What causes perfectionism? Just ask a perfectionist

It’s easy to criticize perfectionism. Being perfect is certainly an impossible goal, because, as they say, no one is.

Then again, it’s also been said that “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

Setting high goals for yourself is one thing, though, and expecting perfection is another. It’s clearly unrealistic. So why would anyone set such an impossible standard, let alone expect – against all the available evidence – to achieve it?

That’s an important question, and one that’s seldom asked.

As a perfectionist myself, I think I have the answer (or, at least, an answer).

Perfectionism isn’t proactive, the way setting high goals is. It’s a reaction to something: a coping mechanism. It can be effective, to a point. Striving for excellence and shooting for perfection both accomplish the same thing: They create driven, motivated people who can achieve great things. But the difference lies in the nature of their motivation.

Goal-oriented people are driven by possibility and by hope. They’re confident visionaries who strive to accomplish feats that, while difficult or even outlandish, are actually achievable. Perfectionists, by contrast, are driven by fear: the fear of failure. They’re not confident at all. In fact, they’re the opposite. They may appear confident, but it’s a mask. They’ve typically got low self-esteem and suffer from imposter syndrome, fearful that a single misstep will expose them as a fraud for all the world to see.

To them, that’s the worst imaginable fate – and it happens every time they publicly fail.

Coping mechanism

Like goal-oriented people, perfectionists can accomplish great things. They’re not overachievers. They’re really good at what they do. They can be charismatic, skilled, and even appear to be functioning effortlessly. But this is only because they’ve spent so much time disciplining themselves to function well that others don’t see what’s underneath. They can appear to be sailing smoothly along. Until, that is, they inevitably slip up. Or something goes wrong that’s beyond their control. Then, they can find themselves caught in a downward spiral of self-criticism, isolation, and even self-loathing.

As I mentioned before, this is a coping mechanism – and an effective one until something goes wrong. But when something does go wrong, they can’t rely on it anymore, and they literally don’t know how to cope. They don’t have a backup plan, and enduring verbal attacks isn’t an option. It’s simply too painful.

Indeed, the coping mechanism known as perfectionism often develops as a way to deal with outside criticism. Perfectionists may have been brought up by parents who had high expectations or were prone to angry outbursts. As children, they may have considered themselves responsible for a parent’s anger and sought to control it… by being perfect. They may have found themselves in the middle of their parents’ conflicts and tried to be “the adult in the room” – even as they were reminded to obey their elders. Or maybe they were teased and bullied by peers, and they tried to be perfect as a means of avoiding schoolyard taunts.

They learned early on that being themselves didn’t work. They weren’t loved for who they were, so they tried to at least be respected for what they could do. Become self-reliant. Play the diplomat. Keep the peace. But they could never do enough to keep the anger or the bullying from coming. So they drew the only conclusion a young mind can draw: They were failures. They were the problem.

Imperfect solution

One would think, therefore, that they’d realize the fruitlessness of perfectionism.

But what’s the alternative? Dealing with verbal abuse and personal attacks? If you can fend those off at least some of the time, isn’t it better than nothing?

Perfectionists aren’t stupid. They know all too well that they can’t be perfect all the time. So they tend to withdraw in an effort to ensure that, when they do make mistakes, no one is around to see them. As a result, they become isolated and introverted. They may live “inside their heads” more than other people, continually trying to plot the best course of action and worrying about potential pitfalls.

And the more they’re teased or berated for their imperfections, the more their own internal voice begins to echo those cruel criticisms – not, initially, because they believe them, but as a way to remind themselves how important it is to avoid them. Perfectionists often say, “I’m my own worst critic.” Why should this be so? They may hope that, if they criticize themselves first, they can motivate themselves to avoid mistakes so they don’t have to endure attacks from others.

Eventually, however, they do this so much that they may actually come to believe the negativity. Even if they don’t, they may become so accustomed to repeating this self-abuse that they don’t know how to function any differently.

Expecting to fail

They expect to succeed, but they also, fatalistically, expect to fail and are scared to death of what will happen when they do. If constructive criticism comes along after years of taunts and takedowns, they may flinch and react to it as though it’s meant cruelly – when the opposite is, in fact, true. This reaction is a subtle cousin of PTSD, a reaction to anger and disapproval. It has nothing to do with the person offering helpful advice, who may have the best of intentions; it has everything to do with a coping mechanism reinforced through years of external abuse and internal (unrealistic) expectation.

A perfectionist may dread being drafted into the military, not because they fear combat, but because they know they won’t be able to handle boot camp. They’ve seen movies that showed drill sergeants berating enlisted men and women, telling them they’d never be good enough, and it made them cringe. Odd as it may seem, the prospect of such verbal abuse and disapproval may scare them more than getting killed or wounded in a war. They already feel they aren’t good enough. Having someone tell them this – that they have no hope of ever measuring up – confirms their worst fears about themselves. What the bullies have always told them.

There’s a reason perfectionists tend to be avoidant. They avoid situations that may expose their weaknesses and failures, and people who may condemn them for those shortcomings, because that’s been their experience. They prefer to be self-reliant and work alone, only displaying their work for others to see when they’re confident it can’t be laughed at or rejected. (They hate people looking over their shoulder or trying to micromanage them.) They’ve heard people say there are no wrong answers or stupid questions, only to hear those same people make fun of questions they consider stupid or mock proposals that don’t work.

They consider those people frauds, intent on drawing them out to ambush them so that they (the bullies) can feel superior. Perfectionists can’t allow this to happen. It’s too painful. So they – the perfectionists – have to be superior. This is not a need to be “better than” and lord it over someone else, but out of sheer self-defense.

What causes perfectionism? Why do some people strive for unachievable goals, setting themselves up for failure? Maybe it's because they've already been told they're failures so often they feel the need to prove their critics wrong. Or maybe they're scared to death those critics are right.

If this sounds like a difficult existence, it is. Perfectionism can lead to anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and even physical problems like hypertension. The sad thing is, perfectionists often know it doesn’t work very well. They just haven’t come up with anything better for them.

Stephen H. Provost isn’t perfect, but he’s written a lot of books. You can find them all on Amazon, and many of them in retail outlets and museums across Northern Nevada.