I've been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I went through several different sports and hobbies because I wasn't immediately good at them. School projects were incredibly frustrating because no matter what I did, I didn't feel like the final product was "good enough." Being a perfectionist added a lot of stress to my life, and there are a few things I wish people understood about it.
1. Making a mistake feels like a personal failure.
For perfectionists, making a mistake can feel like much more than a minor setback. It feels like a reflection on yourself. Mistakes are personality flaws. It feels that if you do something bad, you're a bad person. Because of this, perfectionists often have anxiety, both social and otherwise. Mistakes run through our heads for weeks, months and years. Because of these attitudes, perfectionism can often coincide with anxiety and depression. When it feels like everything you're doing is wrong, it's really hard to love yourself.
2. "If I can't do it right, I might as well not do it at all."
Perfectionists are often guilty of procrastinating, because it feels pointless to do something if it can't be done perfectly. This often includes school and work projects. Of course, this means that these projects probably won't get finished until just before they need to be turned in. This creates a terrible cycle. The more perfectionists procrastinate, the worse they feel and the further they get from creating something successful. This makes them procrastinate longer. This leads to more anxiety, which feeds further into perfectionism.
3. Forming relationships can be very stressful.
As perfectionism can lead to social anxiety, forming relationships can be really difficult. Perfectionists are constantly going over conversations in their head and checking themselves during conversations to make sure they don't say the wrong thing, and over analyzing conversations. While this is definitely a trait of social anxiety as well, perfectionists have a particular difficulty as well.
Although being a perfectionist can be very difficult, it certainly has its benefits. Perfectionists, aside from the occasional procrastination, are usually pretty reliable, because disappointing someone would be a mistake. Perfectionism allows you to teach yourself how to have good conversations and how to manage your procrastinating, and how to love yourself even if you do screw up. It can be hard, but getting perfectionist tendencies under control and making them work with you can be extremely rewarding. After all, we are only human.
