I have often heard that people are surprised when they discover they have perfectionism tendencies.
Sometimes, it’s not obvious to people how perfectionism is showing up because we aren’t used to seeing it.
Perfectionism tendencies can be tricky to spot in ourselves, especially if they are patterns we’ve been using for years.
People will sometimes think perfectionism means people have perfect homes, perfect families, perfect careers, and problem-free lives and then conclude that they must not deal with perfectionism themselves since their own life is not perfect.
Other times people might think that the desire to be perfect in every area defines perfectionism, and so again, they think they don’t deal with perfectionism because they don’t want every area to be perfect (but one or two would be nice!).
Upon reflection, though, some begin realizing that they have been allowing perfectionism to interfere with goals, plans, and progress in small ways.
Then, when they discover some of the very common ways perfectionism shows up in our lives, they say things like, “Wow, I’m a perfectionist, and I never knew it!” or “I just found out I might be a perfectionist, I can’t believe it!” or “This all makes perfect sense, I’ve been suffering from perfectionism but never knew that’s what it was called!”
This happens a lot.
Identifying ways perfectionism manifests is a helpful way to begin to see how it might be operating in your own life to decide if you want to do anything about it.
Let’s take a look at some surprising perfectionism tendencies!
Surprising Perfectionism Tendencies
Before getting into surprising perfectionism tendencies, let’s briefly go over some ways that are maybe not so surprising.
Perfectionism can tend toward all or nothing thinking which is when we see something as good or bad or one way or another and nothing in between.
Another way perfectionism is often described is as being critical, judgmental, and always seeing something wrong.
Perfectionism descriptions usually include procrastination, fear of failure, and overly high expectations.
We could go on with more descriptions of standard views of perfectionism but let’s call it good and look at some not-so-easy-to-see ways perfectionism shows up.
What about perfectionism tendencies that aren’t obvious and not found in bulleted lists of perfectionism definitions?
That’s what this post is about, and it’s often in these not-easily seen ways that perfectionism manifests that many people find a lot of insight and aha-moments that help them see perfectionism in their own lives in a new way, so be on the lookout for new ways of seeing perfectionism in your life as you read these examples.
#1 Perfectionism Tendencies: Unrealistic Planning
People often think of perfectionists as planners.
They might picture a person who plans out their time to the minute or someone who never misses a deadline.
Is this true, though?
Perfectionism can also be when a person plans to do things, doesn’t do them, and never realizes that the plans they made in the first place were unrealistic.
Because perfectionism often means a person will be mean to themselves for not doing something how they like to do it, setting unrealistic plans can be a sort of self-sabotage.
Perfectionism will tell a person that they should be able to do more, that accomplishing a lot in a short amount of time is how people meet goals and that they don’t need rest; they need to work harder. This feels awful and is a big lie of perfectionism!
But then reality comes into play, and things like the human body and its sleep needs make it hard for these perfectionistic plans to get done by real humans who need rest to function.
A more concrete example of this is someone deciding to throw a party.
The person has fantastic ideas for decorating, baking, and being a hostess with the mostess.
Then the day of the party arrives, and the perfectionistic plans of cleaning the entire house, baking cupcakes, having party games ready and looking picture-perfect take more than the five hours they had planned.
Perfectionism loves to make a “wouldn’t this be perfect” type of plan that often takes double the time and people to accomplish.
Then perfectionism likes to make the person think they are the problem for not getting the plan done instead of questioning the reality of the original perfectionistic goals.
This way of making unrealistic plans has made many people think they are lazy, don’t get enough done and give up on their goals.
If this is you, consider coaching, and I can help you with this.
Meanwhile, please consider the plans you made and ask yourself if you would expect someone you love to be able to carry out those same plans.
Chances are, if you do the “would I do this to my best friend” test, you will see that the plans you made for yourself are silly at best and straight-up mean at worst.
What if I stopped living by my self-imposed standards?
What standards do I want to set for myself that set me up for challenge but not defeat?
What am I willing to keep, modify, or let go of without compromising myself in the process?
Related: Perfectionism Coaching Examples
#2 Perfectionism Tendencies: Actionless Learning
This perfectionism tendency is usually a moment of “That’s me!”
Sometimes this is called procrasta-learning, sometimes it’s called researching, sometimes it’s called information-gathering.
Perfectionism often shows up in the form of looking for answers and then never doing anything with those answers.
This is a state of being a perpetual learner and rarely an action-taker.
And if momentum does start happening, it can be a challenge to continue taking action because the desire to learn more quickly pops up again.
The learning can shift forms from being formal learning like taking courses, or informal learning like asking many people for advice, or it can be anything that the person does to discover how to “do something right” with the idea that if they figure out how to do it right first, they can save time later because they won’t be wasting time doing it wrong.
While this sounds logical, what often ends up happening is that the person keeps learning and then learns some more and then learns even more, and before you know it, a big chunk of time has gone by, and there isn’t anything being done with all the learning.
I’ve seen this happen a ton with women creating online businesses, and I’ve done my share too, so I get this myself.
This became apparent to me once when I was at a conference, and woman after woman would tell me that they still didn’t “launch” their website for their business because they had “more to learn.”
I was shocked when I realized dozens of women invested so much time, money, and energy into something they are telling themselves they have to keep learning about instead of implementing.
Usually, this is because perfectionism lets them believe that the more they learn now, the better things will be later and that it’s not safe to take action yet.
Well, what if that is just not true?
What if learning and doing then learning some more and doing some more gets things made and out in the world and produces results a million times faster than learning and hoping that one day you will think you learned enough to feel ready?
If this is something you’ve been facing, I’d love to coach you on this!
This is a very coachable issue, and you can soon start getting the results you’ve been waiting for but haven’t happened yet despite all the learning you’ve been doing.
To get a quick win in this area, ask yourself this one question: What can I do in the next 24 hours to implement something I just learned?
Then ask yourself how to set up some accountability to follow through with that action plan.
If you did this multiple times a month, can you imagine your results!?
You could be creating a lot of greatness in your life!
Related: Inside Perfectionism
#3 Perfectionism Tendencies: Reluctant Reviewing
Perfectionism can become apparent when we realize how much we avoid and dislike self-review.
If we don’t take the time to review how things are going in our lives, we are less likely to change in ways we want to change.
When was the last time you used an established self-review process? Some people do this when they keep a diary or journal.
But often, people never do an honest review because they don’t want to feel the feelings of guilt, shame, and judgment that come up.
Reviewing our lives brings up images and feelings associated with being graded by a teacher or evaluated by a performance judge.
Reviewing our lives doesn’t need to feel bad though. We can use a review process based on discovery, compassion, and self-growth and not condemnation.
For perfectionism, this can help us practice being nonjudgmental.
Here is an example of how this reluctant-to-review perfectionism tendency plays out:
A woman wants to change her eating habits and tries something for a week (like Keto or something) and then stops.
Even if she didn’t want to continue with Keto, this would be a great time to review precisely what she liked and didn’t like while doing it for a week so she could give herself the gift of knowing what she does want to do moving forward.
Often, we don’t want to review something like this because we don’t want to think about how we “failed” at another diet.
But that doesn’t need to come into the review process at all.
What if the one rule you used in your review process was to only be nice to yourself during the entire review?
What good things could you then learn to up-level your life?
The essential takeaway here is that setting up a weekly time to see how your current actions are creating your recent results is an excellent opportunity to question if you want to pivot and adjust or if you want to keep going.
Either way, this is excellent information to know!
Here are some questions you can journal on to check in with perfectionistic tendencies with reluctant reviewing:
What is one thing in my life that could use a review process right now?
What would make my review process feel fun and motivating?
What am I willing to commit to reviewing today?
Related: Self-Compassion vs. Self-Criticism
I like talking about perfectionism from the standpoint of tendencies that show up in our day-to-day life to help people see how prevalent perfectionism is and that it’s super common.
To review, some of the ways people have suddenly realized they have some perfectionism tendencies going on in their life is:
- Seeing that the grandiose plans they make for themselves are not actually helpful (and that they would usually require the energy of a superhuman and not an actual human).
- Noticing that they spend a lot of time, money, and energy learning how to do something but then never do it (because they never feel ready).
- They are becoming aware that they do the same thing, hoping for different results and not evaluating those results.
Another way of summarizing this is by saying that perfectionism is often what’s driving people to make unrealistic plans, spend a long time learning how to implement those plans, but never really fully implementing them, and then never evaluating any aspect of any of it.
If any of this sounds familiar, and likely it does, as most people have done some of this, use this as an opportunity to increase your self-awareness and then decide if there is something you want to change or if you’re going to keep going with how things have been going.
Remember that our brains love to stay the same, but if we want to change, we can change our brains and our lives, and we can create plans we love, take bold action, and evaluate how things are going not out of fear but out of love for continual growth.
Who is your coach?
If you don’t have one, I would be so honored to be your coach!
I created a coaching program just for women with perfectionism. We address challenges and goals, and we have fun along the way! This is the “perfect” place to practice permitting yourself to use perfectionism in a new way.
Start with this practical guide that I created for you to get some quick wins with perfectionism, and let me know when you want to start coaching!