Tips for Perfectionists

Many people strive to be the best they can be resulting in becoming a perfectionist which can often lead to being too hard on oneself. While some people can acknowledge this behavior, others sometimes fail to recognize their behavior and continue to push themselves too hard. Self-awareness is imperative when this is happening to allow room for self-growth and development instead of being harsh on oneself.

To slow down self-criticism, below are tips that may help you acknowledge when to let things go, and how to feel improve your mood.

· Cut yourself some slack and allow a threshold for making mistakes. This will prevent catastrophizing smaller errors, and simply focus on the significant mistakes as areas for improvement.

· Give yourself permission to move past mistakes once you have attempted to fix them to the best of your ability. This helps to avoid dwelling on a single problem for too long, which can often lead one to feeling frustrated or helpless.

· Keep self-care at the top of your priority list to ensure that you are not pushing yourself too much causing adverse effects to your mental health. Self-soothing techniques will help you to feel calm during challenging situations and identify that your mental and physical health is much more important than any difficulties you are experiencing.

· May people experience self-blame, especially when someone else treats them poorly. In times like these, it is key to recognize the middle ground between taking too much responsibility and self-blame. Although it is important for us as humans to take accountability for our actions, you are not responsible for other’s behavior. Allow yourself distance between your life and others, as there can always be something going on in their life that you may be unaware of, causing them to react negatively.

Many of us are goal-oriented and driven hard by success, however this can get in the way when you try to always go the extra mile and push yourself to exhaustion. Make sure to allow yourself down time, peaceful moments, and self-care days in order to prevent feeling overwhelmed. You may feel like a failure at times even though you have your life together, so it is necessary to self-reflect and recognize all your accomplishments and take pride in those goals you have reached. Lastly, remember that many of us make “dumb” mistakes that are not frequent and happen due to distractions or mindless errors. It is important not to get too flustered or upset over these mistakes as they are typically not significant compared to the rest of your life.