An Ode to Perfectionism and Procrastination
Perfectionism is a pretty common trait among individuals with eating disorders. That’s no secret. However, I think that people would be surprised to find what large procrastinators perfectionists often are. People think perfectionism = turning in assignments a week before the due date, keeping your house OCD-clean, and being perfectly dressed and put together every day. But actually, my place is messier and my work less productive during periods when I am being especially perfectionistic. Why is this?
“In a positive form, perfectionism can provide the driving energy which leads to great achievement. Setting high standards is not in itself a bad thing. However, perfectionism coupled with a punishing attitude towards one’s own efforts can cripple the imagination, kill the spirit, and so handicap performance that an individual may never fulfill the promise of early talent.”
– An Empirical Typology of Perfectionism in Academically Talented Children
I procrastinate because I KNOW that I can do something well. I can write a blog post that somehow integrates research, pop psych, psych theory, and personal experience… yeah, if I spend 5 hours doing it! But I hate doing less than my best — so it gets put off. I want my house to be spotless… I don’t want to do a half-ass job at cleaning up. I know that if I just devote x amount of hours to the project, it’ll be that level of clean that I want.
Now, apply this thinking to everything. I end up concentrating more and more on the minutia and ultimately accomplishing less and less. Maybe I’m afraid of making a mistake. Maybe I think that failure is a reflection of my personal worth. Mostly though, I just have high expectations for myself. I want to do everything well. I know that I CAN do things well. Man, if I could only get my act together and have the energy and motivation to do everything correctly all the time…
This blog post? The perfect example of perfectionism and procrastination.
What’s the toll of perfectionism?
“The striving for that nonexistent perfection that keeps people in turmoil and is associated with a significant number of psychological problems. Research has linked perfectionism to disorders such as depression, migraine, personality and psychosomatic disorders, type A coronary-prone behavior and suicide, as well as eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa.”
– An Empirical Typology of Perfectionism in Academically Talented Children)
I think that this perfectionism + procrastination cycle is frustrating for anyone who struggles with it… but that it is particularly dangerous for individuals with eating disorders. When you don’t meet your expectations repeatedly (because you’ve put things off and then don’t have the time or the energy to do them “perfectly”) you feel so much worse about yourself. You feel like you can’t get anything done and you proceed to beat yourself up. This kind of self-hate and negative thinking really fuels the disorder. I also find it’s hard when people tell me to “give myself a break,” because I already feel like I’m not accomplishing very much. I’m already procrastinating — what do you want me to do? Excuse myself from all responsibility?
Such is the irony of perfectionism. In your quest to do things perfectly, sometimes you don’t get them done at all.
I’m a great one for taking the law of parsimony to extremes too, leading to putting all my eggs in one basket, and then if one of those eggs breaks it automatically leads me to feel I have failed. So I am branching out to doing more things I enjoy which are hard to “rate” or grade. I’m also practicing doing things without the result being perfect. It’s really hard but I am learning so much, especially how people rarely judge you for things you do, to the same level as you do!
Lola x
Good for you, Lola! It can be ridiculous to what high of a standard we hold ourselves. I know exactly what you mean about judging, too. I always put off trying yoga because I’ll probably be really bad at it… plus, what if I hate it? But when I try to think about it rationally, I would never judge anyone by their yoga ability
Especially because I would be preoccupied with trying to not screw up myself!
Perfectionism is a serious problem for me too. Now whenever I create something I try to include a little mistake in it, but this backfires for me, because I try to make the mistake perfect so that no one will see it. I have to work really hard to end projects and tell myself that they will never be perfect, but they are good enough. I hate striving for good enough.
I know what you mean about yoga, it’s supposed to be relaxing and meditative, meanwhile I’m looking around the room the whole time to see if I’m the fattest one there and if I’m the only one who can’t do the pose or hold the pose.
ahhh! That’s me!!! Growing up my parents always berated me and called me lazy. I didn’t know what to say, they didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t… because it sure looked that way. I remember even telling people that I *know* I could do something amazingly well I just either didn’t think the perameters were right so why bother? (say a school assignment) or I didn’t know where to begin because I wanted it to be incredibly good but didn’t quite know how. But nope apparently I was lazy.
Last year I started a new job and to my surprise have really taken to the business world. My boss met my aunt at one point and they were talking about me and my boss mentioned what a perfectionist I am and my aunt was like “what? really?” it’s interesting how different people can have such different perceptions of someone when I’ve been the same my entire life.
Replace eating disorder with depression and you have a perfect description of my current situation. As far as EDs are concerned – I am a binge-eater, but I also go through periods of dieting that are very much characterized by trying to be “perfect” in my eating and exercise habits. The problem is, people (including doctors and therapists) often just don’t get that. They don’t get that it is not a good thing for me to lose weight by cutting out ALL sweets, ALL fried foods, etc. and exercising in a mindset of “doing it right” and being sufficiently “hard on my self”.
And yet – despite all of this I also like my perfectionism, and sometimes perfectionism is necessary to do something really, really well. It is useless if someone tells me that I need to stop being a perfectionist, I would never be satisfied. I think the solution lies much rather in deciding to which areas of my life I can successfully apply perfectionism and then working on truly giving my best without procrastinating and in which areas of my life it is okay or even beneficial to be content with 80 or sometimes even just 50 %.
Hi greythinking. I love this post! This is such a problem for me too and even though I had read a few things about it relating to people with EDs, its really great to see this whole long post about it.
Its so strange how, if you have this problem, you can often achieve better results at whatever it is you’re doing by going easier on yourself rather than harder.
I hear you about the ‘give yourself a break’ thing. A similar one is ‘just do your best.’ Just my very best. Ok so, to do that would actually require me to spend endless hours, exclude everything else and give every ounce of energy in my being! And thats supposed to make you feel better?!
About the yoga, I just recently started it and I find it amazing and quite healing. The instructor that I have though is nice and very body positive though ’stretch as far as is comfortable for you, everyone’s body is different’ and there’s a nice atmosphere of non comparison. I hope you decide to do it and there’s a similar atmosphere for you.
Can I ask one question? Whats type A coronary prone behaviour?
Thanks again for the post
I don’t think taking 5 hours to write a blog post is too much time. Really–I’m not being facetious!
http://www.itsmewithocd.blogspot.com
Harriet — That would be just like me, to try and include the “correct” or “perfect” mistake if there need be one!
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Jill — That’s awful that your parents always thought you were lazy
I have found the business world to be really helpful re: productivity as well. I think there are a couple of reasons for this…
1. There are 8 hours a day already dedicated to getting your work done. I’m less likely to procrastinate because I don’t necessarily feel the time pressure that I do at home. The “I don’t have time for this, because I need to also accomplish x, y, and z” feeling. I can stress about getting the dog to the groomer all I want, but it’s not going to happen during those 8 hours, so….
2. Projects are usually broken down into smaller steps/ stages. Steps that fit neatly on a to-do list.
3. Work (at least my chosen career, and it sounds like yours, too) is much more fun and rewarding than writing papers or taking exams! I love my job, and while I do put off getting things done sometimes because I know they’re going to require a lot of effort to execute in my fashion, often I’m eager to do it because I’m excited about the project.
So glad that you’ve been able to find work that is rewarding for you!
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sannanina — Depression is a hugeproblem of mine as well. When I’m really depressed, I really do not have the energy or motivation to obsess over something until it’s “correct.” Therefore, things get put off, and off, and off… and I tell myself I will get to them “when I feel better.”
There are so many ignorant professionals out there (I even wrote a post about it once — see Ignorant Doctor Comments). There ARE good ones out there… somewhere…. so keep looking until you find one!
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sarah-j — Thanks for the compliments
I will make it to yoga one of these days… and you will all be aware when it does happen!
“Just do your best” is a tough one for me, too. I have to change it to “do the best that you can given the time and the situation, and without pushing yourself past the limit or upsetting yourself” (which isn’t very catchy). I used to really struggle with trying to do everything (maybe there will be a post on this soon…). I really learned the hard way that while maybe you can do everything, you definitely cannot do everything well. And doing a lot of mediocre things feels crappy. So I am better at picking and choosing what I do… only now I think I put more pressure on doing the perfectly, since I should be able to — right?
Good question about “type-A coronary prone behavior.” Type A behavior involves struggle for achievement, chronic time-urgency, and competitiveness. These behaviors have been associated with the prevalence of coronary heart disease. All of the stress that you are putting on yourself (and therefore your body) can be really hurtful — especially to your heart.
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bloggerwithocd — Ha, well… maybe if blogging were my job, I could afford to spend that much time writing posts!
I knew I was never a perfectionist; I was just afraidof making a mistake. Completely different worlds.
This, due to mistake modeling after my Mom, who was terribly afraid of allowing her daughters to witness or see that she made an error in her decisions/life/etc.
Sad, really.
This is definitely true for me as well. I often procrastinate by making lists or thinking about how I want to study or do something, with the idea that my studying needs to be perfect, otherwise what is the point? In undergrad I used to put off writing papers or doing other tasks for the same reason, too. I can also see where this fits in with the ED, as you so nicely outlined. In addition, I think for me, it also goes along a lot with the all-or-nothing thinking. If I have a bad day eating wise, I think “screw it, today wasn’t perfect I might as well engage in other behaviors” or something like that. In a way I sort of “procrastinate” trying to eat in a more balanced fashion because I figure that if it isn’t perfect, there is no point.
wow BL, that is EXACTLY how I am!
This is me too. I have always been like this – I even got 11/10 for school assignments a couple of times. I always had a very messy bedroom as a kid, because I could never get it to be perfectly clean, so why bother?
I also do it at work sometimes which is NOT a good thing. Coming back from Christmas I was paralysed by procrastination for 3 solid weeks – I did not do a SINGLE piece of work in that time! Fortunately no-one noticed because when I do work I do it faster than everyone else.
I have noticed in the past it has applied itself to my dieting behaviours – if you can’t diet perfectly, you might as well binge etc. And since noone can ever diet perfectly, well, you can imagine how well that worked!
Now, I’m working on giving up on dieting altogether. It never really worked for me anyway (see above) and all it does is cause stress and mental anguish, which I so don’t need! It’s a hard thing to stop though!!
haha i am the exact same way. I have been a perfectionist as far back as I can remember, yet my room is constantly messy, and I am a horrible procrastinator. And then earlier this summer i developed clinical depression and eventually bulimia nervosa, which i think has a lot to do with my perfectionistism. I want the perfect body, perfect grades, perfect boyfriend, etc. I’m getting better at accepting less than perfect though, and i feel so much better now.
I still am and probably always will be a procrastionator though!
YES. I went to a shrink for 2 yrs. which took away the panic attacks and horrid, fear-filled sleeps. Now it’s just semi-decent sleeps and occasional bouts of sinkhole depression where I feel worthless (if I haven’t accomplished anything good lately according to “my” standards, then I must’ve failed). Unable to speak as well anymore because mind too preoccupied evaluating self. It got worse when I left college and entered the real world 5 years ago where nothing’s perfect, everything’s grey, and everyone seems “content” with themselves. Problem is, their contentment gives you the illusion that YOU must be doing something wrong since you’re not content with yourself. They “get” something that you’re “missing”. And what’s becoming even tougher is speaking to women to whom you’re attracted b/c you suddenly lock up and feel the need to be perfect and say “the right things”—but everyone knows some women will reject you no matter what, but rejection is so CRIPPLING for a perfectionist.
So as a result I date “down” a few pegs just to feel appreciated. Awful. But less lonely.
Oddly, I was voted best personality years ago by my class. Now that personality is slipping to a darker place.
What’s even crazier is, after all this typing, it’s alllll just in my head. But it shows the pervasiveness of an unhealthy mind.
Sigh.
Fellow perfectionists, I love ya for who you are.