After all the output I’ve done around helping others with their perfectionism I have recently been to a therapist to get some help with emotional eating.  Within one session she has told me I am still a perfectionist.  So for the author of Killing the perfectionist within, someone who has helped millions of people with their own perfectionism based on my own journey of beating it, this was a bit of a kick in the guts.

To clarify:

I still push myself too hard and get tired.

I’m still struggling to get the balance right

I still feel not good enough at times

I still feel upset if I’m not the ‘perfect’ body weight.

However there is a difference….

I’m a bit more okay with these things, because I am aware of what I am doing and can intervene with these attitudes and behaviours before they get out of hand.

Maybe I’ll never been able to fully ‘Kill’ the perfectionist within, but i can certainly ‘manage’ it.

(Honor is a psychologist that helps women take the pressure off themselves- to book in for a free consultation visit her website at : http://www.honornewman.com

 

Hey perfectionists, here’s how to be free of sky high expectations : A book review

 

 

A review by Grace Jennings-Edquist Oct 22, 2016

Think back to the last time you gave yourself a mental high-five and reminded yourself, “My life is completely up to scratch.”

Erm—you can’t remember that happening, can you? Neither can I. That could be because, like so many women I know, we’re perfectionists. Our standards are higher than Iggy Pop in the ‘70s, and we expect that we’ll not only competently do our jobs/stay in shape/raise our kids, but give Wonder Woman a run for her money in each of these fields. Simultaneously.

The problem is, this perfectionistic mindset doesn’t often actually lead to success.

Psychologist and author of Killing the Perfectionist Within Honor Jane Newman tells me perfectionism is a contributing factor to a range of mental health conditions including anxiety, eating disorders, postpartum depression, low self-esteem, burnout, obsessive compulsive disorder, alcoholism and major depression.

Yikes.

Perfectionism is “very common” in women aged 25-45, Newman confirms, citing causes including cultural pressures to “have it all”; the myth that motherhood is the ultimate fulfillment; and media portrayals of feminine beauty and desirability. (“Being parented in either a highly critical manner or an over-indulgent manner both give women an unrealistic sense of self,” Newman adds.)

Whatever the cause of your everything-must-be-perfect tendencies, it’s possible to rein them in using a few expert-approved tips.

Master these four and you’ll be on your way to a happier life—no sky-high expectations required.

1. Ditch the “should”

Newman tells me women can benefit from eliminating the word “should” from their vocabularies.

“Every time you tell yourself you should be this or that you automatically feel under pressure and obligation, which is a negative emotional state,” she suggests.

“Instead try, ‘I’d like to–do, have, achieve…’” she suggests. “With this there comes the acceptance of what you wish for but also some room around that not happening to the extent you might like.”

2. Stop with the comparisons

You know when you’re having a pretty sweet day—until you’re scrolling through Instagram and see that drop-dead-gorgeous girl you knew at college celebrating another award for her off-the-charts successful career? Blah. All of a sudden your office job is mundane as hell, your last vacation in Vermont looks hokey, and you’re itching to lose 10 pounds.

This social-media-comparison phenomenon has been confirmed by experts: Studies have shown our subjective perception of wellbeing and life satisfaction may be undermined by platforms like Facebook.

Here’s a little trick that works for me: Remove stimulus that seems to trigger life-comparisons that bring you down.

Sneakily unfollow those humblebraggers, #inspo bikini body types on Instagram and Facebook, so you’ll be less likely to desire their seemingly perfect lives/jobs/abs.

And keep reminding yourself of this: Social media only features the highlights—not all the mundane pyjamas-and-hangover moments—from your acquaintances’ lives.

I mean, that girl on a private jet probably has really bad IBS or terrible taste in men; she just neglected to mention it in her latest post about #blessed she is.

3. Put pen to paper

Reflect on what it would mean for you to be imperfect—what thoughts and feelings and insecurities does this bring up for you?—and write these down.

“Think about where these thoughts, insecurities and self-pressure started. How long ago?,” Newman says.

“This increase in self- awareness is the first step to change as you can start to challenge the truth of these thoughts, feelings and assumptions.”

4. Challenge the all-or-nothing mindset

Perfectionists tend to think in black and white terms: Either a project they’re working on is absolutely glorious, or it’s a goddamn embarrassment that needs to be hidden from sight.

The problem with that mindset: It can deter us from trying things at all. (Women apply for a promotion only when they meet 100 percent of the qualifications; meanwhile, men apply when they meet 50 percent, The Confidence Gap authors Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write.)

“Though we all want those instant, perfect, voila moments, most things take time and don’t look like much at first,” writes psychologist Tamar Chansky, author of Freeing Yourself from Anxiety: 4 Simple Steps to Overcome Worry and Create the Life You Want. (Van Gogh’s first painting probably looked like a car crash in comparison to The Starry Night, for example. And I bet Orwell’s first draft of 1984 was a typo-fest.)

“So when you stop to do a spot-check and see the unfinished or rough spots, rather than judging how this is falling short, keep moving forward to what’s next,” Chansky says. “Don’t confuse the unfinished-ness of the moment as a sign of the health of the project overall; it’s just a step along the way.”

Next time you slip up, learn from your mistake rather than throwing in the towel altogether.

Which gets me thinking…If you don’t master these four tricks to challenge your perfectionism immediately, don’t beat yourself up and quit trying.

That’d be way too ironic, right?

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Perfectionist-Within-Self-Help-Perfectionism/dp/1452529523

How to spot a perfectionist….

While many of us fantasise about having a supermodel’s figure, glittering career, fantastic social life and a David Gandy lookalike for a partner, pursuing these goals can be an obsession for some, affecting family and romantic relationships and causing a spiral into depression and anxiety.

Psychologist Honor Jane Newman, a reformed perfectionist and author of Killing The Perfectionist Within: A Self-Help Guide For Women Suffering From Perfectionism, Anxiety And Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, lists the following signs that show someone in your workplace or social circle may be struggling…

To check out more about this in the interview I did with ELLE magazine, check out the link below

How to spot a perfectionist….

Everybody knows a perfectionist right? He or she is that person that has a lot of pressure on themselves to do everything to an extremely high standard. They can be wonderful but also extremely infuriating to the non-perfectionist. They can be infuriating for a number of reasons. Let me explain:
1. Because they tend to avoid conflict it is hard to discuss things with them,
2. They try to please everyone so they are often running around like a headless chook doing hundreds of things for other people and forgetting to rest and then getting grumpy and exhausted
3. Alternatively they are so anxious about making a mistake or being judged in a negative light that they spend periods of time avoiding everyone,
4. It is also hard to give them constructive feedback about things that will help them, as due to their sensitivity to criticism it often causes them to dissolve into tears.
HOWEVER, there are some pluses to being around a perfectionist, namely that because they have very high standards for themselves they do tend to do most things to a high standard which can actually be nice to be on the receiving end of. For example, when you go to their place for dinner, it is rare that you will be sitting around the house having pizza out of the box in your undies or eating last nights’ cold leftovers. More likely they will throw and amazing dinner party and not ask you to bring a plate or help clean up. Also, if you were to ask them to edit your essay or resume its likely that they will leave no stone unturned in this endeavour.
What I am saying is that having high standards for oneself does not have to be a bad thing in itself. It is just that one must know when to stop and take the pressure off oneself. It is great to want to do more than pizza out of the box when friends come over for tea, however if you insist on doing a whole host of intricate recipes on your own and end up frazzled and stressed out, and this grumpiness or anxiety effects your enjoyment of the night, then you have gone too far with it. And it is no fun feeling so anxious that you avoid others, or that you can’t talk through issues with a person which affects the intimacy of your relationships. So my advice is, do wonderful things but don’t put so much weight into it that you stop enjoying it. A bit of levity is important as life is there to be enjoyed. C’est la vie!!

Why I wrote Killing the Perfectionist Within

The idea for this book came from quite a few years of different experiences sort of weaving themselves together into an inspiration. Firstly I had my own energy crisis which I managed to heal from by piecing together my own little package of strategies. I had to unravel what was going wrong in my life that had lead me to that point. This unraveling taught me a lot. It taught me what had gone wrong and then I learned how to fix it. Once I did this I noticed I had lots of clients coming in to see me with similar issues. I then used what I had learned on my own healing journey to help them, and these things worked. So I wanted to write a handbook so I could reach more people with these techniques and insights, which although simple, are really powerful.
What  I realized was that there were a certain cluster of qualities that people with burnout often have such as:

• Perfectionism
•  High expectations of the self and possible of others too
•  Low self- esteem
•  Anxiety
• An inability to allow themselves to rest or make a mistake without spiralling into depression or anxiety
• A fear of conflict
• Lots of guilt around letting others down
• Huge anxiety about making a mistake
•  A desire to be extremely independent and a dislike of asking for anyone for help
• A struggle to be vulnerable
• A deep seated belief about not being good enough.
• People pleasing
•  Struggles either to say yes or to say no
•  Feels extremely anxious about being out of control

I believe that if these qualities are present in a person for a long enough period of time there is a high likelihood that burnout and maybe even Chronic Fatigue Syndrome will eventuate. This makes logical sense when you think about a person with extremely high standards pushing themselves hard without resting and never asking anyone to help them.
So what happened with me is that I was just tired all the time, I placed no value on resting and would not listen to my tired signs. It was all about achieving and pleasing and there was a lack of care there for myself. This has changed.

I now value rest extremely highly and it has made a huge difference. But it was not a simple road for me to obtain this understanding. I started with improving my diet, then I slowed down my pace of life as I realized that I was constantly over burdening myself. It was really hard to scale back and it took a lot of practice. It was hard to be assertive and say no to things as I thought people wouldn’t like me if I did, so it was all interlinked together into a bit of a mess, so slowly I unraveled it. And I wanted to share the knowledge of what I learned with you. Stay tuned until next week where I talk about perfectionism and parenting. Until then, love and light, Honor