Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
August 16, 2021 · 7 min read
If you look for perfection, you'll never be content. - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
You don’t need to be a perfectionist to achieve your life goals.
Instead, perfectionism can introduce anxiety and many other anxiety disorders. Both perfectionism and anxiety are closely associated with each other.
With perfectionism, you can become a successful person in life, but anxiety will follow you everywhere. Due to the beneficial effects of perfectionism, you can’t ignore its harmful consequences that are targeting your mental health.
Therefore, if you want to achieve your goals along with a healthy life, then you should adopt perfectionism for only improving yourself day by day.
However, if you’re adopting perfectionism to work like a robot, then multiple anxiety disorders will accompany you throughout your journey of life.
In that regard, we’re going to reveal 7 fruitful tips to get rid of anxiety with a healthy mind.
What is perfectionism?
Perfectionism is the ability of a person to execute multiple tasks with the art of perfection without a single mistake. People with a perfectionist attitude adopt this basic trait to work flawlessly and seek micro details of everything.
If there’s a problem within results or if they witness a micro error, then they have to rebuild the plan and follow a new process to achieve their goals.
Perfectionism is the catalyzing agent, which speeds up the process of success.
Achieving higher goals with perfectionism is quite easy. However, this trait is not an in-built trait. We need to develop this basic character after going through versatile experiences.
On the other hand, you may experience many flaws and benefits of perfectionism. If perfectionism is utilized correctly, then nobody could deny flawless outcomes after every process.
In contrast, you might be following perfectionism to focus on the upcoming results without concern about the process. In that way, you may experience an array of negative outcomes from perfectionism.
Advantages of perfectionism
- Helps to achieve challenging goals
- Capable to make improvements day-by-day
- Provides with fruitful outcomes
- Can turn every impossible task into a possible task
- Enhances thinking ability
- Introduce ideas and new visions
- Skyrockets your productivity level
When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story. - Charles Baxter
Advantages of perfectionism
- Escalates various anxiety disorders
- Affects badly on the mental health
- Demotivates regarding goals set too high
- Provokes negative thoughts in the mind
- Abnormal self-criticism
- Can result in procrastination
How perfectionism is turning everyone anxious?
Perfectionism is a positive trait, but we can’t deny all the negative consequences of perfectionism.
Perfectionism is driving everyone anxious and affecting badly on their mental health.
People with a perfectionist nature consider themselves perfect human beings that are reluctant to commit any mistake.
Negative impacts of anxiety
Anxiety is the response of our body during all stressful situations. Anxiety doesn’t come alone.
However, it comes with multiple disorders and with disastrous effects on physical and mental health. Here, we’re trying to discuss various impacts of anxiety on our body.
I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears. - Shelby Foote
- Panic attacks
You may experience panic attacks due to continuously living in stressful conditions. Fastening of heartbeat, heart palpitations, disturbance in the process of homeostasis are the major signs of panic attacks. These symptoms could be harmful to mental health.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
OCD is the obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces a person to repeat his routine. Most people with OCD believe that everything around them should be clean. Therefore, they continuously wash their hands and arrange everything around them.
- Generalized anxiety disorder
Due to an imbalance of hormone production, generalized anxiety disorder starts becoming a part of daily routine. With this disorder, you may experience mood swings and be unable to concentrate on any task. As a result, it can produce chronic pains in the body.
- Post-traumatic stress disorders
This is also a form of anxiety that usually stems from a traumatized situation. People who are striving to deal with traumatic situations but become incapable to manage their mental state, usually become victims of this deadly disorder.
- Affecting the immune system
Anxiety could affect the immune system badly. Due to improper conduction of various neurological agents, our nervous system becomes unable to send signals correctly. Many infectious agents get entrance in the body and cause infectious diseases.
- Causing cardiovascular disorders
Anxiety could also become a source of cardiovascular disorders. Moreover, due to anxiety, the blood pressure increases suddenly which could affect badly on the overall performance of the body.
- Increasement in body weight
A decrease in blood sugar level due to anxiety could increase the craving for sweets. As a result, you may lose control over your body weight.
How do you balance perfectionism and anxiety?
To balance perfectionism, you must adopt a mindset, that it is okay to have failures and not to always complete your planned tasks. You must be also ready to see failures as opportunities for growth. Only mistakes help you grow efficiently in personal development.
Balanced perfectionism is the key to success. There’s a huge difference between balanced perfectionism and regular perfectionism.
Perfectionism is a capability to strive for excellence and seek perfection in final results rather than focusing on the process. This type of perfectionism could lead to procrastination and anxiety.
On the other hand, balanced perfectionism could become the key to success. Due to the balanced mental and physical health, balanced perfectionism is considered a better option to execute higher goals in life.
I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business. - Michael J. Fox
People belonging to the category of balanced perfectionism avail themselves more opportunities in life and grow throughout their journey.
When you’re growing your skills and learning from your past mistakes, then you can become a successful person in life due to personal development.
Adopt balanced perfectionism and let yourself explore after taking risks and getting failures as a result. However, failure doesn’t mean that you’re a loser.
Failures come with opportunities to learn from mistakes and grow.
7 Fruitful tips to cope with anxiety and perfectionism for a healthy mind
Becoming a perfect person in every task seems a bit tricky. I know, with the advent of technology, every field demands perfectionism. But, being perfect doesn’t always mean that you’re a robot and you can’t commit any mistake.
Humans are not perfect. Despite this, we should focus on ourselves to become better day by day rather than earning the title of a perfectionist in life.
To deal with perfectionism and anxiety, we’re providing a list of 7 fruitful tips that will also work to turn your mind into a healthy mind.
1.Adjusting standards with time
Everyone should set higher standards in life because higher standards always lead you to successful destinations.
But, if you’re sticking to higher standards in every task, then it could waste your valuable time.
Let’s suppose that you have a task that needs almost 1 to 2 hours to complete. In that case, you should invest only 1 or a maximum of 2 hours to complete the task and then move to the next one.
Often perfectionists try to put their every ounce of energy to fulfill a task flawlessly by working on it for multiple hours.
This will only consume your time and energy in doing a task that is not going to decide for your future. Therefore, adjust your standards according to the situation.
If you’re going to attend an international meeting, then set your standards higher but for a meeting among your office colleagues, you should stay relaxed rather than troubling yourself.
2.Turn a deaf ear to your inner critical voice
Sometimes our inner voices become a hurdle in our peaceful life. Guess what? We all are enslaving our inner voices for years.
As humans, we believe that these voices are real and act as an alarming system to warn us about different situations. In reality, these voices are fears that are restricting us from achieving our goals.
Perfectionism is also a restricting force that always tends to restrict us from doing certain chores because we can’t do them perfectly.
The solution for that is turning a deaf ear to all inner voices that are trying to afraid us. Most of the time, we do not follow our ideas just because they’re not perfect and seek for the absolute best way.
The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. - Michelangelo
The reality is, that we don’t know whether it is the best way to do one or another thing. The only way to find out is to try and see how it works. At worst case scenario, you will gain valuable experience.
In that regard, we should come out from the perfectionist trap that is exhausting our energy on finding the perfect ways to accomplish our tasks.
3.Adopt a growth mindset
Adopting a growth mindset in life will liberate you from the shackles of limiting beliefs and fears. People with a fixed mindset cannot grow in life.
You might be feeding your mind with constant thoughts that you’re only going to do things perfectly or will not attempt any task. In that scenario, you will become victim to stress and anxiety.
Dealing with stress and anxiety in life will be difficult and these disorders will distract you from your main goal. Therefore, instead of refusing to participate in any project, go and participate.
Everything doesn’t require perfection. It’s okay to pass the exam with passing marks rather than striving for an A-plus or either missing the exam due to incapability to achieve higher.
But, just because you got an average grade doesn’t mean that you should settle for average life. Instead, learn new skills and develop yourself in other areas of life.
4.Analyze yourself
Analyzing yourself daily will help you to know what are the requirements for the next level. Every level of your life demands a different you.
You will become a perfect person after doing practice continuously. Without practice, nobody could achieve big goals. Analyzing your performance daily will help you to achieve your goals successfully.
Nobody could reach the top of the peak within a few steps. Of course, you have to prepare yourself for that specific task by training your mind for every situation.
Taking baby steps toward your goal with consistent efforts will pay you the cost of your efforts in the future.
5.Change your perfectionist attitude
Change your perfectionist attitude in every task. If something seems tough, then work on it, but do not let anxiety disorders command you in life.
Perfectionism is not a qualitative trait. Instead, perfectionism will only come out with the production of procrastination and anxiety disorders that will overcome your rational decision-maker.
With a disabled perfect decision-making mindset, you will become devoid of a leading dimension in your life.
Perfect execution can be very subjective in life. Your opinion about perfect execution can be misleading and wrong sometimes.
So, it’s better to put your 100% in every task and stop investing 200% in every task. This will save you time and energy for other productive tasks.
6.Do not overthink about consequences
The basic issue with perfectionist mentality is that we always manipulate consequences within our minds. Manipulation is not the root cause, but overthinking is.
Overthinking about consequences always governs anxiety.
Anxiety, on the other hand, makes us worried about perfectly executed action. However, we should accept that nobody is perfect, no matter how do you perceive your idolised person.
We see this person as a perfect one or successful, but we don’t know how much he or she had to go through trial and error in order to achieve this stage.
Therefore, focus on the process and embrace mistakes and learn for them. Every experience can be transferred and adapted to many other different life areas.
Perfectionism always demands flawless results that should be free from minor imperfections. But, human beings should set specific criteria to accept all mistakes and work to improve them by adopting powerful strategies.
7.Accept failures to open doors of learning
Perfectionists have a firm belief that failure is not a part of their lives and they’re meant to achieve perfection through thick and thin.
Accepting your failures will enable you to experience new lessons in life that will strengthen your inner potential. Instead of avoiding failures, accept failure as part of life and opportunities to learn novel ideas.
Failures will open doors of learning for you. Therefore, be open to exposures and changes that will alter the dimension of your life completely.
Final Words
Perfectionism and anxiety are the leading factors behind your fixed mindset. You can change your perfectionist attitude by adjusting your standards according to situations.
Moreover, learn to say no to things that will only consume your time rather than adding value to your life. For a healthy mind, feeding healthy and positive thoughts will skyrocket your productivity.
Do not practice perfectionism in every relation, official task, domestic task, conference, in studies, and everywhere.
Prioritize your happiness and mental health and cherish all moments of life with a pretty smile. You can also repeat this affirmation that It’s completely okay to be imperfect!
Perfection is just an illusion that we try to grasp and everyone understands that differently.