S2E8 – Perfectionism – World of Stories

Margrit & Eileen chat about perfectionism and the internal and external pressures to live up to unrealistic and unattainable expectations. They talk about the false equivalency of perfection equalling professionalism and how perfectionism is both the result of and cause of metal health issues. Finally, in a pandemic where so many of our interactions are through video conference, perfectionism has been taken to a whole new level.

Recommendations of the Episode: (It’s Great to) Suck at Something by Karen Rinaldi and easy crafting activities, like connect-the-dots.

Question of the Episode: Do you suffer from perfectionism? How do you combat it?

Join the conversation on Twitter at twitter.com/World_ofStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Eileen 0:16
Welcome to World of Stories, a podcast about how stories shapes our lives. I’m Eileen and my pronoun is she.

Margrit 0:23
I’m Margrit and my pronoun is they,

Hey, Eileen.

Eileen 0:39
Hey, Margrit.

Margrit 0:41
How’s it going today?

Eileen 0:42
Everything is awesome! It’s wonderful and fabulous and just stunning, because today we are talking about perfectionism and the problems with it. Although, you know, it totally doesn’t apply to me because I’m just like, naturally perfect.

Margrit 1:02
That sounds awesome. And also super sarcastic. And I have to say that we’ve instituted a sarcasm jar at my house. Because it’s a problem. So, thanks for, thanks for validating the fact that sarcasm is a natural and okay way to cope with the world as it is right now.

Eileen 1:18
Oh, totally. It totally is.

Margrit 1:21
So if you have a solution for perfectionism, do share it, please.

Eileen 1:26
No, well see, that’s the problem, because I don’t have a solution. I’m like the quintessential victim of perfectionism. And I don’t, I don’t know how to get out of it. I’m like, the, the turtle that’s fallen on its back, and I can’t get up. And I think that’s why we both thought that this topic would be really important for us to talk about today.

Margrit 1:49
Yeah, totally. I’m totally with you. So I’d be interested to understand where it’s coming from. What do you think about that?

Eileen 1:56
So many places, you know, like, where do I even begin? I think it’s pathological, for me, at least. I think I mean, for me, it again, it started early. I was bullied a lot when I was a kid. And so my response to that was to try to be perfect, try to be faultless, so that other kids wouldn’t have anything to make fun of me about. Now, whether or not that’s an effective technique to avoid bullying is highly questionable. But either way, it grew into this need to be perfect in everything I do, and I think it’s, it’s like this need for approval, right? To be liked, to be praised, to fit in.

I also think that there’s that stereotype of Asian parents expecting their kids to be perfect. And like, yes, that’s a stereotype. But there’s still some truth to it. And I’ve internalized a lot of that type of expectation from my parents. And so basically, it’s to the point where perfection is considered the minimum, you know, it’s the baseline, it’s the given, scoring 100% on a test is like the minimum passing score, and anything less than that is failure. And, like, that’s not just applied to tests or academics, but everything, like I have to be a perfect human being, or I’m a failure. And those are the only two options, either I’m perfect, or I’m a failure, and there’s nothing in between. And unfortunately, that’s the mentality I have when I approach anything in life. It’s definitely not healthy, it’s unrealistic. And it’s really hard to combat it.

Margrit 3:43
I agree. It’s so hard, because mainly because I think we’re innure to it. We take it as natural that we have to work ourselves to the bone to achieve as close to perfect as possible. And even if we know intellectually that’s impossible, we still strive for it. It reminds me of this conversation a few years ago about having it all and what it means for different people, especially for men versus women that that was what the conversation was about. And all the cultural shit that comes from it, like the ticking biological clock, which means if you’re a person with a uterus, as Lee was saying, you have to want to procreate and if you don’t, you fall short.

But also you should strive to be as good professionally as cis men even if it means working yourself to extremes because of course you’re not judged by the same standards. And thus we go back to episode two of this season, all things being imminent and interconnected, right? About labour and, and all of that. So it’s all very much connected because it’s so much labour, of all kinds, intellectual and physical and emotional, goes into being a perfectionist. So it’s all, like you were talking about internal pressures, to be perfect that you have sort of grown up with. But there’s also outside pressure, right? People expecting you to be perfect.

Eileen 5:05
Yeah, definitely. And but, like being perfect all the time, or I guess trying to be perfect all the time would be more accurate. It’s exhausting. And it’s soul draining and unattainable. So, sometimes I just don’t want to try. But I feel like people will judge me if I don’t, or at least, like, they’ll judge me if I, if I’m not perfect, and they’ll judge me, even if I’m not trying to be perfect. And so I feel like, because I’ve put an expectation on myself to be high achieving. And because I then therefore, am often high achieving, then other people have also come to expect me to be high achieving, so then when I don’t live up to that, then I get in trouble for it. You know, whereas otherwise, like other people often get away with all kinds of stuff like cutting in line, or driving over the speed limit, or in a work context where they’re slacking off, or they’re not producing good quality work. And so it’s very frustrating, because not only do I have to battle my internal unhealthy expectations for myself, but I have, I feel like I have to somehow convince others to also expect less of me, which is a very weird thing to wrap my mind around.

Margrit 6:33
It’s such a vicious cycle, isn’t it, between professionalism and perfectionism. So like, one of the things that I’m working through right now is how precarity conditions us to strive for perfection. So after I finished my PhD, I worked on contract for many years, never having any job security, right? So semester to semester, sort of teaching on contract and after. And very little hope of finding a full time academic job because the labour market for academia, like completely bottomed out after 2008, the recession, right? So I felt like I had to be good, at all the things, like all of them, like teaching, research, outreach to community in the form of knowledge mobilization, which is part of like the mandate of being an academic, right? And it is part of what we’re doing here, which I love to do. You know, social media presence, everything. So not to mention, you know, in my personal life, awesome parent, because what kind of a human would I be if my kids suffered because I wasn’t able to get a proper job? And you know, you can, you can hear how my speech is speeding up. And it’s like, that’s, you know, like the rabbit brain of like, on the on the rabbit wheel, or what is that called?

Eileen 7:43
Hamster wheel.

Margrit 7:44
Yes, thank you, the hamster wheel, right? And this is how anxiety happens. And this is how you can’t even stop to think about it or to break the vicious cycle. And that’s how I think we internalize perfectionism in all aspects of our lives. Like you were saying earlier, how can you tell people to expect subpar work?

And I think the flip side of that is the imposter syndrome, because our benchmark is perfection, which is unattainable. The fear of being exposed as a fraud is a real and permanent danger to our psyches, right? I know that it’s manufactured, like we were talking about it now. But the anxiety that it gives rise to is real, I’ll get an adrenaline surge, even talking about it now, right? So now I have a full time job, but how–who am I to have gotten one of the very, very few jobs? So any moment now, definitely, someone will come and expose me as the imposter that I am, occupying a full time job from all the people who have more merit and are more perfect than I am.

Eileen 8:44
Yeah, no, I totally understand that. And I’m like that too. I think for me, it manifests as downplaying all the things that I’ve achieved. Because like we’ve been saying, if the benchmark is perfection, and I know that I’m not perfect, then all the things I have achieved must be inconsequential. Does that make sense?

Margrit 9:04
Oh, totally. Totally.

Eileen 9:05
So, you know, I’ve told people, I’ve published a bunch of books, and they’re like, Oh, my God, you’re a published author. That’s amazing. I’m like, yeah, I’m published. But that’s not a marker of success, because I’m not a best selling author. So that means I’m a failure.

Margrit 9:24
Right? And if you had been a New York Times bestselling author, then you maybe wouldn’t have been a bestseller in Europe, which would have made you also less or, you know, or in Asia. So…

Eileen 9:35
Because there’s always something more to achieve. There’s always someone who is better than me. And so if they can be better than me, that means that I could potentially be better because I’m not the best right. So I’m really messed up.

Margrit 9:56
Same boat, same boat over here.

Eileen 9:58
Anyway, let’s move on to perfectionism and the pandemic, because there are a few things that come to mind that both coincidentally have to do with zoom. I think one of the things we’ve talked about before is through these virtual online meetings, we are inviting people into our homes, and it’s harder to hide just how messy our lives are. Because when I think about pre-pandemic, I would put on my work clothes, I put on makeup, and I go into the office with a facade that I’ve built and that I’m comfortable with, I can control the image that I’m projecting for others to see. So even if like, at home, everything is a disaster, no one can see that. But now that the online meetings are essentially in my home, they can see the disaster behind me, you know, they can see the clutter, the dirty clothes that are all over my couch, the unwashed dishes on my kitchen counter, it’s right in my background behind me. So it feels like there’s no room for me to be messy in my own home. I have to make my home look pretty for the camera. I have to be good at interior decorating and have like interesting things for people to like, comment on but maybe not distracting, and it’s very complicated.

Margrit 11:26
You have to stage manage your life.

Eileen 11:28
Yeah, yeah. And I think the same thing goes with my face, because I’m a woman and society expects me to put on makeup to cover, like everything, like uneven skin tone and blemishes to like, highlight certain features to, to like, I don’t know, I honestly I don’t even know how to highlight or do any of that stuff. Really, I’m not very good at makeup, but there’s no equivalent expectation for men. They don’t have to put on makeup.

Margrit 11:58
Not only that, when they appear naked on camera, it’s like–I’m referring to two very notable cases that you know, and like, Oopsy, it was a mistake. I realized I was on camera and naked, anyway. Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring that up.

Eileen 12:16
Oh, it’s it’s true, though. It’s true. Yeah. Um, I mean, I don’t know. Like, before the pandemic, I was wearing makeup every day. But even then, it bothered me that my male colleagues could have like, bags under their eyes, they could look tired, they could have like, whatever. And it’s totally okay. There’s no expectation for them to try to cover any of that up, to look better. But if I were to show up without makeup on, people would look at me weird. They’d be like, Why are you so tired today? Well, guess what, I’m tired every day, I just hide it well.

And now that I’m home all the time. And you know, I don’t necessarily have zoom meetings every day. So I don’t really wear makeup at all anymore. And when I do have a zoom meeting, I’m just like, Oh, my God, do I have to put my face on? Because like, it feels like, I don’t have a face if I don’t have makeup on. You know, as if the makeup has become who I am, as opposed to what my face actually looks like. And I’ve definitely heard stories of women being told by their bosses to put on more makeup for video conferences, because I guess with like the camera or something they’re looking washed out with the typical amount of makeup they wear or whatever I don’t know. But like, I guarantee you that men have never been asked to put on makeup to look less bad.

Margrit 13:49
No, for sure. And it kind of reminds me of the dress code for work, right, like, so. Dress code for zoom meetings. And I’ve also seen such articles in the Globe and Mail about how to do your makeup for the camera. And it brings me back to this intrinsic connection between professionalism and perfectionism and how, like socially, societially sorry, we define professionalism as nothing short of the best versions of ourselves, like you were saying earlier, you know, the messiness at home. Like it doesn’t matter that those are manufactured selves, or I think that’s even the problem that it takes so much work to manufacture those selves that there’s an–the onus for that labour is put on some people way more than others, like you were saying.

So, for my case, when we had to shift to teaching online, the first thing that we were talking about was how to record a video. So it would be accessible to students at different times because they might be in different time zones or might have family responsibilities during the class time, or literally not enough Internet bandwidth to participate in a synchronous class with, let’s say they had their kids at home doing homeschooling and stuff like that. And that’s, that’s awesome that, it should be like that, we should be having those conversations. But what that impulse devolved into was how to become a videographer overnight, not only in content, but like editing skills, you know, finding and learning and using a proper appropriate software and editing and having enough lighting, click, you know, like, and and, you know, finding captioning, which is crucial for accessibility purposes, right. Also admirable stuff, but also, on one hand, so much work, and on the other hand, like impossible to attain all at the same time, and all sort of in the span of a week.

So what gives, at the end of it all, is our mental health, living in this constant state of anxiety that we’re failing at professionalism because we’re not perfect? Or maybe that’s just me. So, so my question is, is a pandemic going to make room for letting go of perfectionism now that we’ve seen that, if so much of the things that go into it are fake and unnecessary? Can we rid ourselves of perfectionism or? Or is anti perfectionism basically, making yourself vulnerable, which I hear is desirable, especially in leadership? Oh sorry, that’s a lot of questions. What do you think Eileen?

Eileen 16:24
No.

Margrit 16:28
Well, that was easy.

Eileen 16:30
I think in certain circles, where things like social justice and disability justice and mental health are accepted as issues we’re all dealing with. There is some degree of acknowledgement and understanding that like, we’re in a freaking pandemic, and life is hard. And it’s okay to be messy and not perfect. But in the corporate world, I definitely don’t think that’s the case. And I think if anything, this idea that professionalism equals perfectionism is exacerbated because of all of the stuff that we’ve been talking about.

I think a connected question would be, does the pandemic give people permission to expose their imperfect lives on social media? And again, no, because I look on social media, and I don’t see any real messiness. It’s carefully curated messiness. It’s just messy enough to get across a certain point or just seem relatable, but it’s not. It’s not real.

Margrit 17:38
Curated messiness, trademark. Yeah. So. So what does all this mean for the relationship between perfectionism and mental health?

Eileen 17:46
I mean, I’d go so far as to say that perfectionism is a mental health issue. I believe that there are studies or professionals who say that there that perfectionism stems from anxiety. Because like I was saying earlier, perfectionism is a way for people to control what is in their environment. And when they have that control, it helps to ease the anxiety. But the problem is that because you could never attain a perfection, attain perfectionism, because you can never control absolutely everything, that generates more anxiety. So it’s like it’s a lose lose situation. It’s like a downward death spiral.

Margrit 18:39
Yeah, it does sound pretty grim. But as much as I agree with you, I really refuse to accept it. Because in good perfectionist manner, I know that there must be a way out, we just need to find it, if we only work harder. I’m being sarcastic again. But we are problem solvers. So we did look for some solutions and suggestions. So what’s your recommendation for the episode?

Eileen 19:05
I read a book called (It’s Great to) Suck at Something by Karen Rinaldi and she argues that it’s healthy to have a hobby that you really enjoy, but are really bad at. And the idea is not to try to get better at it, but to embrace that you suck at it. And for Rinaldi, her hobby that she’s really bad at is surfing. And so the book is partly a memoir about how she got into surfing and how she’s terrible at it and how she has arranged her life around being able to surf regularly. And what I found interesting about this concept of intentionally creating a space where not only am I [not] perfect, but I suck, and it’s okay and the point of being in this space, of pursuing this hobby is not only to not be perfect, but to be intentionally bad.

Is, is very foreign idea to me, you know, to like to, to not care, to not strive, to not have any expectations of myself or to adopt other people’s expectations, but just to enjoy. That’s so, so strange. But I think it has some merit. And I think it is a good exercise to, like a good mental exercise to break through this need to be perfect at everything.

Margrit 20:44
I love that.

Eileen 20:45
Yeah. How about you, Margrit?

Margrit 20:47
Yeah, I’m just, this is blowing my mind right now. Because I’m like, trying to think of, you know, like, how we can actually allow ourselves to not be good and not be like, you know, maybe it’s fine when we start something, we’re not good at it. But can we allow ourselves not to become better at something because this is the point of like, practicing stuff, this is awful.

Eileen 21:09
I think that like, naturally, you would get better at whatever hobby it is that you want to pursue. But it’s not. I think the point is not that like, you’re not allowed to get better, because you can’t, I mean, you can’t stop yourself from getting better if you’re naturally going to get better. But it’s to not aim for a particular goal of like, I want to, you know, achieve this milestone in my growth of this hobby, or in my pursuit of this hobby. It’s just, I’m just gonna do this hobby. If I happen to get better, that’s great. But if not, then that’s okay, too.

Margrit 21:55
Okay, well, that makes more sense to me. And actually, I do have something like that–running, I just run because I just run and it’s just running at whatever pace makes me feel better. And then this is how I manage my mental health. And for a long time, I used to, you know, go running with the Running Room, and they have all kinds of activities with groups and stuff. But of course, that’s not happening now. And then I stopped and I was going on my own and not even timing my runs and feeling fine about it. And now I do my runs because I have one of these smartwatches but I don’t care. I really don’t care. I look at it. I’m like, Oh, I had this pace. Fantastic. I went for a run. That was amazing. That was the only thing that matters. So yeah, okay, okay, never even. See, this is why we need to talk about these things because I never even realized that I had something like that.

Eileen 22:42
There you go. You’re applying the book already without having even read it.

Margrit 22:48
That’s right. And just because you explained it to me, it just blew my mind that I’m actually doing this. So great.

I do have a recommendation, though. And it’s it kind of goofy because I found this book of connect the dots cityscapes. I think I found it like at Marshall’s or Winners for the one week that the stores were open in Toronto. So and I love listening to audiobooks, which you know, you know that. But I can’t just sit around and listen to audiobooks without doing something with my hands or my feet. So if I go for a walk awesome, or if I cook or whatever. So I just thought to myself, What if I did this while listening to audio book and that will make me actually relax. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? The logic sounds sound enough, but until you sit down, and you notice that, oh my god, some lines are longer than two inches. So of course, you need a ruler, right?

Eileen 23:43
Of course, of course.

Margrit 23:46
See? I knew you’d get it, I knew you’d get it. And so I try so hard not to use the ruler. But the more I tried, the more crooked my lines were, of course, and I just gave up since since like I was working on I think it was the Parthenon and had such long lines. And it just it was stressing me out more than it was relaxing me not to get a ruler. So I failed at 100% relaxing, but it was still good to do that. And to be like, Oh, it looks fine. And if you put it at a distance, it actually looks like the Parthenon. So my recommendation would be to just get your crafting on in whatever way relaxes you and without trying to make it perfect if you can. Anyway, enough about me, what’s our question of the episode?

Eileen 24:36
Well, I think it should be whether listeners struggle with perfectionism. And if you do, how do you try to combat it?

Margrit 24:48
Great question. And as always, you can join the conversation on Twitter at World_OfStories or you can email us directly at WorldOfStoriesPodcast@gmail.com and if you like our show, please share the podcast with your friends. You can rate and review World of Stories on Spotify, Apple podcast, Google podcast and all other major podcasting platforms. The more reviews we get, the easier it will be for new listeners to find us.

Eileen 25:15
And lastly, if you’d like to partner with us in producing the podcast, we appreciate every contribution no matter how big or small, you can donate at ko-fi.com/WorldOfStories. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, stay safe.

Margrit 25:32
And keep on humaning.