
The dangerous downsides of perfectionism - ernsheong
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180219-toxic-perfectionism-is-on-the-rise
======
shoover
_“They give up more easily. They have quite avoidant coping tendencies when
things can 't be perfect.” That, of course, hinders them from the very success
that they want to achieve. In his 60-plus studies focusing on athletes, for
example, Hill has found that the single biggest predictor of success in sports
is simply practice. But if practice isn’t going well, perfectionists might
stop. It makes me think of my own childhood peppered with avoiding (or
starting and quitting) almost every sport there was. If I wasn’t adept at
something almost from the get-go, I didn’t want to continue – especially if
there was an audience watching._

Ugh. Been there, done that. I remember skipping the first year of fast pitch
baseball because I was sure I’d never be able to hit the ball. It simply
wasn’t true and can only have set me back when rejoining the following year.

I assumed perfectionism was generational or at least cultural. It’s
distressing to see it’s widespread and increasing. The studies put a fine
focus on the need to get smarter and model healthier responses to mistakes for
the next generation.

~~~
watwut
> In his 60-plus studies focusing on athletes, for example, Hill has found
> that the single biggest predictor of success in sports is simply practice.

I mean apart of genetic makeup - if you have wrong genetics no amount of
practice will help you.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
That's a terribly self limiting mindset.

~~~
watwut
It is reality. Someone with large hands has huge advantage over someone with
small ones in competitive swimming. Someone with a lot of red muscle fibre
will grow stronger then someone with white one in weight lifting. Weight
lifters are not small by random either. Pretending it is not so is just lying
to yourself or worst if you make moral virtue out sport.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
I'm not doubting effects phenotype has on abilities in specific areas. Just
that the mental model of "I can't" is very limiting.

Just because your phenotype isn't ideal for a thing doesn't mean you shouldn't
do it.

Also there are a large array of phenotypical that are harder to identify
through testing than just giving it a go and seeing how you go / enjoy it.

~~~
watwut
We were talking about predictors of success. You can do sport recreationally
or for fun, but that is not what is meant by "predictor of success". If your
goal is to have success in competition, you will compete against people who
have right phenotype. In which case it makes more sense to look at sport that
might suit you.

Also, if two students start weight lift and he grows faster then you, the
reason might not be that one is simply lazy and the other simply trains
harder.

~~~
mtberatwork
Clearly you can find numerous cases in sports of individuals overcoming
physical limitations by finding alternate pathways to success (take for
example short/shorter NBA players). Furthermore, those with "good genes" do
not always find success. In competition, preparation and luck far outweighs
the gene factor.

~~~
bennyelv
Only for sports which have a heavy "skill" bias, where at the competitive
limits skill is a major determining factor.

It's not true in all sports. E.g. Long distance running, cycling etc where
skill plays a much lesser role.

~~~
mtberatwork
> E.g. Long distance running, cycling etc where skill plays a much lesser
> role.

If this were the case then only those with the highest, humanly achievable VO2
max levels would dominate the sport. But this isn't the case. Why? It's just a
single contributing factor (in a vast sea of contributing factors) which can
lead to success. I would argue a motivated athlete with a "can-do" spirit, but
lower V02 will be more successful than any unmotivated athlete with a high V02
level.

------
projektir
I haven't looked at it specifically from the perfectionism vs
conscientiousness perspective, but this jives with what I've been doing to
reduce my overall anxiety levels.

I used to perceive various small failures, often just things like not doing
chores on time, as a _big deal_ and a sign that I'm failing as a person. This,
of course, is not productive at all, saps my energy, and often results in me
failing even more. But when you truly believe that it _does_ make you a worse
person, you feel as if you deserve these side effects...

It's a long story of how I got there but at one point I decided that I'm not
going to give any non-major failures much credit and advance from them as soon
as possible. It's really nice to be able to look at a small error, say
"whoops", and move on to fixing it. I sometimes still relapse to the old way
of thinking but it's a huge weight off one's shoulders. But it is also so
weird to just say "Yes I was really wrong about that, and I really shouldn't
have done this. But that's OK, moving on."

What I've found, though, is that this is not really the kind of philosophy the
average person I talk to actually has. The implication that one is a failure
if they do not complete certain chores efficiently, or don't do certain
things, or don't know a given technology, or don't lose weight, is common. So
is giving people a very limited amount of chances before they're marked in
some negative way. Perhaps I am simply imagining it because it's something I'm
used to, but we may just be living in a fairly perfectionist environment. The
article appears to confirm this.

I think ultimately it comes down to the idea that people make mistakes
_naturally_ (i.e., automatically) and might end up in unfavorable situations
through no fault of their own. From here, you can accept errors as a fact of
reality that happen _to_ you, as opposed to _from_ you, which makes them much
easier to rectify. If you don't believe this, all those minor mistakes are
then your sole responsibility, so it makes more sense to feel guilty for them.

~~~
zamber
“You never fail until you stop trying.”

― Albert Einstein

I'm doubting this attribution is correct but the quote itself summarizes this
approach nicely.

Mistakes do come naturally. Life is a probabilistic game of guessing what
outcomes we will reach after making actions with restricted knowledge of the
circumstances. Failing is imminent sooner or later. The sooner the better or
loss aversion kicks in and we end up doing nothing, which most often is the
worst action leading to a pit of cascading failures.

------
iovrthoughtthis
I consider myself a recovering perfectionist.

It used to be that, all my code had to be perfectly understandable, all my
variable names the perfect metaphor / concept, my architectures the most
scalable etc.

I found that the anxiety of having to make hundreds of correct decisions
everyday left me exhausted. Ultimately it was not sustainable. I would
agonised over tiny details for extended period of time.

I was eventually exposed to and much later internalised the idea that there
are three types of decisions:

1\. those you get right 2\. Those you get wrong 3\. Those you don't make

Anything is better than 3 in a non-life or death situation. If you're trying
to learn 1 is not so important and doing 2 is the only way to truly learn.

~~~
joelthelion
It's a resource allocation problem. You've only got so many hours and energy
in a day. I think the trick is to learn to recognize which code is more
important and spend effort where it is needed.

I think it would help if as a community we would recognize that sometimes
writing crappy code is OK, as long as it's a conscious decision and.

------
davidw
Disappointing that it doesn't mention "maximizers vs satisficers" which is a
good way to look at things.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing)

------
costcopizza
Does anyone else sort of enjoy some tenets of perfectionism? I write songs and
often drive myself nearly insane trying to get every detail right.

But there is a nice feeling knowing that what you’ve finished is as good as it
can be, because you’ve exhausted every damn option.

~~~
krylon
If you can use perfectionism as a motivator, it can be very powerful and drive
you - sometimes - beyond what you thought was even possible.

But it can backfire. Either because you may at some point not know where to
stop, or because you are so intimidated by the idea of not getting it right
you do not even dare to begin.

------
Moodles
I can believe that the single most important predictor in sport (indeed many
things) is practice. I suspect, however, that what also matters immensely is
the kind of practice. For instance, often those in the gym that measure
practice as "runs x distance in y time" or "do X exercises for Y weight in Z
reps" are far, far more effective than those whose sole metric is "spend X
amount of time doing Y'. It's the same with studying: I remember during my
undergrad I saw people spending hours and hours "revising" by simply reading
the math book back to front. I think a lot of people work hard but not
necessarily as effectively as possible. People need to learn how to learn.

~~~
watwut
Imo, practice is most important predictor in sport only after you excluded all
the people who are, depending on sport, too tall, too short, have too small
hands, too short attention span, have wrong kind of muscle fibre (white vs
red) etc.

~~~
Double_a_92
> have wrong kind of muscle fibre (white vs red)

How can you find out which one you have?

~~~
watwut
To get quality result, they take sample of your muscles. Dont do it at home.

Less precise but easily available test:
[http://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/muscle-fiber-
compo...](http://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/muscle-fiber-
composition.htm)

------
yters
Perhaps it's our media saturated culture with its constant images of perfect,
beautiful, successful people? It may also be a lack of a grander purpose in
life, so every little goal becomes all consuming.

------
Noumenon72
I don't identify with the self-criticism or the rage much at all. For me the
problem with perfectionism is just how good it feels to edit every little word
of an email or comment compared to stuff that actually needs to get done.

~~~
projektir
Perfectionism is a bit more loaded term than this, I would just call this
attention to detail / enjoyment of order. If you don't dislike yourself when
you send an email with typos, it's probably not perfectionism.

~~~
hanniabu
I Agree. It really is debilitating for those that have it in its truest form.
From the ridiculous amount of time it takes to do simple tasks to the amount
of anxiety you get when you know what you have is good enough and there's a
deadline approaching and/or you have a ton of other things to do, but you just
can't call it quits because of all those little details that aren't up to
standard.

And it makes it even worse when you're spending this extra time to go that
extra mile and you're fully aware how nonsensical and irrelevant it all is but
still can't let it go.

------
gadders
Perfect is the enemy of good.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good)

~~~
zamber
Somewhat related:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better)

[https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-13/worseisworse.html](https://pchiusano.github.io/2014-10-13/worseisworse.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15125949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15125949)

------
antoineMoPa
I only heard the bad sides of perfectionism in the last 3 years honestly.

------
icantdrive55
In college I felt like anything was possible.

I felt the failures around be needed to just delay gratification, and work
hard, because life is difficult.

I looked at my classmates, and thought they were just not serious, and needed
to work harder.

After all, going to school is easy. (I still belive the worst day at school is
better than any day I spent in construction.).

I'm chugging along. I'm thinking about how short life is. I'm thinking about
that vague pain in my head. The pain the Neurologist said wasen't
psychological, because the pain was coming from cranial nerve locations in my
skull. (I forgot to tell him I used to read through Grey's Anatomy for
recreation.)

I thought I was doing well. Doing great in school. Keeping down a job. I
really felt I could do anything.

I was lonely though. I broke up with my college girlfriend a few years earlier
--why--for no good reason? Just young, and dumb.

My vague head pain was my daily friend.

I was toying with getting two professional degrees. Why not? School is easy.
Just delay gratification. Don't mess up your life with chaos, and all the
drama of a relationship.

Then a classmate died of a anyurism. I didn't know the kid, but he was the
image of health.

It wasn't long after I went home for a holiday, and at around 11:30 pm, I had
a panic attack. A scary one, but I had minor ones before, so no big deal. I'll
just go to sleep, and feel great on the morning.

Wake up at 8:30 am, and the minute my bedroom door opens intense anxiety sets
in, and stays with me all day.

After a few weeks, I see a bunch of doctors. They all say different things. I
pick out a Therapist out of the yellow pages. See him for months. Anxiety just
off the charts.

I finally see the "right" doctor, and he gives me a long half life benzo. It
works, but only works for a few hours during the day. Alcohol worked better.
It scared me because the last thing I wanted was to be one an alcoholic.

Well the intense anxiety went on for a decade. My life definely suffered.

I went from the better, capable guys in the room, to someone who could barely
walk into the room.

I don't have any advice. I wouldn't wish what happened to me on my worst
enemy. My doctor did say my case was unusual.

I'm still kinda a perfectionist though. My life is close to being homeless,
but when I do something; I still do it well.

Enjoy your life.

~~~
purvis
Thanks for posting this! I'm always interested in other people's experience
with anxiety. I'm slightly jealous yours has an origin story though. I've been
anxious for as long as I remember and can't recall any traumatic experiences
nor come up with any logical explanations.

~~~
jpernst
It's important to remember that anxiety and panic are neurochemical responses
and can have strong physical and genetic components, they don't always need to
have a psychological "cause."

One thing I'd suggest, if you haven't already, is look into your family
history for any for signs of it. In my case, there's a very clear hereditary
line of panic disorder and other similar ailments that came down through the
generations, eventually landing in me as well.

We like to think of our "mind" as something that exists completely separate
from the physical reality of the brain, but in the end it's an organ like any
other, and any malfunctions within it can affect us in subtle ways. For
example, during the run up to a panic attack, I tend to get very irritable and
easily frustrated. I've come to recognize it as a sign of what's to come and
take steps in advance to try to curb it.

~~~
purvis
> It's important to remember that anxiety and panic are neurochemical
> responses and can have strong physical and genetic components, they don't
> always need to have a psychological "cause."

Agreed. Members of my mother's side are especially known to be "worriers".
Sporadic levels of anxiety on my father's as well.

> I've come to recognize it as a sign of what's to come and take steps in
> advance to try to curb it.

Via therapy, I've discovered my own version of this, mostly around breathing.
I tend to hold my breath as I start to go into my head. If I catch myself
doing this, I can sometimes reduce most of the physical effects by focusing on
breathing again. It's easier said than done.

