“Oh, you know me; I’m a perfectionist.” Many, if not most, of us have either heard someone else say something like that or we’ve uttered it ourselves. But what does that really mean?
What if there’s more than one kind of perfectionism, and what kinds of coping techniques might be useful for someone who identifies as a perfectionist?
In a recent study, researchers built on prior work by looking at changes in how much people were using mindfulness and self-compassion techniques over a two-week period. They studied how people’s use of these approaches was linked to how they felt (i.e., emotions that felt pleasant or difficult). They also examined how much people experienced two kinds of perfectionism. This allowed them to identify how shifts in different mindfulness and self-compassion techniques were connected to how people felt at the time, rather than asking folks to think back and recall their experiences.
The researchers highlighted existing scholarship, which points to two different kinds of perfectionism. Self-critical perfectionism involves more stern self-analysis, as well as more stress about the potential to make errors and how people may view those errors. Personal standards perfectionism involves reaching for lofty benchmarks and placing significant expectations on oneself.
The researchers looked at five mindfulness skills and six elements of self-compassion:
Mindfulness skills
- Observing: Noticing what you’re thinking and feeling, as well as what’s around you
- Describing: Naming what you’re thinking and feeling
- Acting with awareness: Noticing and being conscious of what you’re doing
- Nonjudgmental acceptance: Acknowledging what you’re thinking and feeling without evaluating what’s arising in any way
- Non-reactivity: Releasing your grasp on what you’re thinking and feeling, allowing whatever comes up for you to pass by instead of directing attention and effort toward it
Self-compassion elements and their opposites
- Self-kindness: Treating yourself with consideration and empathy when you’re in distress or you stumbled in some way
- Self-judgment (the opposite of self-kindness): Treating yourself in an abrasive, fault-finding way in the face of a challenge, adversity, or error
- Common humanity: Framing your struggles or mistakes as part of what it means to be a person, and reminding yourself that all people struggle and make mistakes, not just you
- Isolation (the opposite of common humanity): Framing yourself and what you’re going through in a way that leaves you feeling alone and different from others
- Mindfulness: Being aware of what you’re feeling and thinking without getting pulled away by this
- Over-identification (the opposite of mindfulness): Becoming immersed in what you’re feeling and thinking
The results revealed that people with self-critical perfectionism tended to be less mindful, treated themselves with less self-compassion, and felt more upsetting emotions. The researchers also found that mindfulness and self-compassion were linked to benefits for people regardless of the type of perfectionism they experienced.
However, the upsides were a bit different depending on the type of perfectionism we’re talking about. For instance, people with more self-critical perfectionism experienced a drop in distressing feelings when they were more mindful in general, and each type of perfectionism was connected to a boost in pleasant feelings with more mindfulness. Moreover, when people used the observing skill more frequently, this related to more uplifting feelings for people regardless of their perfectionism. When self-critical perfectionists used the describing skill, their distress also went down. People with personal standards perfectionism tended to feel a mood boost when they tried more of the acting with awareness skill. And across each type of perfectionism, people felt more upbeat and less upset when they used more of the non-reactivity skill.
In the realm of self-compassion, folks felt less distress when they extended more general self-compassion to themselves, no matter their perfectionism. And when we zoom in on the specific elements of self-compassion, we get a more detailed picture, just as we saw with mindfulness. Both types of perfectionism were connected to less distress when people gave themselves greater self-kindness, and people with personal standards perfectionism felt more lighthearted. And individuals across both types of perfectionism who treated themselves with self-judgment felt worse. Irrespective of the type of perfectionism, people who extended common humanity to themselves also felt less distress, whereas those with personal standards perfectionism felt less happy when they treated themselves with more isolation. Among people with personal standards perfectionism, they felt more uplifted and less upset when they used more of the mindfulness element of self-compassion. But for both types of perfectionism, people felt more distress when they over-identified with their thoughts and feelings.
The researchers rightly pointed out that this research needs to be repeated to include more diversity, as most of the participants identified as Caucasian women. Moreover, the researchers pointed out that mindfulness and self-compassion are more of a struggle for people with self-critical perfectionism, and it’s not clear why self-compassion and mindfulness could improve how people with self-critical perfectionism feel.
These considerations notwithstanding, it’s worth taking small, doable steps to integrate mindfulness and self-compassion into daily life.
