January 6, 2025 • 44 mins
Perfectionism isn't just wanting to be perfect... it's the feelings of failure and shame when we simply can't perform at a superhuman level all day, every day. To be happy, we have to accept the reality that perfection is impossible. So this episode is... How to Feel Like You're Enough.
Dr Laurie is joined by fellow recovering perfectionist Dr Ellen Hendriksen - who is a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders and author of “How to be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists”.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The new year is a great time to take a
look at what's not serving you. And if I had
to pick one trait that's definitely not been serving me,
it's my perfectionism. I tend to beat myself up a lot.
I'm terrified to try things that I might not be
good at, and even small mess ups make me feel
like I'm sort of.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
A bad person.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So in this next episode of our how To season,
I'm bringing you a timely guide for fighting that kind
of self criticism but what I like to call how
to feel like You're enough. And picking an expert for
this episode was easy. Doctor Ellen Hendrickson is a clinical
psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.
Like me, Ellen is a recovering perfectionist. She's also the
(00:58):
author of a fabulous book that I strongly recommend. It's
called How to Be Enough Self Acceptance for self critics
and perfectionists.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I mean, there's a saying for self help book authors,
and that is write the book you need. So I
partially wrote the book for me, but you know, certainly
there's also an external reason I wrote the book, which
is because I think there is sort of a silent
epidemic of perfectionism happening. And I've noticed that perfectionism is
(01:28):
a bit of a misnomer. It's not about striving to
be perfect. No one ever comes into the anxiety specialty
clinic where I work and says, Ellen, I strive for perfection.
I need help, I'm a perfectionist. Instead, people come in
and say, I feel like I'm always failing. I have
so much on my plate and I'm not doing anything well.
(01:51):
I'm falling behind. I should be so much further ahead
than where I am now in life, or they just
have sort of a sense of dissatisfaction with their lives.
So it's not about striving for perfection, it's about never
feeling good enough.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And was that the kind of thing that manifested in
your own life when you thought about perfectionism?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
For sure? Yeah, I think well so. Ironically, before I
started writing the book, I burned out. I had been
grinding for so long that for me, burntout manifested mostly physically,
so I developed a gi illness. I woke up one
morning and I couldn't turn my head to the right.
My muscles were so tight. I blew out my forearm
(02:31):
from typing too much. So I've been through like five
rounds of physical therapy. So for me, it was mostly physical,
but it can absolutely manifest in terms of relationships. So
luckily my marriage was fine, was okay. But I realized
that I again had been grinding for a long time
and looked up and realized I hadn't talked to a
lot of my friends for a long time. For other folks, again,
(02:52):
it can manifest more cognitively, more emotionally, that sense of
dissatisfaction with their lives or all those phrases I mentioned before.
But it definitely ground me to a halt, which apparently
is pretty common. For most folks. As they age, they mellow,
but for people with perfectionism, something else happens, and that's
(03:13):
the wheels start to come off, that we become less
diligent and start to burn out. And so I think
it's really common, especially at midlife or in mid career,
for all of this to come to a head. I
found one paper in my research writing the book. I'll
paraphrase the title, but it essentially said, perfectionist at twenty,
burnout at forty.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's like you're speaking my language.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It's actually really I feel like I have never been
as kind of called out or felt that any were on.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
The same journey.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I mean, I'm curious if you went through the same
thing I feel like I've gone through where kind of
the normal enjoyment I've had of things has sort of
changed over time, Like because of my perfectionism.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Is that something you experienced as well?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It's confusing, right, Like it's everybody's favorite weakness in a
job interview, Oh, what's your biggest weakness?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
On?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Such a perfectionist? And it absolutely can be good and
healthy and adaptive. There are some researchers who would disagree
with me on that, but there are some who'd absolutely
agree that there can be healthy perfectionism. And that is
when it's grounded in striving for excellence. We do good
work for the work's sake. We have high standards, we
(04:21):
care deeply. It all comes from a good place, you know.
In fact, the healthy heart of perfectionism is a personality
trait called conscientiousness. That is the least sexy superpower, you know,
like we fulfill our responsibilities in a single bound. But
it's been found to be, in terms of personality, the
biggest predictor for a good life so it predicts objective
(04:45):
quote unquote success like income, and subjective success like life satisfaction,
and appropriate to our conversation, happiness. So as far as
a personality trait, it's the one to pick. But it
can absolutely tip over into unhealthy perfectionism. I think of
perfectionism as sort of like one of those optical illusions
that if you look at it one way, you see
(05:06):
one thing and like the bunny or the duck, or
the young lady or the old lady. So if you
look at it a different way, it can definitely tip
over into unhealthy perfectionism. And that's when instead of striving
for excellence, instead of trying to do excellent work for
the work's sake, we start to fall into something called
over evaluation, which is when we conflate ourselves and our performance.
(05:31):
So we have to perform as superbly as possible to
be sufficient as a person. Forgive my grammar, but it's
when I did good equals I am good, And that's
the heart of unhealthy perfectionism.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
It also seems like this unhealthy perfectionism is getting worse.
Our culture is kind of making it worse. Talk about
some of the things that right now in the modern
day can make perfectionism in generally by overevaluation as well,
kind of even more insidious.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh for sure. Yeah. No, I was actually really surprised
about this because I've always thought of perfectionism as sort
of a personality profile, like I think of, you know,
the Serena Williams and Steve Jobs and Hermione Grangers and
Nile Cranes of the world. I thought it was something
that we were, and it is. It comes from our genetics,
it's charitable, it definitely comes from our families of origin.
But every human reacts to the situations we're put in.
(06:19):
So when we're put into what the researcher doctor Andrew
Hill calls a perfectionistic climate, of course we're going to
react expecting others to be hard on us, being hard
on ourselves, maybe we're hard on others. So some of
the factors that feed into that are simply capitalism, consumerism,
advertising and social media definitely throws a match on that pile.
(06:43):
And so when we are in a culture that pushes
us to perform and consume to ever higher levels, of
course we're going to respond with perfectionism, with thinking we
have to again perform as superbly as possible to be
sufficient as a person.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And you've also argued that in the context of these cultures,
we might want to think about perfectionism as a social problem.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
What do you mean there, Yeah, I think when I
say social problem, we usually think of perfectionism as a
personal problem, and it's actually an interpersonal problem because when
I'll come back to the definition, I think thinking we
have to perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient
as a person, we also think we have to perform
as superbly as possible so people like us, so that
(07:27):
we are part of a group, so that we belong.
It's fundamental to all of us as human beings to
need community and belonging. But perfectionism tells us a lie
and that we have to burn our way into that
by doing things well.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So, as you talk about it now, perfectionism seems really bad,
But your book claims that there's a way that we
can be conscientious about our performance without all the dark sides.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What is adaptive perfectionism.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, Adaptive perfectionism is when we strive for excellence, we
do the work for the work's sake, we keep our
high standards. I think that imperfection is having a moment
in the zeitgeist culture, and that's awesome, that's amazing. However,
I think that some of the advice that has come
(08:14):
out of that is a little bit misguided. So I
have definitely been told Ellen, you need to stop when
things are good enough, or you need to lower your standards,
and that goes off with me and with anyone else
who's familiar with perfectionism about as well as telling us
to pull out our toenails, because if we are sort
(08:35):
of overidentified with our work or our performance, we can
over identify with anything with our reflection in the mirror,
the number on the scale, you know, whether we stuck
to our healthy eating plan that day, our social behavior,
our parenting. But if this is something that we're sort
of overidentified with, telling us to settle for mediocre or
(08:56):
subpar performance tells us that we're mediocre or subpar. So
what I like to do is to try to work
with clients and certainly within myself, to not evaluate my
performance so much as all or nothing, which is definitely
one of the things that we do in perfectionism, but
instead try to evaluate it as both. And I'll tell
(09:19):
you a story to illustrate so I had a client
that will call Julie. She was a pediatrician and was
a very good one by all reports. She'd been doing
this for twenty five years. One day she came into
session and was just like lamp basting herself because she
had misdiagnosed a patient that week. So, a little girl
had come in with abdominal pain and Julie had sent
(09:42):
the family home saying it was constipation. Turned out to
be appendicitis. The little girl ended up going to the
emergency room. She was fine, but Julie came into session
and was saying things like I am a bad doctor.
Maybe I should retire now and get out before I
hurt someone. She was really really hard on herself, and
what she was doing is when we evaluate ourselves as
all or nothing, one mistake shunts us from all I'm
(10:04):
a good doctor to nothing, I'm a bad doctor. And
so what we tried to do was, rather than have
her set the bar for adequate at flawless, no mistakes,
no misdiagnoses, ever, and if you ever stumble or struggle
or make a mistake, that shuns us into nothing, to
(10:24):
think about it as I'm a good doctor who sometimes
makes a misdiagnosis, and we can do this in any
area of life. I'm a good student who sometimes fails
a test. I am a diligent person who sometimes throws
in the towel. I'm a healthy person who sometimes eats
a jar of marshmallow fluff. We can do this and
retain our sense of ourselves as good people and create
(10:47):
some much needed wiggle room for the inevitable mistakes and
duers of life, because we are human.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
If you listen to the first episode in this how
Too series, you know the season is all about finding
practical tips for handling life's problems.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So when we get back.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
From the break, we'll hear Ellen's first hack for taming
our perfectionist tendencies. The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Doctor Ellen Hendrickson supports a whole host of struggling perfectionists
who visit her clinic, but she's also working to heal herself.
As a recovering perfectionist, Ellen has found that the first
(11:24):
step to fighting self criticism is to examine her harsh
inner monologue.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
We focus on flaws and details, so we are the
ones to see the crumbs on the otherwise clean counter
that nobody else sees. We scan the audience and we
find the one frowning face in the sea of smiles,
then we self criticize. You know, if we look for it,
we'll find it. So if we look for the mistake,
or we look for the flaw, and we take that
really personally because of overevaluation, then the self criticism manifests
(11:52):
as harsh and personal. So it could be over name calling,
like oh, I'm such an idiot, Oh how could I
be so stupid? It could be rhetorical questions why can't
I do this? Oh my gosh, why did I say
it that way? Or it could not even really be
conscious words at all. It could just be sort of
this underlying rumbling of dissatisfaction or never feeling right about
(12:17):
our lives. Harsh and personal.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So why are we so self critical? It seems like
we're not like terribly masochistic. It seems like we have
this theory that it seems to work.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah, absolutely, so we can be self critical for lots
and lots of reasons. It all boils down to we
think it works. We think that if we criticize ourselves harshly,
that we might never make that mistake again. Or we
might criticize ourselves before others can remember perfectionism is interpersonal,
(12:48):
so ironically we might criticize ourselves to be beyond reproach.
And in the book, there's a runner in China who
goes by the name of Uncle Chen, and he went
viral a few years ago for running a series of
marathons while chain smoking, and he says that having something
in his mouth helps him and that it gives him energy,
(13:12):
So that might be true. He does pretty well too,
like he might run sub three thirty marathons because he's
chain smoking. But I would hazard to guess that the
cigarettes are stealing the credit for his good performance, his
hard work, his training. And I think the same thing
happens with self criticism, that it steals the credit for
(13:34):
everything else we do so well setting those high standards,
caring deeply about people being diligent, and that it brings
up a lot of emotion when we think about letting
it go or letting it be, because we worry what
will happen without it.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's taken that credit, But what does the data really show?
Do we need that self criticism to do well?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well? So ironically it shows that we do better without it.
The difference between for example, like healthy exercise and perfectionistic
exercise where we get a little obsessive might exercise even
if we're exhausted or injured. The difference between the those
two things is self criticism. So it really is the
thing again that steals the credit and ironically lowers our
(14:17):
performance as opposed to letting us reach our full potential.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So that's tip number one. We need to figure out
ways to quit the self criticism. But how do we
do that? I have two tips for you.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Okay. I learned to exercise self compassion to talk to
myself like a good friend, okay, which absolutely might work
for a lot of people, but I think for a
perfectionistic brain that means we think we have to come
up with fully formed, effective paragraphs of like self compassionate
(14:48):
hype and talk to ourselves like a self compassion speech writer.
And certainly that's a high bar. You know, I can't
do that. And so for folks that resonate with perfectionism,
I'd like to say that, yes, self compassion can definitely
be words, but it can also be much simpler words.
It could be one word like easy, or it's okay
(15:11):
or kindness. But more than that, I think because those
fundamentally talking to ourselves is thoughts, right, and we can't
control our thoughts, So for example, like don't think about
a cheeseburger floating above my head. You know, we can't
control our thoughts, but what we can control is our actions.
So even if we're talking to ourselves in a self
(15:33):
critical way, we can treat ourselves in a self compassionate way.
That might mean giving ourselves time to drink our coffee
in the morning. It could be taking a few extra
minutes to stand under the warm spray of the shower
on a cold morning. It could be going to the
gym because we know from experience that that makes us
feel better. Or and I think this is really important,
(15:56):
it might mean skipping the gym because that's not what
we need right now, and that would make us either
more exhausted or crunch our schedule even more. For folks
with some perfectionism, I think the biggest self compassionate act
can be giving ourselves permission not to do all that
we expect of ourselves. And there we don't have to
(16:16):
change anything, right.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Beautiful man, you can just kind of takes some stuff
off our mental plate. Yeah, actually exact jimate plate. Right.
You also recommend that other strategies that can kind of
help us move these kind of nasty thoughts around. And
one of the ones you suggest in the book that
I love is this idea of cognitive diffusion. What is
that and what are some strategies we can use to Yeah? No,
I love cognitive diffusion.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So this comes from an orientation of therapy called acceptance
and Commitment therapy or ACT, and this was developed by
Steve hay doctor Steve Hayes back in the eighties and
colleagues and in a Nutshelle. Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy tells
us to change our thoughts and our actions in order
to affect how we feel. ACT tells us to change
(17:01):
our relationship to our thoughts and emotions that allows us
to move forward into values based action. Okay, So an
example of cognitive diffusions is simply putting some space between
us and our thought and realizing, oh, this is a thought,
this is something that is coming from you know, my
(17:22):
own mind. It is not truth, it is not what's
going to happen. And so, you know, as conscientious people,
we take things quite seriously, and that includes our own
thoughts and emotions. So you know, if we think like,
oh my gosh, that was so stupid, we often take
that thought really seriously. And so cognitive diffusion defuses that power,
(17:45):
and it gives us some space and some perspective to
look at our thoughts with some distance, okay, And to
do that, we can play with the thoughts. So often
our self critical thoughts kind of just like come at
us and you know, smack us out of nowhere, and
that puts us in a very low power position. So
what we can do is without making the thoughts go away,
(18:08):
we can to them and play with them. So, for instance,
I had a client whose thought was I'm gonna let
everyone down, and she decided to play with this thought
by picturing it on a coffee mug, and she would
metaphorically take a little sip from this mug whenever she
thought that thought. She would also sing it to herself,
like while she was washing dishes or otherwise alone. We
(18:31):
can picture our thoughts skywritten behind a plane. We can
picture it as the Star Wars font, you know, like
doing the crawl. Yes, exaggerate exactly, And so our thoughts
could be words, so we can you know, we could
picture it embroidered on a pillow, et cetera. But our
thoughts also might be like a movie in our mind
or an image. It could be an image of our
(18:53):
boss bargaining into our office and firing us. And what
we can do there is we can We can also
play with that thought. We could put a clown nose
on our boss. We could add a seventies soundtrack. We
could have balloons come down from the ceiling. The thought
itself doesn't go away, it's still there, but we are
now exerting some power over it to emphasize that this
(19:15):
is a thought, it's not actually what's happening to us
right now.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I love the strategy so much because sometimes in you
know these CBT circles where it's like, well, just control
your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Like, my thoughts are really strong.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I don't know about the people's thoughts but mine.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So the idea of like you allow the thought, but
you just make it a little kooky, looking a little stupid,
It could be a really powerful strategy for recognizing like, oh,
these things don't have as much hold over me as
I thought.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Right, absolutely, Okay, here I'll tell you another story. So,
when I was promoting my first book. I was lucky
enough to be on another national podcast, took the train
down to New York, recorded in a studio, and made
a reasonable number of mistakes, like said a few things.
I was like, ah, that didn't come off the way
(20:00):
I wanted it to. But my brain, because it's my brain. Afterwards,
you know, it started going like my you know, are
are hard, are designed to beat our sweat glands are
designed to perspire. A self critical brain is going to
make self critical thoughts, and so it just started up
and it said, ah, why did you say it that way?
You missed that opportunity. This was not good.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
At the time, I really believed it, to the point
where my poor editor who came with me had to
steer me into the nearest bar and buy me a
Gin and tonic. But since then I have learned that
that's just what happens after my brain does anything with
a microphone. And so honestly, after I leave here recording
(20:44):
us together, probably my brain will do the same thing.
It'll say, oh, I totally forgot that point. That was
so dumb, or oh my goodness, why did I phrase
it that way? This was not good. But thankfully I've
learned that I can attend to my thoughts sort of
like I would attend to the music at a coffee shop,
or like the musaic at a grocery store. It's still there.
(21:05):
I can hear it in the background. I don't have
to listen to it, like I'm not dancing along. So again,
it's there, but it's not the truth. It's just what happens.
It's just how my brain is wired, and of course
that's what's going to happen. But I don't have to
let it yank me around.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Maybe safer and cheaper than the Gin and Tonics after
its right.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So that's tip number one.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We need to fight our self critical voices or allow
them in kookiar ways. Tip number two is one that's harder,
especially for me. We need to find ways to overcome
over evaluation, which we talked about a little bit before,
this idea that I am what I do, And this
is something that you've struggled with as well. I'm talking
about some examples of your own over evaluation.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Sure, yeah, I mean I wrote a whole book about
my own social anxiety, and so that is over evaluating
my social performance that if I didn't do things correctly,
or if I said something wrong, I would take that personally.
So the heart of social anxiety is perfectionism.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I feel like for me, my over evaluation is honestly,
whatever situation I find myself in, I overevaluate based on
my podcast performance, based on what my finances look like,
based on being a good wife, based on being a
good teacher. It just like comes up in all these domains.
And so my big question is how do we fight this?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
That is the sixty four thousand dollars question. Those of
us with perfectionism often orient towards rules, and uncertainty drives anxiety.
Rules reduce uncertainty. Therefore rules reduce anxiety, and with over evaluation,
if we are doing things correctly, therefore we are correct.
(22:46):
So those of us with some perfectionism orient towards rules.
We kind of get the lay of the land and
try to for what are the rules so I can
follow them? Or if there are no rules, we make
up our own rules and then we follow those. So,
you know, if you've ever kind of created an exercise
program for yourself, or you've had to tackle a big
project and you've written out some kind of schedule, and
(23:06):
that's not bad. Please keep doing that. That absolutely is
very useful. But I think the problem arises when we
stick to those rules very rigidly, or when we follow
a rule sort of mindlessly that we are following sort
of someone else's generic idea of the right.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Thing or some other thing that we've invented that may
or may not be the right thing. I feel like
I do this all the time, right. I was just
I just get invited to a friend's dinner party, and
you know, I'm thinking, like I should bring something, But
in my head it turns not just into I should
bring a bottle blind.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
It's like, oh, I.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Should make a pie, and I should make a pie
with fresh blueberries, and oh my gosh, I can't just
like get a store pie cross.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I need to make it. And it's like, wait, where
did this rule?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There's no like dinner party rule that says I have
to put all this work in to do it in
this incredibly onerous way. But somehow my brain latches onto
this that like my status as a friend and a
dinner party guest kind of won't be evaluated positively unless
I like go really out of my way to do
this incredibly over the top dessert for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
No, as you were talking, I was nodding and nodding
and nodding. And I think that's because we set personally
demanding rules and standards for ourselves, because it's a way
to measure ourselves. So if we are doing hard things correctly,
especially like that's a referendum on us, that means that
we know are good enough. Essentially, So what we can
(24:26):
do there is try to turn from simply following the
rules to following our values. And I think values is
another one of those words that sort of means everything
and nothing at the same time these days, So I'll
just define that. So a value is anything that we
find important, meaningful, purposeful. It can really be anything. It
(24:50):
can be a concept like equality or hard work. It
can be things like books or the theater. It can
be activities like running, being outdoors, relationships like connecting with
your kids, being a loving partner, practices like your faith.
So literally anything can be a value, okay, And there
are four qualities that are particularly important. This is the
(25:11):
work of doctor Michael Touhigg and doctor Clarisong. And so
they say that values are continuous, so you're never done
living a value. So They're different than goals because a
goal can be checked off on a list. So, for instance,
like coming to Boston is a goal, whereas going east
(25:31):
is a value. You can always go more east. You
can always live your values, So that's one.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Two.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Values are intrinsically meaningful, so you'd care about it even
if nobody else knew. So like getting famous isn't a value.
Your values are under your control, so they're not contingent
upon anyone else, Like being respected or being loved. You
can value being respectful, you can control that or being loving,
but not contingent upon other people. And then finally, for
(26:00):
your values, and this is the most important, I think
are freely chosen. So values are never coercive or obligatory,
so you freely choose to follow them, you know, and
you're likely willing to tolerate some discomfort in order to
do so. You're willing to sacrifice your Saturday morning to
go pick up trash on the beach, you know, if
like sustainability or the environment is your value. So that's
(26:21):
a very long way of saying we can start to
turn away from did I follow the rule? To am
I being the person I want to be? Am I
living the life I want to live by following our values.
Now that's simple but not easy, and we often, especially
in perfectionism, start to try to follow our values as rules. So,
(26:46):
for example, I had a client who said, quote, through
a combination of God and my mother, I was taught
to be generous, but for her it was functioning as
a rule. She said, if a homeless person asked you
for a dollar, if somebody asked you to babysit, you
had to do it, which is the exact opposite of
the spirit of generosity. It was functioning as a rule,
(27:09):
as opposed to a freely chosen value.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
One of the strategies that came up in the book
is just like, maybe even just noticing that distinction. This
feels really like And that's kind of with the dinner
party situation. I kind of had that where I was like,
this is starting to feel like I have to and
that's already a signal that maybe I should ease up.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah, So I think the first step is simply noticing
that we feel coerced or obliged. You mentioned that I
have to or I should, you know, make a pie,
now I should make it from scratch. Yeah, that's absolutely
really common, and I think the quality of the experience
starts to shift if it is something that again you
(27:47):
can run towards what is meaningful, valued important to you,
and it will start to feel freely chosen. You might
still make the pie from scratch, but it's going to
feel different. Here I'll tell you a story about a
client I had, and he was a college student and
(28:08):
all his life had been told that he was smart.
This label was very important to him, but it also
created a lot of rules. He said, if I'm smart,
then I need to study for a long time, Like
I need to study for like like three hours before
an exam. I need to basically memorize the study guide
so that I don't ask any questions that sound stupid.
(28:31):
I can't ask you any questions that made me look foolish.
But it was really driven by this sense of Okay,
now I have to I must, I should. And it
was quite distressing to him, like these are overwhelming rules
to try to fulfill. So what I found interesting was
that as he moved towards values and for his math class,
(28:52):
decided to try to run towards the value of learning,
like he wanted to learn the material and there on
the surface, he didn't actually do anything different. He still
studied for a long time. He still studied for about
three hours, but it was because he wanted to understand,
He wanted to master this material, and he was really
(29:13):
driven by I want or like, I freely choose this
as opposed to I have to or Alsseo'm going to
lose the label of smart. So again, you might still
make the pie, but that the quality of that experience
is going to shift. You can tell when you're running
towards something that you find purposeful and meaningful.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So far, Ellen set out some pretty useful tips, ones
that I certainly plan to use to fight my own
self criticism. But how can we tackle what I've always
thought is the worst symptom of perfectionism, that it drains
the fun out of even the most enjoyable activities. How
can I stop the good stuff in life from feeling
like a chore? Well, Ellen will have the answers after
the break.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
What are some activities you find fun?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Going on a picnic maybe, or having friends over for
a game night, or working on your favorite craft project.
On the face of it, these should be enjoyable activities,
ones that give us a sense of joy. But if
you have a perfectionist streak like me, you may turn
these events into tests of your competence. Did I choose
the best color for that craft project? Did I pick
the right spot for that picnic? Well?
Speaker 1 (30:23):
My game?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
That guests like the snacks I got, well, they expect
pretzels and chips?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
What about the dips?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Perfectionists always want to go above and beyond, which means
a simple picnic is never just a simple picnic. It
has to be perfect and win admiration. A standard that
impossibly high doesn't just take work, it breeds constant worry.
It turns what's supposed to be fun into a chore.
And this, doctor Ellen Hendrickson says is the problem of
(30:49):
demand sensitivity.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
So demand sensitivity is exactly that. It's a heightened sensitivity
to perceived requests or demands. We orient to the shoulds
of life and what we should be doing. So what happens, though,
is that we turn wants into should Okay, So for me,
(31:12):
I keep a running list of books I'd like to
read or movies I'd like to see on my laptop. Okay,
but then it's part of all list and my life
is already full of lists and full of things I
have to do. And so when it comes time to
you know, sit down and turn on Netflix or the
book comes in from the library or arrives at the bookstore.
(31:34):
Now it's a task. Now it's something I have to
do because it's part of list, and that I lose
interest completely.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And that gets to something I've experienced a lot, that
kind of pernicious outcome of demand sensitivity, which is what's
called demand resistance.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yes, so demand resistance is when we feel so overloaded
with tasks or shoulds that we start to bulk, We procrastinate,
we kick the can down the road, even if it's
something we initially wanted to do, because if we only
make room for the shoulds of life life, all work
(32:09):
and no play makes anyone a resentful human. So we
might do the thing, but we do it with a
little bit of a resentment or a little bit of
passive aggression, and that can affect our relationships, you know,
especially if they're important relationships to us, like with our
partner or our workplace, and it can just make us
feel like life is this never ending, people pleasing grind.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay, So this is something I go through a lot
especially demand resistance part.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
How do we fix this?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So I do have to say, like, this is hard.
Even doctor Mallinger says, this is one of the most
difficult things to change when we're trying to pull back
on our perfectionism. So, okay, let me give you an
example from my life. So I am really bad at
keeping up with my email because I see my email
as a to do list that other people make.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Not so the biggest not ever.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of us in this
same boat. So what I've learned to do is to
try to turn towards my values. And I've found that
if I think about replying to the individual, the person
on the other end of that email address, because I
value my relationship with them, then this all freeze up.
(33:26):
It's like it's like coming the dried paint out of
a paint brush. Just everything just kind of gets freed
up and works more easily, and then I don't feel
that resistance in getting back to them. You know, it's
not some magical one eighty, but it absolutely allows me
to let go of that demand resistance and make things
(33:49):
work and get back to them.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I think it also helps just to remember there's a
reason you're doing this. Right, It's not like, for example,
in the email case, it's not just this endless list
of demands that are coming to you. But there's a
value behind it, right, you know, there was some project
that you were working on that you really cared about,
or there's a friendship that you really want to attend to,
or work colleague that you really care about. Even just
kind of reconnecting with your values. I feel like it's
(34:12):
powerful for reducing some of this resistance.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I think we can apply all that
to because okay, email something we have to do, like
we do have to do that we got to figure out, like, Okay,
how am I going to make this work? But then
when it comes to the optional things, I think we
can dare to be unproductive. For many of us, there
is a rule in our head of I should always
be doing something productive or I should always be improving myself.
(34:38):
And so I think we can dare to be unproductive
and turn towards what looks interesting. What does your mind
keep like wandering towards? And so I think if we
tap into what makes my spidy senses tingle, what do
I really want to do? That might be hard? To
(34:59):
answer at first if our want muscles are very underdeveloped.
But I think with some practice, we can tune in
to what we enjoy, what we would like to do,
what looks fun or cool or interesting, and allow ourselves
to do that rather than slog through another should.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I think this is especially important at the new year,
where we're all finding ourselves right now. This mantra of
daring to be unproductive, I feel like, is one that
a lot that I definitely am going to resonate with.
So now we get to tip number four, another one
that I have a tough time with. But you've argued
that we need to redefine failure. Explain what you mean.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Sure, So if we define failure as not meeting expectations,
if we set that far for adequate at flawless, it
means we're never allowed to not meet our very high,
personally demanding, often unrealistic expectations and ten thousand foot view.
(35:58):
If we set these again very high standards and we
inevitably don't meet them over years and decades, we rack
up a lot of failures and then we start to
feel like failures. So a rule that I set for
myself that I didn't even realize until Actually, So I
was in grad school and I was analyzing some data
(36:22):
and was just flailing and struggling by myself for honestly hours,
and when I went to go show my professor my numbers,
they were all wrong. And she looked at me and said, Ellen,
you don't have to do this yourself. And she had
articulated a rule that I didn't even realize I had.
Through that lens, I could look back and realize that,
(36:43):
you know, my over compensation is hyperindependence. And so you know,
from navigating friend to drama or like trying to move
furniture like I would do it all myself. So I
had set this high, personally demanding standard for myself. And
so if I were to ask for help, or if
I were to take advice or be vulnerable, that would
mean that I was failing. It would mean that I
(37:04):
wasn't reaching that expectation, but it wasn't working for me.
So what we can do is we can look at
is this working, is this feasible? Is this workable? And
when it's not, rather than doubling down and saying, okay,
well now I really have to do this all myself,
we can try to do something different and in this example,
(37:27):
ask for help, take advice, be vulnerable. And what that
does particularly is it sends two messages. It sends I
trust you. When we show other people some of the
mess instead of only the correct highlighted answer at the end,
it signals I trust you to see some of the
(37:49):
mess and not to judge me. It also sends the
message of we are the same, and rather than putting
ourselves in an invulnerable position of kind of having this
like coach mentee relationship or teacher student relationship, it puts
us on an equal level with the people we love
and who care about us. And so by asking for
(38:11):
help or showing some of the mess or being a
little bit vulnerable, we signal I trust you. We're the same,
and that is what brings us closer instead of what
perfectionism tells us is that we have to earn our
way into being liked by doing things well. So ironically
(38:32):
showing we are capable of doing things poorly or that
we need their help, they have something to offer us
that draws us closer as opposed to just performing as
superbly as possible.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You talked in the beginning about how this was the
book that you needed, as writing the book and engaging
with these strategies made you less perfectionist a little bit happier.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, Okay, so I would say that I
am still perfectionistic, like I still said high standards. I
still work hard, I still care deeply about the people
I work with and for, But I think I'm also
more flexible. I think about what would work here as
opposed to did I follow the rules? I think about
(39:16):
am I living the life I want to live? Am
I being the person I want to be? Rather than
simply doing the generic right thing and ironically showing some
of that mess and showing that I struggle. So telling
people about my successes and also my failures brings us
closer together. So ironically I feel more supported and connected
(39:36):
than when I was really in the grips of unhealthy perfectionism.
Can I kind of end with one closing please message? Okay,
A message I want to send to everybody who sort
of identifies who's been nodding their heads as they've been listening.
So I got an email from a potential client, somebody
who wanted to come in and do some work on perfectionism,
and so I said, cool, come on in and we
(39:58):
set up a first appointment, and then the day of
the appointment, she emailed me and canceled, and she said,
I've taken a look at my schedule and my bandwidth,
and I want to wait until I have time to
work really hard on this. I want to make sure
that I can give this the effort it deserves. And
(40:19):
what I said to her, and what I'll say to
listeners out there, is that you don't have to do
that much differently, that even being five percent less hard
on yourself, you know, ten percent kinder to yourself, or
simply trying to change your relationship to your self criticism
or that over evaluation, that's all you need to do.
(40:40):
We can still walk around with a lot of rules
in our head or with the urge to be productive
every minute of the day, but we don't have to
listen to them. And instead, if we run towards those values,
towards what's purposeful or interesting or meaningful, we might not
even do anything different. It's the mindset beneath that that
(41:02):
will have changed, and that doesn't take a lot of
effort or hard work, contrary to what perfectionism tells us.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I don't know about you, but I love that message.
As a perfectionist, it's important.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
To remember that the good stuff in life doesn't have
to be a hard slog, and Ellen thinks the first
step can be easy. We can just start right this
moment by questioning the demanding voice in our heads. If
it says we're not enough, we can fight back and
say I am. During our interview, Ellen admitted that she
still struggles with perfectionism from time to time, and that
her residual self criticism was bound to torment her after
(41:35):
our interview, making her feel like she'd messed up or
said the wrong things during our chat.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
So I decided to call her up and check in.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Hello, Hey, Ellen, it's LORI calling Hi.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Thank you for following up.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
You know, yesterday in our interview, you mentioned this idea
that sometimes you beat yourself up after interviews, or that
you might need an emergency gin and tonic. So I
just wanted to check how is the perfectionism going today?
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah. So the short answer is I did not beat
myself up.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yay yay.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
So yeah, I'm delighted to report that. The long answer
is that, you know, I did have some thoughts, So
I did think like, oh, I revealed too much. I thought, oh,
that could have been more polished. But I am having
to report that the thoughts didn't hurt in the way
that the phrase beating myself up. So yeah, and I
(42:28):
think i've this has happened often enough to note that
it's just part of the script. It's just the order
in which things happen. So for me, it's you know, like,
do interview, I think it sucks, realize it actually didn't,
or if it does, you know, learn from it, do
it again. It's kind of like when you go to
a restaurant, there's a script. There's just what happens. You
(42:48):
look at the venu, you order, you get your food,
you eat, you pay, you leave. So you know, for me,
that's the script for an interview. But for other people,
those self critical thoughts might automatically come after an exam,
like oh I probably failed, or after a party where
we kind of review the low lights and kick ourselves,
(43:08):
or maybe after a work presentation. It's just but it's
it's just the script playing out. It doesn't mean that
next time we have to work harder, or that we
have to reassure ourselves that we're actually talented, or that
people like us. We can just let it play out like, Oh,
there's that thing my brain does.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Oh I love this.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
This makes me feel so much more encouraged to start
using some of your strategies myself. So we can flip
the script on the script as it were.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Oh, I'm so glad.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Thanks so much, Ellen, it was really great to connect again.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Great to connect with you. Thanks for following up. Thanks, thanks,
bye bye.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
So there you have it.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Ellen's effective tips on how to feel like you're enough
to recap. They include tip number one. Talk back to
your self criticism. Remember that you can control that mean
voice in your head. Tip number two. You've got to
overcome over evaluation. Remember that your worth is just not
contingent on your performance. Tip number three stop turning fun
(44:06):
into a chore. Combat your demand sense activity and get
back to the fun parts of life. Tip number four
redefine what you mean by failure. You can make the
switch from an exam mindset to an experiment mindset.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
And tip number five.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
When it comes to fighting perfectionism, baby steps are the
way to go. In the next episode of our how
To season, we'll be switching gears. We'll explore some ways
to put our goals and problems in perspective, and we'll
learn the benefits of realizing that you're not the center.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
That's right, we're going to learn how to get over
ourselves all that next time on
Speaker 1 (44:40):
The Happiness Lab with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The new year is a great time to take a
look at what's not serving you. And if I had
to pick one trait that's definitely not been serving me,
it's my perfectionism. I tend to beat myself up a lot.
I'm terrified to try things that I might not be
good at, and even small mess ups make me feel
like I'm sort of.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
A bad person.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So in this next episode of our how To season,
I'm bringing you a timely guide for fighting that kind
of self criticism but what I like to call how
to feel like You're enough. And picking an expert for
this episode was easy. Doctor Ellen Hendrickson is a clinical
psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders.
Like me, Ellen is a recovering perfectionist. She's also the
(00:58):
author of a fabulous book that I strongly recommend. It's
called How to Be Enough Self Acceptance for self critics
and perfectionists.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I mean, there's a saying for self help book authors,
and that is write the book you need. So I
partially wrote the book for me, but you know, certainly
there's also an external reason I wrote the book, which
is because I think there is sort of a silent
epidemic of perfectionism happening. And I've noticed that perfectionism is
(01:28):
a bit of a misnomer. It's not about striving to
be perfect. No one ever comes into the anxiety specialty
clinic where I work and says, Ellen, I strive for perfection.
I need help, I'm a perfectionist. Instead, people come in
and say, I feel like I'm always failing. I have
so much on my plate and I'm not doing anything well.
(01:51):
I'm falling behind. I should be so much further ahead
than where I am now in life, or they just
have sort of a sense of dissatisfaction with their lives.
So it's not about striving for perfection, it's about never
feeling good enough.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
And was that the kind of thing that manifested in
your own life when you thought about perfectionism?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
For sure? Yeah, I think well so. Ironically, before I
started writing the book, I burned out. I had been
grinding for so long that for me, burntout manifested mostly physically,
so I developed a gi illness. I woke up one
morning and I couldn't turn my head to the right.
My muscles were so tight. I blew out my forearm
(02:31):
from typing too much. So I've been through like five
rounds of physical therapy. So for me, it was mostly physical,
but it can absolutely manifest in terms of relationships. So
luckily my marriage was fine, was okay. But I realized
that I again had been grinding for a long time
and looked up and realized I hadn't talked to a
lot of my friends for a long time. For other folks, again,
(02:52):
it can manifest more cognitively, more emotionally, that sense of
dissatisfaction with their lives or all those phrases I mentioned before.
But it definitely ground me to a halt, which apparently
is pretty common. For most folks. As they age, they mellow,
but for people with perfectionism, something else happens, and that's
(03:13):
the wheels start to come off, that we become less
diligent and start to burn out. And so I think
it's really common, especially at midlife or in mid career,
for all of this to come to a head. I
found one paper in my research writing the book. I'll
paraphrase the title, but it essentially said, perfectionist at twenty,
burnout at forty.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
It's like you're speaking my language.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It's actually really I feel like I have never been
as kind of called out or felt that any were on.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
The same journey.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I mean, I'm curious if you went through the same
thing I feel like I've gone through where kind of
the normal enjoyment I've had of things has sort of
changed over time, Like because of my perfectionism.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Is that something you experienced as well?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It's confusing, right, Like it's everybody's favorite weakness in a
job interview, Oh, what's your biggest weakness?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
On?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Such a perfectionist? And it absolutely can be good and
healthy and adaptive. There are some researchers who would disagree
with me on that, but there are some who'd absolutely
agree that there can be healthy perfectionism. And that is
when it's grounded in striving for excellence. We do good
work for the work's sake. We have high standards, we
(04:21):
care deeply. It all comes from a good place, you know.
In fact, the healthy heart of perfectionism is a personality
trait called conscientiousness. That is the least sexy superpower, you know,
like we fulfill our responsibilities in a single bound. But
it's been found to be, in terms of personality, the
biggest predictor for a good life so it predicts objective
(04:45):
quote unquote success like income, and subjective success like life satisfaction,
and appropriate to our conversation, happiness. So as far as
a personality trait, it's the one to pick. But it
can absolutely tip over into unhealthy perfectionism. I think of
perfectionism as sort of like one of those optical illusions
that if you look at it one way, you see
(05:06):
one thing and like the bunny or the duck, or
the young lady or the old lady. So if you
look at it a different way, it can definitely tip
over into unhealthy perfectionism. And that's when instead of striving
for excellence, instead of trying to do excellent work for
the work's sake, we start to fall into something called
over evaluation, which is when we conflate ourselves and our performance.
(05:31):
So we have to perform as superbly as possible to
be sufficient as a person. Forgive my grammar, but it's
when I did good equals I am good, And that's
the heart of unhealthy perfectionism.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
It also seems like this unhealthy perfectionism is getting worse.
Our culture is kind of making it worse. Talk about
some of the things that right now in the modern
day can make perfectionism in generally by overevaluation as well,
kind of even more insidious.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Oh for sure. Yeah. No, I was actually really surprised
about this because I've always thought of perfectionism as sort
of a personality profile, like I think of, you know,
the Serena Williams and Steve Jobs and Hermione Grangers and
Nile Cranes of the world. I thought it was something
that we were, and it is. It comes from our genetics,
it's charitable, it definitely comes from our families of origin.
But every human reacts to the situations we're put in.
(06:19):
So when we're put into what the researcher doctor Andrew
Hill calls a perfectionistic climate, of course we're going to
react expecting others to be hard on us, being hard
on ourselves, maybe we're hard on others. So some of
the factors that feed into that are simply capitalism, consumerism,
advertising and social media definitely throws a match on that pile.
(06:43):
And so when we are in a culture that pushes
us to perform and consume to ever higher levels, of
course we're going to respond with perfectionism, with thinking we
have to again perform as superbly as possible to be
sufficient as a person.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
And you've also argued that in the context of these cultures,
we might want to think about perfectionism as a social problem.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
What do you mean there, Yeah, I think when I
say social problem, we usually think of perfectionism as a
personal problem, and it's actually an interpersonal problem because when
I'll come back to the definition, I think thinking we
have to perform as superbly as possible to be sufficient
as a person, we also think we have to perform
as superbly as possible so people like us, so that
(07:27):
we are part of a group, so that we belong.
It's fundamental to all of us as human beings to
need community and belonging. But perfectionism tells us a lie
and that we have to burn our way into that
by doing things well.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So, as you talk about it now, perfectionism seems really bad,
But your book claims that there's a way that we
can be conscientious about our performance without all the dark sides.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
What is adaptive perfectionism.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, Adaptive perfectionism is when we strive for excellence, we
do the work for the work's sake, we keep our
high standards. I think that imperfection is having a moment
in the zeitgeist culture, and that's awesome, that's amazing. However,
I think that some of the advice that has come
(08:14):
out of that is a little bit misguided. So I
have definitely been told Ellen, you need to stop when
things are good enough, or you need to lower your standards,
and that goes off with me and with anyone else
who's familiar with perfectionism about as well as telling us
to pull out our toenails, because if we are sort
(08:35):
of overidentified with our work or our performance, we can
over identify with anything with our reflection in the mirror,
the number on the scale, you know, whether we stuck
to our healthy eating plan that day, our social behavior,
our parenting. But if this is something that we're sort
of overidentified with, telling us to settle for mediocre or
(08:56):
subpar performance tells us that we're mediocre or subpar. So
what I like to do is to try to work
with clients and certainly within myself, to not evaluate my
performance so much as all or nothing, which is definitely
one of the things that we do in perfectionism, but
instead try to evaluate it as both. And I'll tell
(09:19):
you a story to illustrate so I had a client
that will call Julie. She was a pediatrician and was
a very good one by all reports. She'd been doing
this for twenty five years. One day she came into
session and was just like lamp basting herself because she
had misdiagnosed a patient that week. So, a little girl
had come in with abdominal pain and Julie had sent
(09:42):
the family home saying it was constipation. Turned out to
be appendicitis. The little girl ended up going to the
emergency room. She was fine, but Julie came into session
and was saying things like I am a bad doctor.
Maybe I should retire now and get out before I
hurt someone. She was really really hard on herself, and
what she was doing is when we evaluate ourselves as
all or nothing, one mistake shunts us from all I'm
(10:04):
a good doctor to nothing, I'm a bad doctor. And
so what we tried to do was, rather than have
her set the bar for adequate at flawless, no mistakes,
no misdiagnoses, ever, and if you ever stumble or struggle
or make a mistake, that shuns us into nothing, to
(10:24):
think about it as I'm a good doctor who sometimes
makes a misdiagnosis, and we can do this in any
area of life. I'm a good student who sometimes fails
a test. I am a diligent person who sometimes throws
in the towel. I'm a healthy person who sometimes eats
a jar of marshmallow fluff. We can do this and
retain our sense of ourselves as good people and create
(10:47):
some much needed wiggle room for the inevitable mistakes and
duers of life, because we are human.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
If you listen to the first episode in this how
Too series, you know the season is all about finding
practical tips for handling life's problems.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So when we get back.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
From the break, we'll hear Ellen's first hack for taming
our perfectionist tendencies. The Happiness Lab will be right back.
Doctor Ellen Hendrickson supports a whole host of struggling perfectionists
who visit her clinic, but she's also working to heal herself.
As a recovering perfectionist, Ellen has found that the first
(11:24):
step to fighting self criticism is to examine her harsh
inner monologue.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
We focus on flaws and details, so we are the
ones to see the crumbs on the otherwise clean counter
that nobody else sees. We scan the audience and we
find the one frowning face in the sea of smiles,
then we self criticize. You know, if we look for it,
we'll find it. So if we look for the mistake,
or we look for the flaw, and we take that
really personally because of overevaluation, then the self criticism manifests
(11:52):
as harsh and personal. So it could be over name calling,
like oh, I'm such an idiot, Oh how could I
be so stupid? It could be rhetorical questions why can't
I do this? Oh my gosh, why did I say
it that way? Or it could not even really be
conscious words at all. It could just be sort of
this underlying rumbling of dissatisfaction or never feeling right about
(12:17):
our lives. Harsh and personal.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So why are we so self critical? It seems like
we're not like terribly masochistic. It seems like we have
this theory that it seems to work.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Yeah, absolutely, so we can be self critical for lots
and lots of reasons. It all boils down to we
think it works. We think that if we criticize ourselves harshly,
that we might never make that mistake again. Or we
might criticize ourselves before others can remember perfectionism is interpersonal,
(12:48):
so ironically we might criticize ourselves to be beyond reproach.
And in the book, there's a runner in China who
goes by the name of Uncle Chen, and he went
viral a few years ago for running a series of
marathons while chain smoking, and he says that having something
in his mouth helps him and that it gives him energy,
(13:12):
So that might be true. He does pretty well too,
like he might run sub three thirty marathons because he's
chain smoking. But I would hazard to guess that the
cigarettes are stealing the credit for his good performance, his
hard work, his training. And I think the same thing
happens with self criticism, that it steals the credit for
(13:34):
everything else we do so well setting those high standards,
caring deeply about people being diligent, and that it brings
up a lot of emotion when we think about letting
it go or letting it be, because we worry what
will happen without it.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
It's taken that credit, But what does the data really show?
Do we need that self criticism to do well?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Well? So ironically it shows that we do better without it.
The difference between for example, like healthy exercise and perfectionistic
exercise where we get a little obsessive might exercise even
if we're exhausted or injured. The difference between the those
two things is self criticism. So it really is the
thing again that steals the credit and ironically lowers our
(14:17):
performance as opposed to letting us reach our full potential.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
So that's tip number one. We need to figure out
ways to quit the self criticism. But how do we
do that? I have two tips for you.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Okay. I learned to exercise self compassion to talk to
myself like a good friend, okay, which absolutely might work
for a lot of people, but I think for a
perfectionistic brain that means we think we have to come
up with fully formed, effective paragraphs of like self compassionate
(14:48):
hype and talk to ourselves like a self compassion speech writer.
And certainly that's a high bar. You know, I can't
do that. And so for folks that resonate with perfectionism,
I'd like to say that, yes, self compassion can definitely
be words, but it can also be much simpler words.
It could be one word like easy, or it's okay
(15:11):
or kindness. But more than that, I think because those
fundamentally talking to ourselves is thoughts, right, and we can't
control our thoughts, So for example, like don't think about
a cheeseburger floating above my head. You know, we can't
control our thoughts, but what we can control is our actions.
So even if we're talking to ourselves in a self
(15:33):
critical way, we can treat ourselves in a self compassionate way.
That might mean giving ourselves time to drink our coffee
in the morning. It could be taking a few extra
minutes to stand under the warm spray of the shower
on a cold morning. It could be going to the
gym because we know from experience that that makes us
feel better. Or and I think this is really important,
(15:56):
it might mean skipping the gym because that's not what
we need right now, and that would make us either
more exhausted or crunch our schedule even more. For folks
with some perfectionism, I think the biggest self compassionate act
can be giving ourselves permission not to do all that
we expect of ourselves. And there we don't have to
(16:16):
change anything, right.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Beautiful man, you can just kind of takes some stuff
off our mental plate. Yeah, actually exact jimate plate. Right.
You also recommend that other strategies that can kind of
help us move these kind of nasty thoughts around. And
one of the ones you suggest in the book that
I love is this idea of cognitive diffusion. What is
that and what are some strategies we can use to Yeah? No,
I love cognitive diffusion.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
So this comes from an orientation of therapy called acceptance
and Commitment therapy or ACT, and this was developed by
Steve hay doctor Steve Hayes back in the eighties and
colleagues and in a Nutshelle. Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy tells
us to change our thoughts and our actions in order
to affect how we feel. ACT tells us to change
(17:01):
our relationship to our thoughts and emotions that allows us
to move forward into values based action. Okay, So an
example of cognitive diffusions is simply putting some space between
us and our thought and realizing, oh, this is a thought,
this is something that is coming from you know, my
(17:22):
own mind. It is not truth, it is not what's
going to happen. And so, you know, as conscientious people,
we take things quite seriously, and that includes our own
thoughts and emotions. So you know, if we think like,
oh my gosh, that was so stupid, we often take
that thought really seriously. And so cognitive diffusion defuses that power,
(17:45):
and it gives us some space and some perspective to
look at our thoughts with some distance, okay, And to
do that, we can play with the thoughts. So often
our self critical thoughts kind of just like come at
us and you know, smack us out of nowhere, and
that puts us in a very low power position. So
what we can do is without making the thoughts go away,
(18:08):
we can to them and play with them. So, for instance,
I had a client whose thought was I'm gonna let
everyone down, and she decided to play with this thought
by picturing it on a coffee mug, and she would
metaphorically take a little sip from this mug whenever she
thought that thought. She would also sing it to herself,
like while she was washing dishes or otherwise alone. We
(18:31):
can picture our thoughts skywritten behind a plane. We can
picture it as the Star Wars font, you know, like
doing the crawl. Yes, exaggerate exactly, And so our thoughts
could be words, so we can you know, we could
picture it embroidered on a pillow, et cetera. But our
thoughts also might be like a movie in our mind
or an image. It could be an image of our
(18:53):
boss bargaining into our office and firing us. And what
we can do there is we can We can also
play with that thought. We could put a clown nose
on our boss. We could add a seventies soundtrack. We
could have balloons come down from the ceiling. The thought
itself doesn't go away, it's still there, but we are
now exerting some power over it to emphasize that this
(19:15):
is a thought, it's not actually what's happening to us
right now.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I love the strategy so much because sometimes in you
know these CBT circles where it's like, well, just control
your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Like, my thoughts are really strong.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
I don't know about the people's thoughts but mine.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
So the idea of like you allow the thought, but
you just make it a little kooky, looking a little stupid,
It could be a really powerful strategy for recognizing like, oh,
these things don't have as much hold over me as
I thought.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Right, absolutely, Okay, here I'll tell you another story. So,
when I was promoting my first book. I was lucky
enough to be on another national podcast, took the train
down to New York, recorded in a studio, and made
a reasonable number of mistakes, like said a few things.
I was like, ah, that didn't come off the way
(20:00):
I wanted it to. But my brain, because it's my brain. Afterwards,
you know, it started going like my you know, are
are hard, are designed to beat our sweat glands are
designed to perspire. A self critical brain is going to
make self critical thoughts, and so it just started up
and it said, ah, why did you say it that way?
You missed that opportunity. This was not good.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
At the time, I really believed it, to the point
where my poor editor who came with me had to
steer me into the nearest bar and buy me a
Gin and tonic. But since then I have learned that
that's just what happens after my brain does anything with
a microphone. And so honestly, after I leave here recording
(20:44):
us together, probably my brain will do the same thing.
It'll say, oh, I totally forgot that point. That was
so dumb, or oh my goodness, why did I phrase
it that way? This was not good. But thankfully I've
learned that I can attend to my thoughts sort of
like I would attend to the music at a coffee shop,
or like the musaic at a grocery store. It's still there.
(21:05):
I can hear it in the background. I don't have
to listen to it, like I'm not dancing along. So again,
it's there, but it's not the truth. It's just what happens.
It's just how my brain is wired, and of course
that's what's going to happen. But I don't have to
let it yank me around.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Maybe safer and cheaper than the Gin and Tonics after
its right.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
So that's tip number one.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We need to fight our self critical voices or allow
them in kookiar ways. Tip number two is one that's harder,
especially for me. We need to find ways to overcome
over evaluation, which we talked about a little bit before,
this idea that I am what I do, And this
is something that you've struggled with as well. I'm talking
about some examples of your own over evaluation.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Sure, yeah, I mean I wrote a whole book about
my own social anxiety, and so that is over evaluating
my social performance that if I didn't do things correctly,
or if I said something wrong, I would take that personally.
So the heart of social anxiety is perfectionism.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, I feel like for me, my over evaluation is honestly,
whatever situation I find myself in, I overevaluate based on
my podcast performance, based on what my finances look like,
based on being a good wife, based on being a
good teacher. It just like comes up in all these domains.
And so my big question is how do we fight this?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
That is the sixty four thousand dollars question. Those of
us with perfectionism often orient towards rules, and uncertainty drives anxiety.
Rules reduce uncertainty. Therefore rules reduce anxiety, and with over evaluation,
if we are doing things correctly, therefore we are correct.
(22:46):
So those of us with some perfectionism orient towards rules.
We kind of get the lay of the land and
try to for what are the rules so I can
follow them? Or if there are no rules, we make
up our own rules and then we follow those. So,
you know, if you've ever kind of created an exercise
program for yourself, or you've had to tackle a big
project and you've written out some kind of schedule, and
(23:06):
that's not bad. Please keep doing that. That absolutely is
very useful. But I think the problem arises when we
stick to those rules very rigidly, or when we follow
a rule sort of mindlessly that we are following sort
of someone else's generic idea of the right.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Thing or some other thing that we've invented that may
or may not be the right thing. I feel like
I do this all the time, right. I was just
I just get invited to a friend's dinner party, and
you know, I'm thinking, like I should bring something, But
in my head it turns not just into I should
bring a bottle blind.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
It's like, oh, I.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Should make a pie, and I should make a pie
with fresh blueberries, and oh my gosh, I can't just
like get a store pie cross.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I need to make it. And it's like, wait, where
did this rule?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There's no like dinner party rule that says I have
to put all this work in to do it in
this incredibly onerous way. But somehow my brain latches onto
this that like my status as a friend and a
dinner party guest kind of won't be evaluated positively unless
I like go really out of my way to do
this incredibly over the top dessert for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
No, as you were talking, I was nodding and nodding
and nodding. And I think that's because we set personally
demanding rules and standards for ourselves, because it's a way
to measure ourselves. So if we are doing hard things correctly,
especially like that's a referendum on us, that means that
we know are good enough. Essentially, So what we can
(24:26):
do there is try to turn from simply following the
rules to following our values. And I think values is
another one of those words that sort of means everything
and nothing at the same time these days, So I'll
just define that. So a value is anything that we
find important, meaningful, purposeful. It can really be anything. It
(24:50):
can be a concept like equality or hard work. It
can be things like books or the theater. It can
be activities like running, being outdoors, relationships like connecting with
your kids, being a loving partner, practices like your faith.
So literally anything can be a value, okay, And there
are four qualities that are particularly important. This is the
(25:11):
work of doctor Michael Touhigg and doctor Clarisong. And so
they say that values are continuous, so you're never done
living a value. So They're different than goals because a
goal can be checked off on a list. So, for instance,
like coming to Boston is a goal, whereas going east
(25:31):
is a value. You can always go more east. You
can always live your values, So that's one.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Two.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
Values are intrinsically meaningful, so you'd care about it even
if nobody else knew. So like getting famous isn't a value.
Your values are under your control, so they're not contingent
upon anyone else, Like being respected or being loved. You
can value being respectful, you can control that or being loving,
but not contingent upon other people. And then finally, for
(26:00):
your values, and this is the most important, I think
are freely chosen. So values are never coercive or obligatory,
so you freely choose to follow them, you know, and
you're likely willing to tolerate some discomfort in order to
do so. You're willing to sacrifice your Saturday morning to
go pick up trash on the beach, you know, if
like sustainability or the environment is your value. So that's
(26:21):
a very long way of saying we can start to
turn away from did I follow the rule? To am
I being the person I want to be? Am I
living the life I want to live by following our values.
Now that's simple but not easy, and we often, especially
in perfectionism, start to try to follow our values as rules. So,
(26:46):
for example, I had a client who said, quote, through
a combination of God and my mother, I was taught
to be generous, but for her it was functioning as
a rule. She said, if a homeless person asked you
for a dollar, if somebody asked you to babysit, you
had to do it, which is the exact opposite of
the spirit of generosity. It was functioning as a rule,
(27:09):
as opposed to a freely chosen value.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
One of the strategies that came up in the book
is just like, maybe even just noticing that distinction. This
feels really like And that's kind of with the dinner
party situation. I kind of had that where I was like,
this is starting to feel like I have to and
that's already a signal that maybe I should ease up.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Yeah, So I think the first step is simply noticing
that we feel coerced or obliged. You mentioned that I
have to or I should, you know, make a pie,
now I should make it from scratch. Yeah, that's absolutely
really common, and I think the quality of the experience
starts to shift if it is something that again you
(27:47):
can run towards what is meaningful, valued important to you,
and it will start to feel freely chosen. You might
still make the pie from scratch, but it's going to
feel different. Here I'll tell you a story about a
client I had, and he was a college student and
(28:08):
all his life had been told that he was smart.
This label was very important to him, but it also
created a lot of rules. He said, if I'm smart,
then I need to study for a long time, Like
I need to study for like like three hours before
an exam. I need to basically memorize the study guide
so that I don't ask any questions that sound stupid.
(28:31):
I can't ask you any questions that made me look foolish.
But it was really driven by this sense of Okay,
now I have to I must, I should. And it
was quite distressing to him, like these are overwhelming rules
to try to fulfill. So what I found interesting was
that as he moved towards values and for his math class,
(28:52):
decided to try to run towards the value of learning,
like he wanted to learn the material and there on
the surface, he didn't actually do anything different. He still
studied for a long time. He still studied for about
three hours, but it was because he wanted to understand,
He wanted to master this material, and he was really
(29:13):
driven by I want or like, I freely choose this
as opposed to I have to or Alsseo'm going to
lose the label of smart. So again, you might still
make the pie, but that the quality of that experience
is going to shift. You can tell when you're running
towards something that you find purposeful and meaningful.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So far, Ellen set out some pretty useful tips, ones
that I certainly plan to use to fight my own
self criticism. But how can we tackle what I've always
thought is the worst symptom of perfectionism, that it drains
the fun out of even the most enjoyable activities. How
can I stop the good stuff in life from feeling
like a chore? Well, Ellen will have the answers after
the break.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
What are some activities you find fun?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Going on a picnic maybe, or having friends over for
a game night, or working on your favorite craft project.
On the face of it, these should be enjoyable activities,
ones that give us a sense of joy. But if
you have a perfectionist streak like me, you may turn
these events into tests of your competence. Did I choose
the best color for that craft project? Did I pick
the right spot for that picnic? Well?
Speaker 1 (30:23):
My game?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
That guests like the snacks I got, well, they expect
pretzels and chips?
Speaker 1 (30:27):
What about the dips?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Perfectionists always want to go above and beyond, which means
a simple picnic is never just a simple picnic. It
has to be perfect and win admiration. A standard that
impossibly high doesn't just take work, it breeds constant worry.
It turns what's supposed to be fun into a chore.
And this, doctor Ellen Hendrickson says is the problem of
(30:49):
demand sensitivity.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
So demand sensitivity is exactly that. It's a heightened sensitivity
to perceived requests or demands. We orient to the shoulds
of life and what we should be doing. So what happens, though,
is that we turn wants into should Okay, So for me,
(31:12):
I keep a running list of books I'd like to
read or movies I'd like to see on my laptop. Okay,
but then it's part of all list and my life
is already full of lists and full of things I
have to do. And so when it comes time to
you know, sit down and turn on Netflix or the
book comes in from the library or arrives at the bookstore.
(31:34):
Now it's a task. Now it's something I have to
do because it's part of list, and that I lose
interest completely.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
And that gets to something I've experienced a lot, that
kind of pernicious outcome of demand sensitivity, which is what's
called demand resistance.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yes, so demand resistance is when we feel so overloaded
with tasks or shoulds that we start to bulk, We procrastinate,
we kick the can down the road, even if it's
something we initially wanted to do, because if we only
make room for the shoulds of life life, all work
(32:09):
and no play makes anyone a resentful human. So we
might do the thing, but we do it with a
little bit of a resentment or a little bit of
passive aggression, and that can affect our relationships, you know,
especially if they're important relationships to us, like with our
partner or our workplace, and it can just make us
feel like life is this never ending, people pleasing grind.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Okay, So this is something I go through a lot
especially demand resistance part.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
How do we fix this?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
So I do have to say, like, this is hard.
Even doctor Mallinger says, this is one of the most
difficult things to change when we're trying to pull back
on our perfectionism. So, okay, let me give you an
example from my life. So I am really bad at
keeping up with my email because I see my email
as a to do list that other people make.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Not so the biggest not ever.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of us in this
same boat. So what I've learned to do is to
try to turn towards my values. And I've found that
if I think about replying to the individual, the person
on the other end of that email address, because I
value my relationship with them, then this all freeze up.
(33:26):
It's like it's like coming the dried paint out of
a paint brush. Just everything just kind of gets freed
up and works more easily, and then I don't feel
that resistance in getting back to them. You know, it's
not some magical one eighty, but it absolutely allows me
to let go of that demand resistance and make things
(33:49):
work and get back to them.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
I think it also helps just to remember there's a
reason you're doing this. Right, It's not like, for example,
in the email case, it's not just this endless list
of demands that are coming to you. But there's a
value behind it, right, you know, there was some project
that you were working on that you really cared about,
or there's a friendship that you really want to attend to,
or work colleague that you really care about. Even just
kind of reconnecting with your values. I feel like it's
(34:12):
powerful for reducing some of this resistance.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I think we can apply all that
to because okay, email something we have to do, like
we do have to do that we got to figure out, like, Okay,
how am I going to make this work? But then
when it comes to the optional things, I think we
can dare to be unproductive. For many of us, there
is a rule in our head of I should always
be doing something productive or I should always be improving myself.
(34:38):
And so I think we can dare to be unproductive
and turn towards what looks interesting. What does your mind
keep like wandering towards? And so I think if we
tap into what makes my spidy senses tingle, what do
I really want to do? That might be hard? To
(34:59):
answer at first if our want muscles are very underdeveloped.
But I think with some practice, we can tune in
to what we enjoy, what we would like to do,
what looks fun or cool or interesting, and allow ourselves
to do that rather than slog through another should.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I think this is especially important at the new year,
where we're all finding ourselves right now. This mantra of
daring to be unproductive, I feel like, is one that
a lot that I definitely am going to resonate with.
So now we get to tip number four, another one
that I have a tough time with. But you've argued
that we need to redefine failure. Explain what you mean.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Sure, So if we define failure as not meeting expectations,
if we set that far for adequate at flawless, it
means we're never allowed to not meet our very high,
personally demanding, often unrealistic expectations and ten thousand foot view.
(35:58):
If we set these again very high standards and we
inevitably don't meet them over years and decades, we rack
up a lot of failures and then we start to
feel like failures. So a rule that I set for
myself that I didn't even realize until Actually, So I
was in grad school and I was analyzing some data
(36:22):
and was just flailing and struggling by myself for honestly hours,
and when I went to go show my professor my numbers,
they were all wrong. And she looked at me and said, Ellen,
you don't have to do this yourself. And she had
articulated a rule that I didn't even realize I had.
Through that lens, I could look back and realize that,
(36:43):
you know, my over compensation is hyperindependence. And so you know,
from navigating friend to drama or like trying to move
furniture like I would do it all myself. So I
had set this high, personally demanding standard for myself. And
so if I were to ask for help, or if
I were to take advice or be vulnerable, that would
mean that I was failing. It would mean that I
(37:04):
wasn't reaching that expectation, but it wasn't working for me.
So what we can do is we can look at
is this working, is this feasible? Is this workable? And
when it's not, rather than doubling down and saying, okay,
well now I really have to do this all myself,
we can try to do something different and in this example,
(37:27):
ask for help, take advice, be vulnerable. And what that
does particularly is it sends two messages. It sends I
trust you. When we show other people some of the
mess instead of only the correct highlighted answer at the end,
it signals I trust you to see some of the
(37:49):
mess and not to judge me. It also sends the
message of we are the same, and rather than putting
ourselves in an invulnerable position of kind of having this
like coach mentee relationship or teacher student relationship, it puts
us on an equal level with the people we love
and who care about us. And so by asking for
(38:11):
help or showing some of the mess or being a
little bit vulnerable, we signal I trust you. We're the same,
and that is what brings us closer instead of what
perfectionism tells us is that we have to earn our
way into being liked by doing things well. So ironically
(38:32):
showing we are capable of doing things poorly or that
we need their help, they have something to offer us
that draws us closer as opposed to just performing as
superbly as possible.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
You talked in the beginning about how this was the
book that you needed, as writing the book and engaging
with these strategies made you less perfectionist a little bit happier.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, Okay, so I would say that I
am still perfectionistic, like I still said high standards. I
still work hard, I still care deeply about the people
I work with and for, But I think I'm also
more flexible. I think about what would work here as
opposed to did I follow the rules? I think about
(39:16):
am I living the life I want to live? Am
I being the person I want to be? Rather than
simply doing the generic right thing and ironically showing some
of that mess and showing that I struggle. So telling
people about my successes and also my failures brings us
closer together. So ironically I feel more supported and connected
(39:36):
than when I was really in the grips of unhealthy perfectionism.
Can I kind of end with one closing please message? Okay,
A message I want to send to everybody who sort
of identifies who's been nodding their heads as they've been listening.
So I got an email from a potential client, somebody
who wanted to come in and do some work on perfectionism,
and so I said, cool, come on in and we
(39:58):
set up a first appointment, and then the day of
the appointment, she emailed me and canceled, and she said,
I've taken a look at my schedule and my bandwidth,
and I want to wait until I have time to
work really hard on this. I want to make sure
that I can give this the effort it deserves. And
(40:19):
what I said to her, and what I'll say to
listeners out there, is that you don't have to do
that much differently, that even being five percent less hard
on yourself, you know, ten percent kinder to yourself, or
simply trying to change your relationship to your self criticism
or that over evaluation, that's all you need to do.
(40:40):
We can still walk around with a lot of rules
in our head or with the urge to be productive
every minute of the day, but we don't have to
listen to them. And instead, if we run towards those values,
towards what's purposeful or interesting or meaningful, we might not
even do anything different. It's the mindset beneath that that
(41:02):
will have changed, and that doesn't take a lot of
effort or hard work, contrary to what perfectionism tells us.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
I don't know about you, but I love that message.
As a perfectionist, it's important.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
To remember that the good stuff in life doesn't have
to be a hard slog, and Ellen thinks the first
step can be easy. We can just start right this
moment by questioning the demanding voice in our heads. If
it says we're not enough, we can fight back and
say I am. During our interview, Ellen admitted that she
still struggles with perfectionism from time to time, and that
her residual self criticism was bound to torment her after
(41:35):
our interview, making her feel like she'd messed up or
said the wrong things during our chat.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
So I decided to call her up and check in.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Hello, Hey, Ellen, it's LORI calling Hi.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Thank you for following up.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
You know, yesterday in our interview, you mentioned this idea
that sometimes you beat yourself up after interviews, or that
you might need an emergency gin and tonic. So I
just wanted to check how is the perfectionism going today?
Speaker 3 (42:01):
Yeah. So the short answer is I did not beat
myself up.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yay yay.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
So yeah, I'm delighted to report that. The long answer
is that, you know, I did have some thoughts, So
I did think like, oh, I revealed too much. I thought, oh,
that could have been more polished. But I am having
to report that the thoughts didn't hurt in the way
that the phrase beating myself up. So yeah, and I
(42:28):
think i've this has happened often enough to note that
it's just part of the script. It's just the order
in which things happen. So for me, it's you know, like,
do interview, I think it sucks, realize it actually didn't,
or if it does, you know, learn from it, do
it again. It's kind of like when you go to
a restaurant, there's a script. There's just what happens. You
(42:48):
look at the venu, you order, you get your food,
you eat, you pay, you leave. So you know, for me,
that's the script for an interview. But for other people,
those self critical thoughts might automatically come after an exam,
like oh I probably failed, or after a party where
we kind of review the low lights and kick ourselves,
(43:08):
or maybe after a work presentation. It's just but it's
it's just the script playing out. It doesn't mean that
next time we have to work harder, or that we
have to reassure ourselves that we're actually talented, or that
people like us. We can just let it play out like, Oh,
there's that thing my brain does.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Oh I love this.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
This makes me feel so much more encouraged to start
using some of your strategies myself. So we can flip
the script on the script as it were.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Oh, I'm so glad.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Thanks so much, Ellen, it was really great to connect again.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Great to connect with you. Thanks for following up. Thanks, thanks,
bye bye.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
So there you have it.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Ellen's effective tips on how to feel like you're enough
to recap. They include tip number one. Talk back to
your self criticism. Remember that you can control that mean
voice in your head. Tip number two. You've got to
overcome over evaluation. Remember that your worth is just not
contingent on your performance. Tip number three stop turning fun
(44:06):
into a chore. Combat your demand sense activity and get
back to the fun parts of life. Tip number four
redefine what you mean by failure. You can make the
switch from an exam mindset to an experiment mindset.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
And tip number five.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
When it comes to fighting perfectionism, baby steps are the
way to go. In the next episode of our how
To season, we'll be switching gears. We'll explore some ways
to put our goals and problems in perspective, and we'll
learn the benefits of realizing that you're not the center.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
That's right, we're going to learn how to get over
ourselves all that next time on
Speaker 1 (44:40):
The Happiness Lab with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,
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