Jumping Over Your Head Is Perfectionism

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Jump over your head, do your job even better than last time, get maximum results and recognition. If you recognize yourself in this description, it means that you have an excellent student's syndrome. It is also called perfectionism.

Lifetime excellent students are sure that they have no room for error and for mediocre results. Only for the best. Striving for the invented ideal, such people fixate on the results, it is hard to experience failure, criticism and imperfection of others. Perfectionists often succeed, but this success is too costly for them.

Where do legs grow from?

The first is family reasons. If parents from childhood tell their child that he should be the best, constantly bring only the highest marks to make him proud, and devalue just good results - this is a direct path to excellent student syndrome.

The second source of perfectionism is personal reasons. The formation of the excellent student's syndrome is influenced not only by the family, but also by the child's environment outside the family. So, at the age of 7-12, he tries to strike a balance between being the best and still being a member of a certain group, for example, a class. And if, for example, the class teacher overemphasizes the achievements of excellent students, devalues the results of other students and there are outsiders in the class, towards whom a negative attitude is also deliberately formed, then unhealthy competition and an unhealthy attitude towards achievements will develop in such a class.

Excellent students completely identify themselves with this or that result of their work. The result, like water, fills such people to the brim, like a vessel.

Also, a lot depends on those children who are leaders of a certain group. How they react to competitors (calmly, begin to "press" them or offer them their help) - also largely determines how other children will develop in their environment. In healthy competition, the leader helps others to express themselves, and in unhealthy competition, the leader regards any manifestation of other members of the group as an encroachment on his authority and “destroys” competitors.

How to deal with this?

Follow our advice, and you will definitely be able to gradually reduce the impact of the excellent student syndrome on your work and life.

1. Notice the inner enemy

If you want to get rid of perfectionism, then one of the first and main advice is to start noticing (!) When your inner excellent student interferes in your work and life and starts to interfere with you. Start watching him closely. You can even come up with a name for him, for example, Botan, Deliverer, Resultant, etc.

Every time you see that an excellent student “turned on” (for example, when you suddenly start thinking that you did everything badly, although objectively it is not so), pause and say to yourself: “Now I have become a Botan. It's time to stop."

Every time you see that an excellent student has “turned on”, pause and say to yourself: “Now I have become a Botan. It's time to stop."

This fairly simple exercise has several advantages. First, in this way you will begin to separate the inner excellent student from your personality, showing yourself that you want to change. Secondly, a certain comedy of such internal dialogues will make you think about the fact that you are really going too far and from the outside you may look somewhat funny. And, thirdly, by stopping yourself in time and not succumbing to the influence of an excellent student, you will at least try to objectively assess the situation every time.

2. The result is not all of you

One of the biggest problems with excellent students is that they fully identify with one or another result of their work. The result, like water, fills such people to the brim, like a vessel. Excellent students forget that a specific achievement or failure is only a small part of their personality, just one facet.

In the fight against excellent student syndrome, it is very important to change your own psychological attitudes, so at first you will have to regularly conduct dialogues with yourself. Every time you start a task, you will have a fear of not completing it perfectly, or you have already failed - tell yourself that the result is not all of you.

Work on yourself and your condition: look back, write on a piece of paper what good you have done in your life.

The intermediate result is not worth it to cross out all your other achievements, positive qualities, skills and any worthy manifestations in other areas of your life, except for work. Work on yourself and your condition: look back, write on a piece of paper what good you have done in your life. This will help you come to your senses in difficult times.

3. Become the perfect slacker

All excellent students have too high demands on themselves. Moreover, they firmly believe that others expect the same from them.

For example, perfectionists may not eat anything all day and not even leave the office, ostensibly because they will have time to complete more tasks if they will not be distracted by such "trifles". If they give up the slack, for example, are distracted and chat with a colleague for 20 minutes, they can blame themselves for this for a long time.

It's important to start allowing yourself to be an imperfect - imperfect employee, imperfect friend, imperfect parent.

It will be very difficult to teach an excellent student to alternate work and rest. But don't expect too much of yourself right away. Start with at least 5 minutes a day. Deliberately distract yourself and try not to do anything for five minutes. Be sure to watch other people. For example, look at your boss and colleagues. Do they look at you reproachfully? No. Does five minutes of rest really hurt your work that much? No. Other colleagues are sometimes distracted too, but still cope with everything? Yes. Then what prevents you from doing the same?

Do similar things in other areas of your life. In this case, it is important to start allowing yourself to be imperfect - imperfect employee, imperfect friend, imperfect parent.

4. Love the process

Excellent students are people who are fixated on the result, and the process is considered unimportant. To reduce the importance of the result, we advise perfectionists to more often find and pay attention to those “pieces” of the process that give pleasure (both in work and in personal life).

Just run and feel how you push off the ground, how much strength your legs have, and how the wind tickles your face. Even if the run took longer than you bargained for, it almost doesn't matter, because you've already gotten incredible pleasure.

For example, you don't think your work has received convincing praise. But you were interested in performing certain tasks? Moreover, you have dealt with them. Then enjoy it and have fun. Or, for example, a run. Unless you're an athlete, you probably don't care how long it takes you to run a given number of kilometers. So just run and feel how you push off the ground, how much strength your legs are and how the wind tickles your face. Even if the run took longer than you bargained for, it almost doesn't matter, because you've already gotten incredible pleasure.

5. Look beyond your nose

As we said, perfectionists live on the result, putting it at the forefront. At the same time, every result is important for them, regardless of whether it is about drawing up an ordinary document or about presenting a project.

Better yet, if you "throw" yourself into a completely new environment. Somewhere where you will be a beginner, not a leader.

That is why it is so important for excellent students to see the whole picture (for example, their life for a year or three to five years ahead), to understand what goes on after a certain result, for the next achieved goal. To do this, visualize your desires, draw diagrams, write plans, keep a diary - in general, anything you like, just so as not to lose sight of the overall picture. Constant reminders will allow you to see tasks and goals more important and prevent you from getting stuck on one thing.

6. Don't compare yourself to others

This is another problem with excellent students - comparing themselves to others and getting depressed because someone has achieved more. How to deal with this? The same principle as in the previous tips. As soon as you notice that you are slipping into negativity and begin to engage in self-flagellation, immediately change your focus and concentrate on yourself. Compare yourself past and present: where were you a year ago, and where now, what you didn’t know before, and what you can do now, etc. We are sure you have something to be proud of.

7. Work more in a group

Perfectionists are not the best team players. As we said, they are quite intolerant of the shortcomings of others. In addition, they are sure that no one will do the job better than them, so the opinion of others can be ignored (“no one, except me, will provide all the details!”).

Team sports games, dance circles - all activities are suitable for an excellent student, where the result depends not only on his efforts.

That is why it is so important for excellent students to develop the skill of group interaction. To do this, participate in collective discussions more often, learn to listen and hear others. Better yet, if you "throw" yourself into a completely new environment. Where you will be a beginner, and not a leader, and you cannot ignore the opinion of others, you yourself know little about everything. Team sports games, dance clubs - in general, all activities are suitable for you, where the result depends not only on your efforts.

8. Develop flexibility

Perfectionists are quite categorical and see a lot in black and white: something is either right or not. To develop flexibility, you need to work more in a group (see advice above) and start doing appropriate physical exercises. What happens to our body directly affects our inner world.