perfectionism, perfectionist, dealing with perfectionism, overcoming perfectionism, perfectionism books, gifted adult information, gifted adult personality

"He is a relentless perfectionist who never allows a single detail to go by without notice. [Jerry Bruckheimer] is a consummate filmmaker.. because you know that you are always going to get 120% from Jerry on anything that he does.  "I don't think it is any great mystery that he has been so successful: He works harder than anybody else."      Walt Disney Studios chairman Richard Cook. [from Jerry Bruckheimer masters the universe - by Stephen Galloway, Hollywood Reporter, Nov. 17, 2003]

I think I've done okay. I take responsibility for my successes as well as my failures. But when I look at my professional mistakes, I'm always left with the feeling that maybe I should have done more.  These are my private musings. I'm such a perfectionist. I always feel overpraised or whatever.  In the abstract, I know I'm a good person, a good professional. But it's nice to be noticed a little bit, ain't it?  Jack Nicholson... [Esquire, Jan 2004]

When I'm in the studio working, I reach a point at which I know I could stop -- that the painting is fine as it is -- but I feel that there's something else I want, something more, and I keep pushing, bringing the painting to another place.  I scrape off what I have and try something else. That act of pushing myself to make a change -- even though maybe what I have there is okay -- that, for me, is excellence.  It's pushing yourself further than you think you can go. Elizabeth Murray... [ O, The Oprah Mag., Dec 2003] - among other acclaims, she has received a MacArthur Foundation Award

.. .. One of the oldest ideas in cognitive psychology is that people use a set of expectations, called a schema, to interpret their experiences. ...  Some psychotherapists now apply the schema concept to destructive patterns of behavior. According to psychotherapist Tara Bennett-Goleman, M. A., author of Emotional Alchemy, most of these schemas involve fear -- of abandonment, betrayal, rejection, and so on.

Unrealistic expectations distort our perceptions of ourselves and our environments so that we deal with illusion rather than reality, leading to unhappiness.  One of Bennett-Goleman's clients, for example, had such unrealistically high standards that she saw only her failures and consistently overlooked any successes she had. Bennett-Goleman discusses how such inappropriate schemas work against people, and how adopting a more realistic schema is helpful. from book review by Paul Chance,  Psychology Today, Jan, 2001 Emotional Alchemy :  How the Mind Can Heal the Heart

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One of the biggest challenges gifted children face is that people expect them to be emotionally mature or able to do things beyond their years, because they are bright intellectually.  Many of us internalize this and it returns to haunt us in our adult lives. All grown up now, we think it is okay and natural that people expect us to be superhuman.  One of the most common traits shared by highly gifted people is "perfectionism."  Like most basic human drives, it has the potential to be either good or bad. Nobody ever achieved excellence without a tendency toward perfectionism.  But if the perfectionism hinders, rather than helps, it crosses over the line. The real measure of helpful vs. harmful perfectionism is whether it leads to life satisfaction or not. ...

.. .. No one becomes a star athlete, Nobel Prize winner, or feels the satisfaction of achieving personal dreams without a good strong dose of perfectionism. Dr. Jean K. Becker, Chairman, American Mensa in Mensa Bulletin, Oct 2003 Oscar image from oscar.com

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Trying to be perfect may be sort of inevitable for people like us, who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world and in its good opinion. But at one level it's too hard, and at another, it's too cheap and easy. Because it really requires you mainly to read the zeitgeist of wherever and whenever you happen to be, and to assume the masks necessary to be the best of whatever the zeitgeist dictates or requires. Those requirements shapeshift, sure, but when you're clever you can read them and do the imitation required. But nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great ever came out of imitations. The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. Anna Quindlen - from her Commencement Speech, Mount Holyoke College, 1999 > book: Being Perfect - by Anna Quindlen

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[Are you a perfectionist, or is that just the perception the world has of you?]  "I'm a maniacal perfectionist. And if I weren't, I wouldn't have this company. .. It's the best rap! Nobody's going to fault me for that. I have proven that being a perfectionist can be profitable and admirable when creating content across the board: in television, books, newspapers, radio, videos. .. All that content is impeccable." Martha Stewart  [O Magazine interview, Sept.2000] ***Martha Inc.: The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia by Christopher M. Byron

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.. .. The hallmark of emotional intelligence is self- awareness. This means being aware of your feelings, how you act, knowing you have choices, and also knowing how you affect other people. Take perfectionism, for instance. Like so many traits, it has its good points and its bad.  Also, it's required in some professions, or something close to it. If you aren't perfect about filing deadlines in the law, you can lose a case and also get disbarred.  If you don't get the right formula when you're building a bridge, millions of dollars could be lost and so could lives.  Sometimes when we have a passion, and something we've mastered, we want perfectionism, and many such people prefer to, and get to, work alone.  Picasso didn't have a committee, and Beethoven worked alone.  But in the ordinary workplace you find today, much is teamwork, and the pressure of perfectionism isn't helpful -- either for yourself or for others.

.. .. If it's hard for you to accept "good enough" because of.. "deeply ingrained beliefs" ... try some coaching.  Good enough IS GOOD ENOUGH. Perfection is difficult to acquire and costly to your health, success and relationships.  It's important to understand how you affect other people, and coaching can help with this. Perfectionists, while they're really working in their own minds, are perceived as arrogant.  Thus, when they do need help, and we all do sooner or later, it isn't forthcoming. It also leads to isolatation. You particularly need to get this tendency on a leash because it's so seductive. It's highly rewarded in some parts of the world (literally and figuratively), but perfectionists also have high suicide rates. After all, no human being is perfect. > from newsletter of Susan Dunn, M.A images : Susan Dunn ; Picasso self portrait > see Susan Dunn ebooks on page  emotional intelligence resources

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"You want it to be so right, you want to make it small, and you want it to be true." Jennifer Jason Leigh      [Premiere Feb.96]

 

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Friends of Picasso observed that he changed his original sketch     of Guernicia 67 times before he was satisfied.

 

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The greatest lesson I got from Debbie Allen is, basically, you've got to keep on going. When she gets her job done, she gets it done exactly how she wants it done, and that means more to her than just being able to survive.  If she's going to be here, she's got to do it her way. And that's how I feel. She made me see there was nothing wrong with that.    Jada Pinkett   .... [Oprah Show 8.16.00]

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'To say actor William Hurt is a perfectionist is an understatement. "He's a wonderful,
extraordinary artist but very, very difficult," admits Franco Zeffirelli, who directed Hurt
in Jane Eyre...

"You'd like to strangle him 10 times a day, but he gives you such input
and forces you to bring forth your best," he adds.'      [Calgary Sun, April 26, 1996]
 

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"We did battle with my perfectionism. Over and over [Kathy] told me, as she saw me
struggling mightily to be the best mother, the hardest-working employee and, most important,
the most devout Spiritual Person, 'We are closest to God when we are most ourselves.
Perfection is not a human quality.' She helped me see that relaxing into my true nature
was exactly the same as coming closer to God."

from article "My Spiritual Director" by Gay Norton Edelman, Spirituality and Health, Winter, 2001
 
 

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"I have no technique. I never took an acting class in my life. But I have a very curious mind.
And I'm a perfectionist."   Martha Plimpton [Allure, Jan.96]
 

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"She's very conscientious and Spartan-like about the way she approaches work.
And it bears fruit, because when most people would be inclined to stop and say,
'This is in pretty good shape,' she goes deeper.

She doesn't settle for less than extraordinary."

  Mel Gibson about costar Helen Hunt in "What Women Want" [LA Times 9.10.00]
 
 

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"My greatest challenge is believing in myself. Like so many.. I've battled
low self-esteem since childhood despite an incredibly strong mother and extremely
supportive father.

Even today, I look at everything I have accomplished and can be excited for only a brief moment,
but then I worry about not doing a good enough job... or afraid that I've messed up something or
that I should work just one more hour on top of a 14 hour day just because there is so much to do
and things won't be okay unless I get everything done."

 Aliza Sherman   [from a WITI profile]    [Sherman is founder of Cybergrrl etc; author of book Cybergrrl]
 
 

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"[Being controlling] is the hardest thing to change. Not in terms of manipulating other people,
just in terms of wanting everything to be as good as it can be. Now if something's not going
in the direction I think it should, I try to sit back and enjoy the ride."        Faye Dunaway
 

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"I've learned that it's OK to be flawed, that life can be messy, that some days you glide
and some days you fall, but most important, that there are no secret answers out there.
When you finally accept that it's OK not to have answers and it's OK not to be perfect,
you realize that feeling confused is a normal part of what it is to be a human being."

  Winona Ryder  [women.com interview]
 

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The great thing about my Oscar was when I received it, they put the nameplate on with my name crooked, and I went home and I was like, "I am going to have to take that back and have them fix it."  Then I said to myself, "This reminds me that I'm not perfect, my performance wasn't really perfect, and that I still have a lot to learn." To a lot of people, this represents perfection and it's not.  Hilary Swank[Gotham, May 2002]  -- her Academy Award was for Boys Don't Cry [dvd]

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.. .. How many of us linger forever in endless training and classes, waiting to get really good at something before we plunge a single toe into the submission/rejection pool?  How many of us don't even start our dream, because we figure we'll never get 'good enough' at it to make any difference at all? How many of us give up along the way because we'll never be the expert that so-and-so is?

Yet, here is the ironic little truth that blows all of these perceptions away. You cannot become a master until you actually take the leap, do the work, make several thousand mistakes, and live to tell about it.  Experience is truly the only thing that makes experts so expert. Suzanne Falter-Barns  - from her book:  How Much Joy Can You Stand image: Russell Crowe as Nobel Prize winning mathematician  John Nash in A Beautiful Mind

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"It hasn't changed anything about the way I feel about my own work. I'm still unsatisfied to a large degree, but I think that's a healthy thing to be as an actor." Russell Crowe - about his third nomination for an Academy Award, for his role in A Beautiful Mind [dvd]  [Reuters, Feb. 12, 2002]      image from book: A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash by Sylvia Nasar

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Do not fear mistakes, there are none. -- Miles Davis A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are theportals of discovery. -- James Joyce If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything. -- Marva Collins She had an unequaled gift. . . of squeezing big mistakes into small opportunities. -- Henry James, Jr. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. -- Herbert Prochnow The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, ifyou make enough of them, it's considered to be your style. -- Fred Astaire A computer isn't smart enough to make a mistake. -- Unknown A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful thana life spent doing nothing. -- George Bernard Shaw Make sure you generate a reasonable number of mistakes. -- Fletcher Byrom I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.- Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)   ~ ~ ~ "Some great mistake quotes"  [posted on CREATIVITY list (Discussions of General Creativity)] to subscribe - send request: SUBscribe CREATIVITY <full_name>to: LISTSERV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU

 

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"The power of mistakes enables us to reframe creative blocks and turn them around....
The troublesome parts of our work, the parts that are most baffling and frustrating,
are in fact the growing edges. We see these as opportunities the instant
we drop our preconceptions and our self-importance."

Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
 

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Pema Chödrön: For me the spiritual path has always been learning how to die. That involves
not just death at the end of this particular life, but all the falling apart that happens continually.
The fear of death-which is also the fear of groundlessness, of insecurity, of not having it all
together-seems to be the most fundamental thing that we have to work with.

Because these endings happen all the time! Things are always ending and arising and ending...
We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold on to things. Yet the true
nature of things is that you're never in control."

 [from Shambhala Sun magazine interview]

Chodron is author of Start Where You Are : A Guide to Compassionate Living
 

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---articles:
 

Addiction to Perfection - by Dr. Margaret Paul
Needing to be perfect is a form of control. The wounded, critical part of us believes that, "If I am perfect (whatever that means!) then people will like me, love me, admire me, approve of me, pay attention to me, or validate me. Then I will feel worthy...” The false belief is that if someone likes you, then you are worthy, and then you can be happy.... When you know your worth as intrinsic rather than based on your performance, life becomes so much easier and less tiring. Instead of your addiction to perfection immobilizing you, you are free to fully express yourself and manifest your gifts and talents. 

The Inner Critic  (an issue of Living The Creative Life newsletter - includes book references on dealing with destructive self-talk)

In Praise of Perfectionism by Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D.
"Perfectionism has taken a bum rap. Were it not for perfectionism, we would be in short supply of all those myriad human activities we deem extraordinary, excellent, outstanding or great in quality."

Overcoming Perfectionism - by James J. Messina, PhD
What irrational beliefs contribute to perfectionism? Everything in life must be done to your level of perfection, which is often higher than anyone else's. It is unacceptable to make a mistake. You must always reach the ideal no matter what.... Examples of the negative consequences of perfectionism include: low self-esteem, feelings of being a "failure" or a "loser" with a lessening of self-confidence, feelings of self recrimination, and guilt. To overcome perfectionism one needs to: accept self as a human being; accept that the "ideal" is only a guideline or goal to be worked toward, not to be achieved 100%; be easier on oneself; setting unrealistic or unreasonable goals or deadlines sets you up for failure....

Perfectionism  [a Hoagies' Gifted Education Page] : multiple links & articles - particularly for/about children

Perfectionism by Douglas Eby
"I'm a maniacal perfectionist. And if I weren't, I wouldn't have this company. It's the best rap!" That quote by Martha Stewart was in response to an interviewer asking, "Are you a perfectionist, or is that just the perception the world has of you?" Stewart goes on to say, "Nobody's going to fault me for that. I have proven that being a perfectionist can be profitable and admirable when creating content across the board: in television, books, newspapers, radio, videos. .. All that content is impeccable."

Perfectionism: Bane or blessing? - by Joanna Fletcher
Perfection is all about meeting a standard. When a gifted person sets a standard, it is likely to be very high because they have a clearer picture of what perfect would be... One can hold a high standard as an ideal, but reduce one’s internal demand to meet it. Here are some ideas about how to deal with perfectionism in your own life.

Perfectionist fathers and disordered eating - Penn State Univ
Perfectionist fathers can reinforce disordered eating among college-age young people already preoccupied over their physical looks and subject to the demanding expectations of peers and media, according to a Penn State study.

Perfectly Skinny  by Ephrat Livni -
Study Confirms Perfectionism Is a Strong Trait of Anorexics - Nobody's perfect, but anorexics think they should be, according to a new study that confirms what many eating disorder experts have long suspected."

The Perils of Perfectionism   "In biblical terms, the perfectionist is forever straining out gnats while swallowing camels."

Reverse Psychology for Success - by John Eliot, Ph.D.
There is no ideal; there is no perfect.  Striving for either is a sure fire way to tie yourself up in knots. I tell performers all the time:  Perfectionism is simply putting a limit on your future.  When you have an idea of perfect in your mind, you open the door to constantly comparing what you have now with what you want, how you are performing now with how you want to perform.  That type of self criticism is significantly deterring.

*--- books
 

Miriam Adderholdt-Elliott Perfectionism : What's Bad About Being Too Good
[publisher:] "What happens when nothing is good enough? When an "A" is onlhy seen as "not an A+"? When an eighth inning scoring run by the opposing team turns a remarkable seven innings into "just another loss." When your parents say they want the best for you but mean they ONLY want the best FROM you? When your are your own worst critic—and you're only 15? Most likely, you are a perfectionist teen who cannot see your excellent work and achievements for what they are.."

Martin M. Antony  When Perfect Isn't Good Enough : Strategies for Coping With Perfectionism
"..explores the nature of perfectionism and offers a step-by-step program of cognitive-behavioral strategies for overcoming it."
[reader:] "... strikes an excellent balance between an overly technical professional text and the self-help book that's too high on fluff and too low on content. This book... is packed with useful information (and good exercises) on how to break free from patterns of perfectionistic thinking and behavior; and it contains what I thought were interesting and insightful discussions on how perfectionism ties together with depression, anger, social anxiety, worry, and other "not so pleasant" dispositions that many of us realize to some degree or other."

Monica Basco  Never Good Enough : How to Use Perfectionism to Your Advantage Without Ruining Your Life
[from Oprah.com:] "A practical, scientifically proven step-by-step program for overcoming unreasonably high expectations that can often be the hidden cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, stifled creativity, and broken relationships."

David Burns, MD  Feeling Good : The New Mood Therapy

Cynthia Curnan  The Care and Feeding of Perfectionists
[amazon.com:] Jim McGrath, Playwright, Television Writer, AIR AMERICA " I was stuck on a play for ten years. It was the worst case of writer's block I'd ever known. Cynthia's book helped me build a bridge over the block. Within two days, I had turned a problem play into my most meaningful and successful work, ever. I have since used it as a reference manual in the writing courses I teach. Invaluable resource!" //  [actress/director Linda Gray, in LA Times:] "...offers readers the tools to balance themselves on the seesaw of life. She shows how to look at extremes and blend them, through inner guidance, into the most delicious swirl ice cream."

Gordon L. Flett. Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment

Daniel Goleman  Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ for Character, Health and Lifelong Achievement

Steven Hendlin, PhD.  When Good Enough Is Never Enough

Enid Howarth  The Joy of Imperfection
[Midwest Book Review:] "..a guide to being ordinary, thereby enticing readers toward self-acceptance rather than obsessive self-improvement. ... based on the premise that it is our imperfections that enable us to be different, to explore new frontiers, to be flexible, imaginative, and creative, to have fun, to laugh, and to be ourselves."

J. Clayton Lafferty, Ph.D. Perfectionism: A Sure Cure for Happiness

Allan E. Mallinger, Jeannette Dewyze Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control

Kathy Collard Miller.  Why Do I Put So Much Pressure on Myself?: Confessions of a Recovering Perfectionist

Les Parrott, PhD  The Control Freak

Sheila Rothman, David Rothman. The Pursuit of Perfection : The Promise and Perils of Medical Enhancement
Professors, respectively, of public health and of social medicine and history at Columbia University, Sheila Rothman and David Rothman consider the various uses of estrogen, testosterone, human growth hormone, liposuction and genetic manipulation, showing that these options have from the beginning blurred the line between cure and enhancement.

Ann W. Smith  Overcoming Perfectionism : The Key to Balanced Recovery

Alexandra Stoddard  The Art of the Possible : The Path from Perfectionism to Balance and Freedom
[Midwest Book Review:] "Stoddard tackles the subject of demanding self-perfection, explaining how real joy and a stress-free live can only be obtained when individuals stop demanding perfection from themselves and others. Many case history examples and first-person insights are shared in Stoddard's exploration of the path to freedom."

Marian Woodman  Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride : A Psychological Study
[reader:] "A fascinating and often poetic interweaving of women's issues, addiction, control, and perfectionism from a Jungian-mythic standpoint. Not only enjoyable reading but packed with clinical wisdom and creative insight. Woodman has a sharp eye out for the mythic underpinnings of Western patriarchy and how its Apollonian overvaluation of mastery, domination, and efficiency has shaped the psyches of women and men."

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