well. Two such industries are professional sports and occupations involving life and death decisions, such as law enforcement and the military. The results of extensive research in these areas suggest that even in the professional context, perfectionism has to be closely monitored and, if left out of control, can have damaging effects.

Professional Sports

Army-Navy Basketball Game. Image from the Wikimedia Commons.

There is probably no industry more concerned with perfectionism than professional sports. Athletes have to maintain an extraordinary level of achievement and their physical performance is often linked to significant monetary impacts for themselves, their teams and their sponsors.

A whole field of sports psychology that is devoted to exploring what motivates professional athletes to excel in their respective sports. While there are many studies of perfectionism in sports, one key study by a team of European researchers (Oliver Stoll, Andreas Lau and Joachim Stoeber), found that perfectionism in sports has benefits.

[A]thletes with both high levels of striving for perfection and high levels of negative reactions to imperfection showed the greatest performance increments over the series of trials.

The findings suggest that perfectionism is not necessarily a maladaptive characteristic that generally undermines sport performance. Instead, when learning a new training task, perfectionism may enhance performance and lead to performance increments over repeated trials.



–Abstract, “Perfectionism and performance in a new basketball training task: Does striving for perfection enhance or undermine performance?,” Oliver Stoll, Andreas Lau and Joachim Stoeber

Based on this type of research, you might expect trainers and coaches to start developing a breed of uber-perfectionist athletes, satisfied with nothing less than perfect performances. However, you may be surprised to learn that almost no one takes this view. Experience has shown many coaches and trainers that perfectionism has its limits. For a few perspectives in this area from a variety of sports, see below.

There are some advantages of perfectionism such as having a strong work ethic, commitment to your goals, and a willingness to learn and improve, which often disguise this mental roadblock to success. It can also help you achieve a few goals quicker.

However, I find that perfectionism presents more disadvantages than advantages when you enter into competition.

–Lai Yin, “Don’t let Perfectionism in Golf be your Mental Trap,” Mind Your Golf Blog

With the expectations of perfection a runner will train harder and longer, both of which are fantastic, but there will come a point of greatly diminishing returns. Overtraining can set in and chronic fatigue, both mental and physical, leads to lower levels of performance and a reduced capacity to train. How does the perfectionist respond to the fatigue and poor performance? He or she reverts to what gave them success in the first place, that being train more and train harder. Rest is not an option because rest means you are not working toward getting better, and for the perfectionist, that can lead to a high level guilt.



The running perfectionist will tend to blame themselves personally for every poor workout, every poor race and every sluggish recovery run. At some point the running perfectionist begins to tie their self-image and self-worth to their running. As result, poor performance equates to the perfectionist being a poor person, at least in their mind. Because their self-concept is so closely tied to running they begin to have high levels of fear of failure.



Even when the running perfectionist does run well, they don’t really enjoy it. Nothing is ever good enough and there doesn’t seem to be any level of satisfaction. The perfectionist must do even better. The pressure of perfectionism robs the runner of enjoyment from running and makes them feel miserable no matter how their running is going.



–RunOhio, “Perfectionism: A Recipe for Disaster”

In my own bodybuilding career, my aim has changed from a perfectionistic, Lombardi-inspired “winning is everything” attitude to “competing against myself.” My goal is no longer first place. I don’t care who I beat or who I lose to. I really don’t even care if I get a trophy anymore. My goal is to be better than I used to be. Every time I step onstage, if I look the best I have ever looked, then I’ll feel like a winner no matter where I place.

–Lori Braun, “Quest for Perfection. Desirable or Unattainable?” FemaleMuscle

Roger Federer was an obsessive perfectionist when he was younger and often “self-destructed” during matches. His biography, The Quest for Perfection, explains how Roger’s game suffered from his constant desire to hit perfect shots, and how he later changed his way of thinking to focus on more realistic expectations.

–Tomas Mecinger, “Perfectionism in Tennis,” TennisMindGame

One bodybuilding coach even advises taking individual personality traits into account when designing a training program. For perfectionists, the following training methods are advised:

• Design a program that emphasizes small, achievable, attainable, goals. Encourage contentment upon completion of these smaller goals. The perfectionist individual should be happy with what they have achieved, not unhappy with what they have not.
• Encourage team sport, to teach the value of teamwork to absorb the stresses associated with perfectionism.
• Factor in relaxation techniques such as meditation and visualization.

–David Robson, “How Your Personality Affects Your Training,” bodybuilding.com

Being a good coach, trainer or athlete therefore requires one to strive for enough perfection to improve skills but not so much as to impede performance through fear of failure, overtraining and lack of rest.

Public Safety Professions

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers. Image from the Wikimedia Commons

Other industries concerned with perfectionism are the public safety professions, particularly law enforcement and military organizations. How does perfectionism manifest in these professions? In public safety professions, there is a bright line test for success and failure, i.e. life and death. The consequences of failure are permanent and emotionally fraught. Therefore, avoiding failure is essential for self-preservation, team or unit preservation and achievement of your professional obligations. It is not hard to see why perfectionism is a problem in these professions.

Dr. J.R. Slosar who has studied perfectionism in law enforcement officers provides the following additional insights into the problem.

Police officers are expected to be in control and can develop a constant need to be in control. . .

Socially prescribed perfectionism, involving high and unrealistic standards from others can be inherent in law enforcement work. . . .

Another aspect of perfectionism that develops from feelings of intense self-scrutiny and high standards and expectations is an attitude of competition. The competition is a result of intense self-criticism and criticism of others, often not overtly expressed or seen, and channeled instead into competition. An important question is if law enforcement training breeds and fosters competition in trainees and then reinforces an aspect of perfectionism. Through competition, the intensity of perfectionism and over-achievement is heightened, resulting in some trainees who become “rising stars” by winning the competition battle. Placed on a pedestal as a winner, an experience of failure can literally lead to a dramatic fall and demise.

–J.R. Slosar, Ph.D., “The Role of Perfectionism in Law Enforcement Suicide,” Presentation to the FBI Symposium, September 23, 1999. In: Law Enforcement & Suicide, ed. By Sheehan & Warren, FBI Academy, Behavioral Sciences Unit, Quantico, VA., 2002, p. 539-49. Dr. Slosar is also author of the recently published book, The Culture of Excess.

Apparently, the pressure to be perfect is so intense among law enforcement officers that any experience of failure can trigger suicidal tendencies! Dr. Slosar suggests that the demands of the profession may require that law enforcement candidates be screened for perfectionist tendencies on application to the profession.

Taking a perspective from the outside looking in, law enforcement can . . . prescreen for perfectionism and attempt to screen out or re-interview persons who bring a high perfectionism factor to the job. Certainly bringing perfectionism to the demanding job environment puts one at greater risk for suicidal behavior in the future.

–J.R. Slosar, Ph.D., “The Role of Perfectionism in Law Enforcement Suicide,” Presentation to the FBI Symposium, September 23, 1999.

It should be hardly surprising that a culture of perfectionism also permeates our nation’s military forces. As author Mary Edwards Wertsch writes in Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress:

[T]he authoritarian military requires perfection of its members–in part as evidence of total compliance to the demands of authority– and the individual careerist reinforces this programming with personal ambition. The combination makes for extremely powerful conditioning.

–Mary Edwards Wertsch, “Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress”

So again, we see in public safety professions that there is a limit to the benefits of perfectionism. Perfectionism motivates high standards of physical fitness and achievement and helps diverse groups cohere. Too much, however, results in severe personal disappointment with the occurrence of any type of failure, to the point of suicidal tendencies and self-harm.

Learning from Athletes and Public Safety Professionals

What lessons can you learn from the above discussion?

1. If you are in a situation where perfectionism is required, do your best to encourage team rather than individual efforts to share the burden of perfectionism and give yourself adequate time for rest and relaxation.
2. Prepare for inevitable failures. Know what to do to mitigate damage and how to recover mentally and physically.
3. If you struggle with keeping your perfectionism in the healthy range, be very careful of putting yourself or loved ones in situations where perfectionism is prized. The mental strain can be too much. Professions or situations where individuality is prized over standardization may be a better fit.

Are you in a profession that values perfectionism? Please share in the comments.

All this month, we have been discussing perfectionism, its advantages and its crippling effects when misapplied. Last week, I reviewed Dr. Alice Domar’s book, “Be Happy WIthout Being Perfect.” Today, I am discussing a book that road tests the opposite approach, “Be Happy By Being Perfect All the Time.” Of course, the book is not actually called that. The book is titled, The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

Ms. Rubin to date has had an impressive life. She grew up in Missouri and attended Yale University and Yale Law School. Ms. Rubin not only was the editor of the Yale Law Review but also went on to become a law clerk for Sandra Day O’Connor at the U.S. Supreme Court. She met her husband, James Rubin, (the son of Robert E. Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury) at Yale Law School. Their wedding was written up in The New York Times and they currently live in New York with their two young daughters.

It’s a pretty perfect sounding life, eh? Apparently not perfect enough. Ms. Rubin, after achieving the pinnacle of legal education and training, decides to leave law for the pursuit of writing. Her first projects included biographies of Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy as well as a thoroughly researched manual on the good and evil practices of those who become very successful! It was very brave indeed to take on these high-profile subjects. Her books were fairly well received but, not surprisingly, those who have devoted their lives to the subjects she chose had some claws out for her.

At this point, even though she has a fairly good start going as a writer, Ms. Rubin still is dissatisfied and creates a new book, her most successful yet, The Happiness Project. The book is about Ms. Rubin’s search to become “as happy as I should be.” Ms. Rubin spends an entire year of her life focusing on a new theme each month trying to make her life “happier.” The monthly topics include “Remember Love,” “Aim Higher,” “Be Serious About Play,” “Contemplate the Heavens” and “Buy Some Happiness.”

Ms. Rubin is an extremely intelligent person who can probably out-research any of us on any subject. She is the Martha Stewart of research. She also writes clearly and has a talent for coming up with marketing catchphrases that she sprinkles throughout the book, like “Twelve Commandments,” “Secrets of Adulthood,” and a series of “Splendid Truths.”

You can definitely learn something from the myriad research topics in this book.  However, one can argue that a lot of what is presented in The Happiness Project is a method of distracting your focus on things that trouble you through perfectionism.

My first complaint about Ms. Rubin’s approach is that it does not require a person to be brutally honest with themselves. The examples below could be interpreted one of two ways.  One,  Ms. Rubin could be sugarcoating her current situation and hiding it in some legalese. Or two, Ms. Rubin might be demonstrating the perfectionist tendency to make uneven comparisons or have unrealistic expectations.

Another classic perfectionist sign is Ms. Rubin’s statement of approval/validation hunger:

“One of my worst qualities is my insatiable need for credit; I always want the gold star, the recognition.”

–Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

One could argue that the the whole concept of The Happiness Project is an exercise in external validation, with Ms. Rubin consulting every source beneath the sun on the “perfect” way to do every action.  The phrase “Studies show . . . ” appears in this book probably 500 times. There is so much research it starts to become comical. I hope that passages such as the following were really supposed to be comical and not serious, but I am not so sure.

“[Jamie and I] hugged – for at least six seconds, which I happened to know from my research, is the minimum time necessary to promote the flow of oxytocin and seratonin, mood-boosting chemicals that promote bonding. The moment of tension passed.”

–Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

I don’t think Ms. Rubin has failed to find happiness because she doesn’t know how but rather because she doesn’t want to do what it would take to really make her happy. There is enough evidence in this book to suggest to me that the real source of Ms. Rubin’s unhappiness is her relationship with her husband.  The following connections were particularly interesting.

The February chapter focusing on their marriage is full of very strange mental gymnastics where Ms. Rubin tries to forget any disappointment she feels about anything Jamie does. Ms. Rubin even has a goal for perfecting the quality of their fights. “I wanted to be able to have fights [with my husband] that were more fun, where we could joke around and be affectionate even while we were disagreeing.” If you are a couple who “fights” like this, I would like to meet you. I suspect you don’t exist!

You can view more fighting tips, from the author herself, at her YouTube channel.

At first I questioned whether I was reading too much into this troubled marriage theme and whether my weakness for gossip was getting the best of me. My suspicions were not eased, however, when Ms. Rubin decided to write a novel in month nine, picked the subject of “two people having an affair in Manhattan“ and titled it (I kid you not) Happiness.

So, while I can’t say for sure what exactly would make Ms. Rubin happy, I think it is fairly clear that all of the extracurricular activities she pursued did not really contribute in any significant way to her happiness. They might have improved her life in various ways but at the end of the day, the test of this book is, “Does Ms Rubin feel like the happiest person alive? Has Ms. Rubin achieved the perfect level of happiness?” You will need to read it yourself to judge the answer. Interestingly, Dr. Domar’s book has a quote from Mehmet Oz, M.D. on the cover that says plainly, “Perfection is the enemy of happiness.”

Why have I spent so much time talking about a book whose fundamental concept I am not sure I agree with? Because it is a very brave and very honest account of how an extreme perfectionist views the world.

1. Self-blame for all imperfections.
2. Black-and-white, “perfect or nothing,” “my way or the wrong way” thinking. I was disappointed, for example, when Ms. Rubin rejects immediately the helpful suggestions of her friends, preferring her own methods. One suggested Ms. Rubin explore therapy to help discover her inner motivations and another suggests meditation during Ms. Rubin’s experimentation with “mindfulness.” Ms. Rubin explored neither.
3. Unrealistically high expectations (even for happiness!)
4. Routine/fear of change.
5. Fear of losing control. Famously, in order to dance uninhibited to music, Ms. Rubin has to have her entire family leave the house and the blinds closed!

There are a few hints that Ms. Rubin wants to work on her perfectionism but mostly you get the sense that she wants everyone else to accept her perfectionism or maybe even to become just like her! If you have a perfectionist in your life, this may be the book you need to read to get some insight into the perfectionist thought process.

This book has numerous opportunities to be screamingly funny but you get the sense that Ms. Rubin sees no humor in all that she has done. Ms. Rubin’s version of happiness does not seem to involve mirth, glee, or big belly laughs. It is rather an effort to be happy in academic sense . . . seriously (very seriously) happy.

Can perfectionism solve unhappiness? Please share in the comments.

Kick your energy level for the weekend into high gear with this month’s awesome mix from New York City-based composer Joe Hanley! Joe’s mix is called “High Score” which times perfectly with the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver this weekend.

When I listen to Joe’s mix, I am transported back to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. It is the only Olympics I have ever attended in person and it was an amazing experience. At that Olympics, I attended several events including the men’s ski jump event where Harry Potter (actually doppelganger Simon Ammann from Switzerland) won the gold!

I also can proudly say I was there when the American men (Ross Powers, Danny Kass and JJ Thomas) swept the medals in men’s snowboarding half-pipe. Snowboarding is a great event where everyone, including a mere geeky spectator like myself, gets to feel “cool” for a moment. They play incredible music as the athletes come down the pipe doing impossible moves that have great names like, “air,” “grab,” and “McTwist.” Everyone should have a moment in their lives like that to feel genuinely cool.

Joe’s music captures that feeling of “cool” and it sounds like an Olympic snowboarding song to me. I hope it gives you the same lift! Here’s a little more about Joe and his music.

Joe Hanley joehanleymusic.com

What is your musical background?

I’ve been playing and composing for 20 years. My primary instruments are keyboards and vocals, and I have a basic background in guitar as well.

What inspires you when you are writing music?

My initial inspiration for any song differs depending on the context that I’m writing in. If the music I’m composing is for a specific client, they usually have style and mood requests that will inspire my first ideas. Most of the time ideas come when I’m doing something else like walking, driving or in the shower. Those slight distractions really seem to take my thoughts out of the process and allow my intuition to take over.

What were you thinking about when you composed this mix for beruly.com?

For this mix I was inspired by dance music and wanted to combine a hard hitting dance floor aesthetic with my somewhat quirky and peculiar tastes.

Is there such a thing as perfection in music? What compositions or musicians do you consider “perfect”?

Music is such a subjective art form, so no matter how perfect you may think a song is, there will always be someone else who doesn’t. I don’t believe perfection exists in any aspect of life, but I do believe it’s smart to always strive for your “best” in anything you do.

With that said, I do have a few musicians and compositions that I personally believe couldn’t get any better:

1. George Gershwin – His 3 Preludes.

2. Debussy – “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” – wrote this for his wife before he went off to war. If there ever was a situation that could bring out the best in a composer, this would be it.

3. Radiohead – Every song off of “OK Computer”

Ready to listen to Joe’s mix?  Click the picture below to play or right-click to download. (If the picture is not working for you, you can also download by clicking here.) 

If you like what you hear, please comment and feel free to share the song with others. To respect the rights of the musician, please comply with the simple Ruly License terms below.

Ruly License: You may download and play any Ruly Mix song for your own personal use so long as you keep the voiceover tags intact indicating the name of the artist and that the song came from beruly.com. Businesses may also download this song to play as background music in their establishments so long as the voiceover tags remain intact. Any other uses of the song (such as in videos, etc.) must be pre-approved by the musician. Questions about license permissions can be addressed to info@beruly.com.

Wishing you a perfect weekend!

Previous Ruly Mix artists:  Jamie Smith, Rajiv Agarwal

Due to the recent snowstorms, my daughter’s preschool valentine party was canceled but I wanted to share the valentines we made (and will probably still distribute next week).  The idea came from Family Fun.

This is a great craft project because it is 1) easy, 2) recycles old crayon bits and other craft materials that you might otherwise throw away and 3) is a great opportunity to teach a small amount of science.

CRAYON VALENTINE HEARTS

Materials:

• silicon heart-shaped mold
• old crayons
• foam sheets (you could also use paper)
• paste or glue
• ribbon and needle or double-sided tape
• Sharpie permanent marker

Directions:

1. Clean our your crayon bucket and locate all the broken or dull crayons or the colors you just have too many of.  In our case, we seem to pick up a lot of crayons from restaurants where they hand them out with all the children’s menus.
2. Peel the paper wrappers off the crayons and break them into small pieces.
   
   
3. Put a variety of colors in each heart mold.
   
   
4. Put the crayon molds on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes.  This is a great time to talk about the concept of “melting” with your child (which is actually harder to explain than you might think).  Peek in periodically to check on the progress.
5. When the crayons are completely liquid, take them out of the oven to cool.
   
   
6. Cut two sizes of squares out of the foam sheets.  Mine were about 2.5 inches for the inner smaller square and 4 inches for the outer larger square.  You can also use paper or other materials.  In our case, we had foam on hand to use up and the foam is more indestructible if your child (like mine) wants to give each valentine a thorough test drive before handing it out.
7. Have your child paste the smaller square on the larger square.  We have found that Yes! paste in a jar with a brush is easier for a preschooler to manage than squeeze bottles of glue or glue sticks.
   
   
8. When the crayons have fully cooled, unmold them.  The silicon trays make them easy to peel away.
9. Thread a large needle with ribbon and sew the hearts in place.  I experimented with a variety of stitching patterns but never came up with the “perfect” way to secure the hearts.  Alternatively, you could try attaching them with double-sided tape.  I knew tape was not going to stand up to the handling of my preschooler so that is why I sewed them in place.
10. Write a valentine message with a Sharpie permanent marker around the edge of the foam.
    
    

My wonderful sister-in-law sent a Valentine’s package including a delicious package of Dove chocolates.  My husband opened a chocolate and said, “Why is there a quote from Martha Stewart on the wrapper?”

“WHAT?!?”  I said intrigued, being the person hyperfocused on Martha and perfectionism at the moment.   I grabbed the bag and sure enough, these are the Martha Stewart branded Dove chocolates with “Martha Stewart’s Valentine Tips on Every Wrapper.”

As you open your little chocolate to enjoy the goodness, you are greeted with a suggestion typically for some sort of craft project you can do to remember your Valentine.  Perhaps because of the inferiority complex Martha Stewart can generate, these tips on the wrapper incite very strange feelings.  Instead of just sitting back, relaxing and enjoying the chocolate, I feel a strange sense of anxiety mixed in.  “Should I write that tip down?  How could I do that?  Can I throw the wrapper away or should I save it?”  The way some of the tips are worded also make them sound like commandments rather than suggestions.  It’s chocolate with a side of passive aggressive guilt.

What better gift for your perfectionist valentine?

For some professional insight on perfectionism, this month’s Ruly Bookshelf choice is “Be Happy Without Being Perfect” by Alice D. Domar, Ph.D. and Alice Lesch Kelly. Dr. Domar is a cognitive therapist who has counseled numerous women about perfectionism. The book discusses what perfectionism is, including a perfectionism quiz, and then addresses how perfection manifests itself in a variety of situations, including beauty and appearance, cleanliness, work, relationships and decision-making.

The book contains personal anecdotes from women struggling with perfectionism as well as professional advice about how to restructure your perfectionist thinking. Dr. Domar admits that she is a bit of a perfectionist in some areas and that she is a work in progress herself with regard to coping with perfectionism.

I learned a lot about perfectionism from this book, primarily how to recognize the signs of perfectionism. Now that I better understand what perfectionism is, I see it everywhere! As I was reading through the numerous examples in the book, I saw myself, my husband, my family and friends, even advertising messages, business practices, fictional characters, and people I hardly know. We all exhibit at least some perfectionist characteristics.

There are two key concepts that stuck with me from this book. The first is about control.

Perfectionism is an act of control . . . Let me tell you–every iota of stress, everything that brings people to psychologists’ offices is related to a feeling of being out of control. Some people tolerate a lack of control; perfectionists feel overwhelmed by it.

–Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., Be Happy Without Being Perfect

Perfectionism as an adaptation to out-of-control situations makes a lot of sense. You cannot control some aspects of your life so you therefore hyper-focus on the areas that you can. Some perfectionists in effect construct an elaborate mask to hide underlying problems. For women in particular, Dr. Domar indicates that perfectionism in the home setting is a most telling indicator.

“[P]erfectionism causes more trouble at home than almost everywhere else. What it all comes down to is control. The more a woman is feeling out of control elsewhere in her life, the more control she tries to exert at home. Perhaps she can’t control her work, her husband, her kids, her health — but she can darn well make sure there’s no cat hair on the draperies.”
. . .

“Perfectionism at home sets you right in the middle of a vicious cycle. You long for peace and order, but you can’t relax until the dishwasher is unloaded and the trash is taken out. No matter how hard you work, the to-do list never ends. The more you chase the unattainable goal of perfection at home, the more stressed you become.”

–Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., Be Happy Without Being Perfect

On the subject of cleanliness and organization, I am sorry to report that Dr. Domar indicates she has perfectionist tendencies in this area. She joins the voices that essentially say that there are minimum limits of tidiness that everyone must adhere to. The problem I have with this message is not that I disagree that there is a limit between health hazards and tidiness but that no one ever defines where that limit is. Therefore, we all continue to feel a sense of shame that we will never be clean or organized enough.

The other key concept I learned from Dr. Domar about perfectionism is that perfectionists are “black-and-white thinkers.” Dr. Domar defines black-and-white thinking as an “all or nothing” approach. For example, someone might say “I will either make my bed every morning or I will never make it at all.” A black-and-white thinker isn’t satisfied with a halfway or compromise approach. This type of thinking manifests itself in many ways, including parenting.

“The most common cognitive distortion among perfectionist parents is black-and-white thinking . . . with black-and-white thinking there are only two ways to do things: your way and the wrong way.

–Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., Be Happy Without Being Perfect

The next time you read advice (including advice here at Ruly!) keep black-and-white thinking in mind. Is the advice really showing a perfectionist tendency? Is there a compromise position that will work better for you?

Some of the other eye-opening quotes from this book are:

“The ‘baby step’ approach is the complete opposite of what perfectionists are usually drawn to. We perfectionists don’t like baby steps–we like big giant leaps! . . . People who take baby steps can eventually run marathons. They can lose dozens of pounds but it take time and patience, two skills that tend to be in short supply among perfectionists.”

“Most perfectionists are so accustomed to blaming themselves for things that it is a natural reaction when just about anything goes wrong.”

“Perfectionists are famous for making very uneven comparisons [between themselves and others. For example, a perfectionist might compare herself to Martha Stewart rather than the average mom.]”

“[Perfectionists] tend to interpret remarks in the worst possible way.”

“Perfectionists tend to have unrealistically high expectations of others and feel that others have unrealistically high expectations of them.”

“Perfectionists like routine . . . .”

–Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., Be Happy Without Being Perfect

My only complaint about this book is that it focuses exclusively on women and some of the chapters seem to perpetuate a stereotype that all women are perfectionists and all men are not. The book would be a little more interesting if male perfectionist tendencies were also addressed. Perfectionism is not just a female problem.

Women will get a lot out of Dr. Domar’s book, particularly an understanding of where all these perfectionism tendencies are coming from.  I highly recommend it!

Next week, we will discuss a book that explores the opposite approach of Dr. Domar’s book. Stay tuned. Back on Friday with the Ruly Mix!