Perfectionism is Overrated.

so

around two years ago i was talking to a

friend and he was stressing out about

school and his social life

i remember asking him why he wouldn’t

cry or show any signs of weakness at all

now he just often talked in an upset

tone while his face was emotionless

he gave me a response that i still think

about to this day

he looked at me and said because my

parents

want me to be perfect now at first

i had no idea what he meant by that i

mean

wasn’t showing your feelings and

emotions supposed to be normal

what does he think it means to be

perfect today i decided to look into

this more and what i found was

in the end comforting today i’m going to

be explaining what perfectionism is

and going more in depth with the

negative impacts of perfectionism

now what even is perfectionism

just to do to figure this out i searched

up on copify.com and what showed up

was a list of things to learn and do now

when i saw this list i thought to myself

this is not what my parents taught me i

mean

they taught me that to succeed you need

to have perfect grades you have to be a

lawyer

you have to master every instrument

activity you pick up

and never complain because your life was

better than those around

you that’s what i was taught it meant to

be perfect

and that’s what i was raised with and

then

i realized how ridiculous my list was

not only that but how ridiculous parents

have been to teach their children what

perfectionism is

not only parents women and men are

depicted in movies where the heroine is

a damsel in distress and the man is

tough and never vulnerable

advertisements show that there’s a

specific body type people have to be

and if you aren’t that body type you

aren’t perfect

what you wear either makes you fit the

aesthetic or make you look completely

ridiculous

being perfect is that even possible and

what is the reality of a society

that believes it is so now perfection is

in the eyes of the beholder

therefore one who believes one thing may

be perfect

can be entirely different for another in

a way

perfection and beauty go hand in hand as

they’re both advertised and shown in the

way

people see them and they can be

completely changed over time

people that have strived to be perfect

for so long can feel

so so vulnerable and feel they’re not

good enough when they can’t achieve what

they want to perfect

people can get this need for many

reasons validation

love comfort self-worth but it’ll never

just come out of nowhere and people can

get it from such a young

age as well as fifth grader haley mcgee

ran home crying one day because she had

received an a minus

on a report card she grew up in a

setting where she had to be an

overachiever as that was the only way

she could receive the love and

validation from the adults around her

so getting an a minus was seen to her as

a failure

her self-worth diminished and went down

so much

because of what was on that paper

someone so young

lost all of her confidence because of an

a-minus

now let that sink in for a moment a

fifth grader

lost all of her confidence because of an

a-minus

someone so young lost all of her

feelings of self-worth

because of a piece of paper now as sued

has stated

setting high standards and aiming for

excellence are proven to be positive

traits

but perfectionism itself is a

dysfunction because it’s underscored by

a person sense of themselves

they had a part of themselves that they

didn’t like and decided to fill in that

void by being perfect

in a way it’s a coping mechanism that

constantly repeats itself

now this cultural phenomenon has started

because of modern parenting

and social media and when we ask our

parents

why we need to be perfect they say and i

quote

because it’s a booming society and the

job you want will always be taken by

someone better than you are

that you’ll live on the streets you’ll

never be good enough and

i think i just gave someone deja vu

crazy right

the problem with perfectionism is that

it never comes from nowhere it can come

from a person’s

self-worth of how they feel like they’re

not good enough it can come from

disapproval from parents and

perceived disapproval from society

there’s many reasons for this and when

we ask

why they just can’t get rid of it it’s

because it’s a coping mechanism

not only that a negative one that

impacts the human body in a negative way

to the point where

it becomes impossible to get rid of

now these can have many negative effects

some mental like depression anxiety or

some like anorexia nervosa or orthorexia

but it’ll never come from nowhere and

there will always

be a negative impact to it now

a common misconception that i hear quite

a bit especially when addressing one’s

flaws in interviews

is when asking what’s a flaw they have

they’d respond with

well i’m a perfectionist and

that’s not a good thing now the society

seems to have seen perfectionism as a

positive thing and i feel i need to

address

that trying your best and being a

perfectionist is not the same thing

if not entirely different trying your

best is going past your boundaries in an

understandable and a healthy way

understanding your limits

and being proud of what you’ve

accomplished being a perfectionist on

the other hand

is going past your limits in an

unhealthy way not understanding your

boundaries and not even feeling proud of

what you’ve accomplished in the end as

you feel

it didn’t reach that side of

perfectionism

now i’ve talked pretty negatively

throughout this

ted talk so now i think it’s time to

look at some positive

coping mechanisms that can replace this

negative one

now i’m not saying that these coping

mechanisms will work for everyone

because everyone thinks differently

not only that it will take a lot of time

and effort before things truly come to

effect

you can’t expect something to happen one

day and magically work and

wow i don’t have perfectionism no it

doesn’t work like that it will take a

lot of time and effort

so please bear with me on that one

because i don’t really have that much

patience

either understanding what perfectionism

is and the risks of it are important

when trying to understand a person who

has it

the person themselves may not even

realize that they have it

i honestly wish i could go back in time

and tell my friend all those years ago

that he didn’t have to be perfect if i

knew sooner i could have maybe helped

him

i would have told him that those movies

with what was supposed to be perfect

it was supposed to be the status quo

were so overrated

i tell the girl with the a-minus that

those grades don’t define you

even if it’s hard at the moment from

wherever you are just know that you’ll

be okay

simply put being perfect is so overrated

thank you

[Applause]