The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - How to Fight Perfectionism

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Holding yourself to impossibly high standards is self-defeating and makes for a miserable life. Can Dr Laurie Santos find ways to tackle her constant perfectionism so she can perform better and have more fun?  She hears from researcher Thomas Curran about a worrying growth in perfectionism in society, and asks "recovering perfectionist" Jordana Confino how to tackle the nagging voice in your head telling you to always push yourself and work harder.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. fellow podcast hosts, and fans just like you. I'm happy to share the things that I use to improve my well-being, but there is one comment I sometimes get in conversations like these that does bother me a bit. Laurie, some interviewer, will say, I bet you never struggle when it comes to improving your own well-being. Um, I guess, is my usual answer, but that's not strictly true. So, it's time to come clean on this one. You see, I am an expert

in positive psychology, and over the last few years, I have made a lot of behavioral and mindset changes to improve my own happiness. But there are still many, many things that I struggle with. Just ask the people who know me best. I think it's a really bad idea to talk about this stuff. Why? Because you think I'm really bad at happiness? No, I think it's a really bad idea to talk about this stuff. Why? Because you think I'm really bad at happiness? No, I think you put yourself under so much more pressure and feel so much worse about it than other people. This is Happiness Lab co-writer and producer, Ryan Dilley. You don't get to hear Ryan's voice a lot on the show,

but he's the brains behind a lot of the stuff you hear on this podcast. I've learned so much about happiness from doing this show, and I've tried to put it into practice. But, but like I'm much nicer to myself about it than you are. I mean, you know, you think that you have to be better than anybody else at this because you're the teacher and it's just a high bar for yourself. But Ryan's not just my partner in all things Happiness Lab. He's also one of my oldest and dearest friends. Isn't Harry Met quite a boring story? We met through a friend of a friend. I know, but we've known each other for like 26 years?

More than half my life. And that's telling you how old I am now. And that means he understands my happiness struggles very, very well. Because as my good friend and podcast work spouse, he often has to put up with them. You've got to put up with mine too. When I beat myself up about some small mistake on the show or get sad about a negative review,

Ryan gets stuck managing my emotional slump. When I ignore pretty much everything I know about the importance of time affluence and totally overschedule myself, Ryan puts up with my growing sense of overwhelm. And when my stress levels hit the red zone because I haven't put into practice nearly any of the research I talked to you about on the show, Ryan deals with the consequences. You've got such a busy life and

you've got so much stuff going on and so many people like look to you as a kind of example and that must be really, really hard. I really want to get better about practicing what I preach. So in this new season of the Happiness Lab, things are going to get personal. Over the next few episodes, I'll be exploring the happiness challenges that I struggle with the most. Things like navigating stress and overwork, dealing with boredom, and even facing my own mortality. This is for a whole episode about, is it thanatophobia? Oh, thanatophobia. Thanatophobia. Because I have really terrible thanatophobia. I'm like really spooked about death. And in this first episode, I'll be exploring something that bothers Ryan a lot.

My habit of continuously beating myself up about, well, pretty much everything. I mean, you have to do everything perfectly. Everything's got to be 10 out of 10 with you sometimes. It's not possible, but it's so hard to watch. You're horrible to yourself sometimes. Ryan's right here. I hold myself to a very high standard, and I constantly worry about whether I'm doing a good enough job. Whether that's in my podcasting, my teaching, my research,

my social life, everything really. I hate doing anything that I'm not immediately good at, and I often wind up feeling paralyzed whenever I mess something up. I know full well that these harsh standards aren't good for my performance or my well-being. So in this episode, I'll explore how perfectionists like me can fight the fear of not being good enough. Is there a way we can drop all the impossible standards and quit beating ourselves up so much? Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy, but what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy?

The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Sanchez. Laurie Sanchez. My name is Thomas Curran. I'm an associate professor at the London School of Economics. Scientists often joke that all research is me-search, and I'm wondering if this is something that applies, in your case, to your study of perfectionism.

Absolutely. I am a perfectionist, and I have been for a long time, and it's something I've struggled with. In his book, The Perfection Trap, Embracing the Power of Good Enough, Thomas explores the many misconceptions we have about our society's favorite flaw, as he calls it, starting with the idea that only certain people fall prey to it.

We tend to talk in very sort of black and white terms about, you know, you are or you aren't a perfectionist. And the truth is that most of us, when we look in the mirror, we'll see elements of perfectionism. A second misconception is that perfectionism is a single trait that plays out the same way for everybody. It isn't. It has at least three different dimensions, ones that differ in their severity from person to person. The first is self-oriented perfectionism. These are the high standards that we impose on ourselves. This is often what we're thinking of when we say that somebody's a perfectionist.

But there's a second part of perfectionism which is other-oriented. Perfectionists sometimes hold other people to the same insanely high standards that they expect of themselves. Like if I'm going to put myself through the wringer for this high standard or goal or expectation, then you must have to do that too because that's only fair. But Thomas says there's a final dimension of perfectionism that, psychologically speaking, is the most insidious. That is socially prescribed perfectionism. We assume other people expect us to be perfect. Yes, perfectionists have exceptionally high standards,

we know that, but that's only part of the story because what we really need to unpack is why they're doing that. And why they're doing that is to meet the validation and approval of other people whom they think are viewing them harshly and watching them for every little slip up and mistake. I know just how crappy this dimension of perfectionism feels. That constant worry that the people around you are judging not just your work, but also your worth. That sense that I need to monitor what people think of my podcast or my research or my looks. That uneasiness of always being on the defensive. That feeling really sucks. But where do perfectionist beliefs like these come from?

Thomas says the answer can be summed up in just one word. Fear. The reason why we feel self-conscious as perfectionists is because we're so worried about what other people think. And if we reveal too much of ourselves, then we might slip up or we might show a chink in the armory that is a reflection upon us as a person, that we're not good enough, that we're not perfect enough,

and that in some way we should have been or could have been more. This is one reason Thomas thinks of perfectionism as less of a personality trait and more of an anxiety management strategy. Perfectionists set themselves incredibly high standards because they're worried if they don't, someone will spot all their hidden inner defects. And as I unfortunately know very well, when perfectionists actually do screw up, that internal anxiety goes into overdrive. So they feel a lot of shame and embarrassment, painful shame and embarrassment, intense shame and embarrassment. And the trepidation is so fierce sometimes that they can be overwhelmed by anxiety. And this is very common in perfectionists. They

are very self-critical, very harsh on themselves when things have gone wrong. Because again, it goes back to that core deficit belief. Inside, deep down, they know they're imperfect. But if being a perfectionist feels so miserable, why don't people set more realistic standards for themselves? People who struggle with perfectionism don't see perfectionism as the problem, quite the opposite actually. They see perfectionism as the one thing that's holding them up in the world, whereas everything and all around them seems to be collapsing. The challenge there is to bring people around to the awareness that it is actually the perfectionism that is the root of the problem. It's something that's causing profound distress.

I've seen the consequences of this distress not just in my own life, but also in the academic community around me. I can be pretty harsh on myself, but I'm not half as mean as my Yale students are to themselves. They're hyper-ambitious, hyper-anxious, and deeply self-critical. They beat themselves up about not finding the perfect relationship or an amazing internship or getting top grades. I mean, I've watched pupils have panic attacks after earning a single B plus on some random quiz. It's heartbreaking to see that pain. And my experience at Yale isn't unique. I was getting a lot of students coming in for help on their coursework or their grades or how to improve. That's quite routine. But more and more, I was seeing students come with real profound struggles that quite transparently came from self-imposed pressures

that they were placing on themselves. So that was really the spark for me to try to understand, well, is this something that's increasing? Because I suspect from what I can see that it might be, but we don't have any data. We don't know. Thomas tracked down every paper published since the 80s in which young people had filled out a survey on perfectionism,

more than 40,000 data points across three countries, to see if rates had increased. And he found that they very much had. And that's cause for concern. The average level of perfectionism in the young shot up 33% since 1989. But there's average level of perfectionism in the young shot up 33% since 1989. But there's one form of perfectionism that's skyrocketing even more than the others. It's that social element of perfectionism that's really taking off among young people. They really

feel high pressures to be perfect from the outside world. So what's causing this? Well, culprits like Instagram and Facebook might be to blame. People within social media see images of perfection all around them. They take those images at face value and feel themselves to be inferior. And those expectations in turn are being internalized by young people's perfectionistic pressures. And it's highly pressurized, very insecure, and it never really stops. When Thomas first published his findings in 2019, he was taken aback by the sheer level of interest in the topic. I've got the media officer from the university desperately emailing me at 12 o'clock at night

with all these requests from international media wanting to know what's happening and clearly it struck a nerve. Clearly people feel like perfectionism is something that's becoming much more prevalent in their own lives than the lives of other people. I think it's something, you know, as a society, we really need to start grappling with. But how do we all come to grips with it? Well, we'll start by learning from a recovering perfectionist. My ruthless self-criticism was just weighing me down that whole time. It was like these heavy weights tied to my ankle. And if I could learn to release them, not only would I be just as successful as I was,

I would be even more so because I would be liberating myself from really like the jail cell that my terror of failure was keeping me in. The Happiness Lab continues after this short break. The Happiness Lab continues after this short break. Little Jordana was this totally wacky, free spirit, creative. Jordana Confino fondly remembers the days before her perfectionism took hold. I just would spend all of my time making up shows and things like that and just really living in my own fantastic fantasy universe. Little Jordana never gave a second thought to her grades or her academic performance. But all that changed when she turned 14. My dad actually got really sick,

and all of a sudden things started happening that were scary and upsetting, and lots of people in my family were upset, and I couldn't do anything about it. But Jordana eventually discovered one thing she could do to make her family happier. I could come home with these really pristine report cards, and my parents were excited and happy and relieved, and that was like what I could do to seemingly make things better. In the years that followed, Jordana engrossed herself in her schoolwork, and especially her grades. As long as I worked hard enough, I could perfect them, and that was really what I committed to doing. From the outside, Jordana looked like the picture of the happy, successful pupil.

But on the inside, she was a mess. I was so sad, and I was so insecure, and I was so insecure and I was so lonely. And this is because if you want to get literally perfect grades, you have to spend a lot, a lot, a lot of time throwing yourself into it. And it got to this point where my whole identity at that point was completely bound up in my ability to perfect this one thing. And so because my entire feelings of self-worth were on the line, I threw everything into it. Jordana graduated valedictorian of her high school class. She nailed her college applications and got into her top choice school, Yale University.

Her family and friends were thrilled, which was kind of sad. Jordana's insanely high standards were harming her, but her perfectionism was being reinforced and rewarded. In college, Jordana's overwork grew even more extreme. Achieving perfect grades in the Ivy League was much harder than in high school. So Jordana spent every waking hour working. I was the loneliest person on the planet, and it was just so tragically misguided. I was having no human contact. I didn't go outside for 10 days once before final exams. That sense of isolation also pushed Jordana to cast a perfectionist eye on her peers. She grew judgy of

her fellow students, who never seemed to work as hard as she did. My college sophomore year dorm was right across from Ashley's Ice Cream, which is the famous Yale ice cream place. I would watch people going out for ice cream with their friends on Friday or Saturday night. And I would just think like, they are so weak. And like, I thought that I was so superior because I was willing to do the work that they weren't. I must care more and therefore I would do better. But yet again, Jordana's harsh standards appeared to be working. She graduated top of her class and went on to Yale Law School. I mean, if five minutes went by before I was working,

after I woke up in law school, it was like, you're weak, you're slothful, you're lazy, you're not good enough, you're the only one who doesn't deserve to be here, everyone's going to find out. She then graduated at the top of that class, too, and followed it up by locking in one of the most prestigious legal clerkships in the land. But she didn't enjoy any of it. With each additional achievement,

I actually grew more and more anxious because the second that I approached success or got it, all of a sudden I would panic because then the bar was just set higher and it was an even higher bar that I would have to clear in order to not be a disappointment. Take, for example, the time Jordana got her paper accepted to the world's top law journal. There was not more than one second of actual happiness or celebration before the panic set in. And literally the thought that went through

my mind, and I remember this was, well, what am I going to do next so that they don't call me a one-hit wonder? The constant self-criticism made Jordana miserable, but she just couldn't bring herself to stop all those scathing critiques. One, I thought that they were fact. And two, I thought that they were helping me and that those thoughts were the things

that were driving me to succeed. And that's why for so long, I was so reluctant to give up on those thoughts. The constant need to be seen as uber-competent and superhuman meant that Jordana put herself forward for any and all job opportunities. There are no boundaries for the perfectionist people pleaser. You give every ounce of yourself. And what happens when you do that is everyone else is thrilled because they're like, great. You know, we didn't have time to do all

these things because we have families and other priorities, but Jordana can do it. And she's excited. Look at her. She's volunteering. And the more and more you do that, the more insecure you grow because you're just convinced that your value is contingent on you saying yes all the time. But there were a few things that Jordana did say no to. All the stuff that's essential for work-life balance and mental health. She neglected social connection and all elements of rest and fun. And when she did go out to get fresh air or to get exercise, she still couldn't set her work aside. I literally had a laptop tan on my thighs because I would let myself go outside, but only if I was doing work. Similarly, I would let myself go to the gym, but only because I

downloaded the Notability app so that I could edit documents on the treadmill. Like, this was my version of work-life balance. You might be amazed to learn that Jordana was in a relationship throughout this time. But her boyfriend came a very distant second to her legal work. He lived two blocks from my apartment, and I saw him on Saturday nights between, like, 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. on the next day, and the same on Friday nights. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jordana developed a host of serious health issues,

ones her doctors just couldn't figure out. And what her body was suffering was nothing compared to what was going on in her mind. It just felt really bleak and I felt really trapped. One afternoon, while yet again working at home alone, Jordana finally realized that she needed some help. I was just desperate at the time, and I was Googling how to be happy. One of the first things I found was Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project. And so I read that, and she starts referring to this thing called positive psychology.

And I had never heard about positive psychology before. to this thing called positive psychology, and I had never heard about positive psychology before. I remember thinking, I hope this isn't one of those things that you have to really believe in for it to work. I was so, so, so skeptical, but I was just desperate. Jordana soon learned about the importance of social connection and engaging in work that fits with your values. And she made some real changes as a result. She left the stressful law job she didn't enjoy and retrained as a wellness specialist to help law students. But... I did not touch the perfectionism at that point.

I did not touch the workaholism at that point. And I was doing work that actually imbued me with a sense of meaning and purpose. I was leaning into my relationships more. So in that sense, it was better, but I was still tearing myself to shreds on the inside. Ironically, Jordana began spending her days helping law students to feel happier and fight their self-criticism while holding herself to impossible ideals. Like how many people go into their job interview and when you're asked what your weakness is, you go, oh, well, I'm a perfectionist. And we say that because we're proud of it. We think that it's a strength.

Eventually, someone else noticed how hard Jordana was pushing herself. One of my former bosses called me into her office one day, and I thought that it was because I wasn't taking enough student appointments. I was convinced that she was calling me in to ream me out. I was convinced I wasn't doing enough. And really, she was sitting me down to say, Jordana, are you okay? You look like you're running yourself ragged. Jordana's therapist, it turns out,

couldn't have agreed more. She said, Jordana, if you had a racehorse that had just completely broken down from injury and exhaustion, would you just keep whipping it to try to get it up and to move faster? And I said, of course not. And she said, then why are you doing that to yourself? That resource analogy was life-changing. Jordana

finally saw the futility of her perfectionism. It was never just going to stop. There was always going to be the next thing if I didn't do something different, because it always felt like just clearing one more hurdle would then free me up to live the life that I wanted. And then, you know, 150 hurdles later, you realize, wait a second, maybe that's not going to happen unless I do something different. So what exactly did she do differently? She'll tell us when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment. I think the problem with perfectionism is that it doesn't even feel like a choice.

It's just the necessary course. Recovering perfectionist Jordana Confino has spent the last few years learning to reject the exacting standards she judged herself by for decades. And when I say rejected, I don't mean like, oh yeah, I conquered it and it's gone. I mean, I committed to work back against it every day and not let it drive the car and rule my life. Now a Fordham University law professor and coach, Jordana helps overachieving professionals who struggle with perfectionism. Overachieving professionals just like me. I'm embarrassed to admit how much of myself I saw in Jordana's story. I too have a terrible time establishing boundaries

and saying no. I spend my days teaching my students and podcast listeners to be self-compassionate while privately beating myself up. If Jordana was able to scale back her harsh standards, maybe there's hope for me too. I was so vicious to myself and I was so ruthlessly self-critical and I believed so little that this could work. And if it could have that effect for even someone like me, I truly believe

that anyone is capable of doing this for themselves. So I asked Jordana, what are the first steps that a perfectionist like me can take to become kinder to herself? If you do a simple thought journal of just what are the thoughts that are going through my head, what are the things that I'm saying to myself? For me, it would be things like, you're not good enough, you're weak, you're lazy, you're slothful. Literally, it was so funny. Words like gluttonous and slothful would come up from my inner critic. And I'm like, swear, I only have heard those words in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in like seventh grade. So it's just hilarious to me that they had such an impact on my critic. But you want to recognize

these phrases. You want to think about what words do they use? Whose voice do they remind you of? So that when they come up, you can recognize them and then make a decision about how to respond to them. Jordana also uses other creative ways to visualize her perfectionist impulses. So I've actually found it even really helpful to draw my inner critic. It looks like this little green goblin that kind of reminds me of the guy from the Mucinex commercials. So now when these thoughts come up, I imagine this little green goblin on my shoulder, like squeaking these things at me. And my inner critic has a very squeaky, annoying voice. But that enables me to detach from the

thoughts and separate from them. And once you begin to separate from that goblin voice inside you, you can finally start pushing back. You can grab your journal and scribble down some rebuttals to all your nasty inner critiques. And when you write those replies down, try not to match your critic's mean tone. Instead, use as compassionate a voice as you can, treating that inner goblin like a well-intentioned but utterly misguided friend. Listen, I know what you're trying to do here. You really, really want me to do well. You're trying to help, but you're not. You don't meet it with criticism or just reject it outright. You kind of greet it with compassion and say, hey, listen, we're going to try a softer approach here.

Pushing back on your inner critic is, at least initially, very, very hard, especially when it's the only voice you've listened to for so long. When I first started practicing self-compassion, my therapist would say, talk to yourself as if you were someone who unconditionally loves and supports you. And I was like, I don't even know what that feels like. Jordana had been driven by her punishing perfectionism through school and into the workplace. She had to go back decades into childhood to find a version of herself that was free from the need to constantly perform at the highest level, a version of herself she could be proud of and kind to.

And so I pictured that little creative, free spirit Jordana. And when I look at her and when I imagine her, I can talk to her in this way. Like I do believe that she is worthy of love for just being who she is. And then if she makes a mistake, it is not because she is a fundamentally unworthy person. And that was actually a really good trick for me to start practicing those different ways of speaking to myself.

Hardcore perfectionists like Jordana won't find the mental switch from criticism to compassion easy. I did not believe these thoughts at all. It felt so forced and faked and phony when I took my, you are lazy, and I replaced it with, you're doing great. You can do this. Compassionate thoughts like that. They felt like total bogus. But the amazing thing about our brains and neuroplasticity is that if you practice thinking in a way, over time, those new thoughts will become stronger and you'll see them popping up. First it's like plausible alternatives to the vicious thoughts and then eventually they'll just pop up as an instinctive thought. The next step in perfectionism recovery is to set healthier boundaries.

That inability to say no to extra work and responsibilities is often rooted in our fears of not being good enough and our fears of not being good enough and being seen as not being good enough. To fight these people-pleasing tendencies, we need to take a good hard look at what we miss out on when we just say yes. I've now recognized that there is a trade-off for every yes. For every yes I give, I'm saying no to something else. If I want to do the very best at multiple things that are important to me, I can't just keep saying yes, yes, yes. But what are the practical steps we can use to turn a yes into a no? It begins with asking yourself specific questions whenever you're tempted to sign on to

something new. What cost will agreeing to this task have on the people I care about? And what am I saying no to with my yes? But we also need to explore the reasons we're tempted to say yes to a potential ask in the first place. Why do I want to do this? Is my desire to do this thing driven by my values or is it driven by fear? Jordana says questions like these have helped her remember the social opportunity cost of taking on too much, a problem she had ignored for decades. The toll that it took on the people that I love the most is that they just got the leftovers. They would get the shadow version of me once I had given all that I had to give to other people. other people. The boyfriend Jordana devoted so little time to during her clerkship is now her husband. And so to prevent her old perfectionist instincts from harming her and her loved ones,

Jordana now uses a timeout strategy whenever she gets a new request. So I'm no longer allowed to just respond immediately. I have to wait at least two hours. And during that period, I asked myself, one, do I actually want to do this? Is this something that's driven by excitement or by fear? Two, what am I giving up if I say yes to this? Jordana now says yes only to projects that improve her happiness. And that's made the work she's done over the last few years much more fulfilling. It turns out that you're much better at your work when you're not like beating the crap out of yourself. But for all her progress, Jordana knows her inner goblin voices haven't been banished entirely. Again, this is why my blog is called

Chronicles of a Recovering Type A Plus Perfectionist. It's a daily practice of keeping them in check, but that act of keeping them in check is, oh, it's just makes such a world of difference in terms of your ability to live your life in a joyful way. I wish I could say that making this episode has fully cured me of all my own harsh standards. But sadly, perfectionism recovery doesn't work that quickly. But there are at least some people who've noticed that I've been making some progress. I think you're doing much, much better. I mean, I'm just glad you've kind of confronted it. I mean, putting a name to it even.

Since chatting with Jordana, I have begun noticing all the mean stuff I say inside my head. And I've totally taken on her suggestion to weigh the social opportunity costs of my usual anxious yeses. These new strategies have begun helping me to set new boundaries,

which has made a huge difference in my sense of overwhelm. You'll always be a bit of a perfectionist, but at least you're dealing with it now, which is like so much better than before. Making this episode has also given me a healthier attitude as I turn to the other happiness challenges I'll face this season. I've promised myself that I won't go all perfectionist when it comes to addressing my well-being struggles over the next few episodes. Because as much as we'd love it,

change doesn't happen overnight. But with the right strategies, hopefully we can all start taking some compassionate steps in the right direction. In the next episode, I'll tackle another factor that I struggle with,

the act of not doing stuff. We'll explore why a constant workaholic like me should embrace the power of boredom. We'll hear about the benefits of feeling bored and learn some strategies for enjoying our empty moments in a healthier way. You answer these statements from one highly disagree

to seven I really agree. Yep. In situations where I have to wait, such as in a line, I get very restless. Seven. It seems that the same things are on television or movies all the time. Seven. That one for sure.

I am good at waiting patiently. One. Pretty bad. All that next time on The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.