From Chapter One: ARE YOU A PERFECTIONIST?
Susan had been working frantically for the last month trying to get her end-of-the-year books in order, keep the business running, and plan a New Year's Eve party for her friends and her clients. A few of her friends who have been supportive of Susan's interior design business were going to bring along some potential clients. Susan's home is a reflection of her talent as a designer, so she wanted to make some changes to the formal dining room before the party that she thought would be particularly impressive. It all came together in time for the party and the evening seemed to be going well, until her assistant, Charles, asked her if Mrs. Beale and Mr. Sandoval, two important clients, had arrived. Mrs. Beale had a small antique shop in town and had referred Susan a lot of business over the past two years. Mr. Sandoval was a member of the local Chamber of Commerce and had shown interest in Susan's business.
Susan felt like her head was about to explode when she realized that she had forgotten to invite them to the party.
"Oh no, I completely forgot. How could I be so stupid? What am I going to do? They'll no doubt hear about it from someone and will assume I omitted them on purpose. I am such an idiot. I may as well kiss the business good-bye. When the word gets out, no one will want to refer to me again."
"Susan, don't you think you may be overreacting a little." Charles tried to be supportive, but deep down inside he was glad he hadn't been the one to make such an awful mistake.
For the rest of the night she held her breath waiting for her other clients to ask about Mrs. Beale and Mr. Sandoval. What would she say? That she was a thoughtless numbskull who neglected to invite a former client who referred a substantial amount of business to her each year? Even worse, what will she say when Mrs. Beale and Mr. Sandoval confront her with her rudeness. Ten different excuses ran through her mind, but she ultimately chose to avoid them and their wrath.
Susan is an inwardly focused perfectionist. Although it can help her in her work, it also hurts her when she is hard on herself and finds error completely unacceptable. Like many people, she worries about what others will think of her and her business. However, in Susan's case her errors lead to humiliation, distress, sleepless nights, and withdrawal from others. She has trouble letting go and forgiving herself because, in her mind, it is OK for others to make mistakes, but it is not OK for her to make mistakes. This book was written to help people like Susan stop beating themselves up and, instead, make the most of their skills as a perfectionist.
Tom is an outwardly focused perfectionist. He feels OK about himself, but he is often disappointed in and frustrated with others who seem to always let him down. Quality control is his line of work, but he cannot always turn it off when he leaves the office. Tom drove into his garage to find that there was still a mess on the workbench and floor that his son, Tommy, had left two days ago.
He walked through the door and said to his wife in an annoyed tone of voice, "I told Tommy to clean up his mess in the garage before I got home."
"He just got home himself a few minutes ago," his wife defended.
"Where is he now? He better not be on the phone." Tom went to his son's room only to find Tommy on the phone with his girlfriend. Tom could feel himself tensing up. "Get off the phone and go clean up that mess in the garage like I told you."
"Yes, sir." Tommy got off the phone, knowing that a lecture was coming.
Tom cannot understand why his son cannot follow simple instructions. It seems like every day there is something new. He doesn't listen, his wife doesn't take care of things on time, and the burden usually falls on him. There is always an excuse. Even when they do their parts it usually isn't good enough and they don't seem to care. It is so frustrating for Tom sometimes that he does the job himself rather than ask for help, just so he doesn't have to deal with their procrastination and excuses.
Tom's type of perfectionism causes him problems in his relationships with others because he is frequently frustrated by their failure to meet his expectations. When he tries to point this out in a gentle way, it still seems to lead to tension, and sometimes to conflict. He has tried to train himself to expect nothing from others, but that strategy doesn't seem to work either. He needs some new ideas for coping with his frustration and for how to deal with the people in his life who seem to continually let him down.
This book will help you to identify, evaluate, and change the underlying beliefs that affect your management of stressful events and your interactions with others, particularly those who leave you thinking that either you or they are not good enough. The first goal will be to gain a better understanding of how thinking that things or that you are not good enough are related to difficulties you may have at home, on the job, or in relationships. By following along in this first chapter and completing the self-assessment at the end you will determine the degree to which you are a perfectionist and in what ways it is most likely to affect your life. You will find out if you are a more inwardly focused perfectionist like Susan or a more outwardly focused perfectionist like Tom. Because perfectionism can be a very positive trait, you will need to identify the situations or circumstances in which it serves you well in addition to those situations in which it seems to hurt you. Accomplishing this second goal will help focus your attention on learning new ways to cope with times when perfectionism seems to be getting in the way or causing you distress.
The third goal of this book is to teach you to identify times when your perfectionistic beliefs about yourself or others may be inaccurate or distorted in some way and how to straighten out the distortions. If you have a more accurate view of yourself and your world you will be less prone to the emotional upset caused by those distortions. One such belief is the notion that you have to be perfect or that others have to be perfect.
One of the common problems faced by both kinds of perfectionists is having expectations that are too high or that are difficult to achieve without considerable wear and tear on you and on others. The fourth goal of this book is to help you to determine if your expectations are too high, how close you are to achieving your goals, and what you will need to do to reach a more satisfying level.
Much of the stress that leaves you thinking that you or others are not good enough results from your interactions with other people. It is often difficult to pinpoint the cause of these tensions and to determine what to do about them. Therefore, the fifth and final goal of this book is to help you deal more effectively with other people. Some guidelines are provided on how to manage situations with others that are often difficult, discouraging, or conflictual. Some helpful hints have also been included for the people in your life who want to learn how to interact with you in a way that does not leave you with the sense that you are not good enough.
These methods are based on cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT), a scientifically proven effective treatment for many of the psychological difficulties associated with perfectionism. Starting first with education about perfectionism, then working through the cognitive-behavioral methods for controlling the distress associated with perfection, you will gain a more accurate view of yourself and of others. You will learn what it means to be good enough, see how close you really are to achieving your goals, and reduce the emotional pain associated with seeing yourself and others as not good enough.
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