Perfectionism in Life, Fitness and Wellness

“A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem”.  - Albert Einstein.

‘Perfectionism has been defined as “a personality disposition characterized by an individual striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations” (Wikipedia).  If the person is adaptive, perfectionism can be a positive trait that motivates people to reach their goals.  People can derive pleasure from their efforts to perfect their life’s passion; whether it is at work, sport, academic or interpersonal relationships.  However, there are many maladaptive perfectionists who strive compulsively and unceasingly toward unobtainable goals and who measure their self-worth with their “productivity and accomplishment” (Wikipedia).   Maladaptive perfectionists set themselves up for failure, and in failing can develop such neuroses as fear, anxiety and depression.

In contrast to the adaptive perfectionist, sometimes, in the maladaptive perfectionist, the fear of failure becomes so great that they procrastinate and very rarely strive for the goals that they are most passionate about.  Maladaptive perfectionists can suffer from anxiety and low self-esteem.  Many perfectionists develop obsessive compulsive traits that can develop into many disorders; eating disorders, social anxiety, social phobia, work-a-holism, self-harm, substance abuse and clinical depression as well as physical problems like chronic stress and heart disease (“Being a Perfectionist can take its Toll on Health” www.msnbc.msn.com).

I understand our societies compulsion toward perfection; our role models are airbrushed and flawless, money and owning stuff gives us status so there is pressure to be important enough to make lots of that, we need to feel valued and love so we must seek out the perfect partner and then we must have the perfect children to increase the amount of love and value we feel… but then we must be unique and memorable… so we need to cultivate a talent- music, art, sport… anything we can find to define us and perfect this….  How do we find the hours in our day to be the perfect master in all these things?!!  How do we not become obsessive control freak- workaholic-chronically stressed individuals when life demands us to be so much!

Let’s look at perfectionism within the fitness world; it can mean the inability to accept our physical appearance, the desire to perfect certain physical skills, the need to treat our ‘body as a temple’ by perfecting our diet and not polluting it with harmful substances (and this can go from the obvious to the frivolous!) or the desire to obtain our personal goals.  Fitness Perfectionism can be both adaptive and maladaptive… it can inspire us to a discipline level we never thought capable of ourselves, or it can turn us into obsessive compulsive freaks that can’t let go of our regime in fear that we will deviate drastically from the results we have successfully obtained through our hard work. 

An adaptive fitness perfectionist admires his or her success; they notice admirable physical adaptations and accept their lifestyle adaptations through diet and exercise as mandatory to retain their successful fitness results…  A maladaptive fitness perfectionist finds obsessiveness and disappointment in training… failed weight reps can equal failure! discomfort can equal the same…  weight loss is great but if it does not happen to calculated measure, this is deemed unacceptable…

Maladaptive perfectionism can also inspire procrastination.  Due to the fear of failure, perfectionists may not exert themselves to full potential- whether it be by backing off their resistance weight, or holding back their cardio peak because they dread that feeling of failing to lift the bar or failing to complete that last minute’s worth of training…  The maladaptive perfectionist ties his/herself to the idea of success… whether this means they procrastinate by not changing the exercise intensity for weeks or months in fear of failure, or whether this means obsessively compulsively practicing the skill until it meets satisfaction (which is never) thus resulting in fatigue or even injury!

As a dancer and fitness professional I have felt the pressure of perfection; there is pressure to look a certain way and move a certain way, there is pressure to train the body for amounts of time some people would deem unfathomable, there a competitive pressure to keep up with all of those around in both skills and performance and there is pressure to reflect a personality others are lured to so as to cultivate any hope of success.  An adaptive perfectionist would say ‘bring on the challenge!’  They would do what they had to do to harness their skills and learn from failure so that they could stand up and be a real competitor!  A maladaptive perfectionist does not have this fate. 

When I visualize a maladaptive perfectionist, I picture Nina from the movie "Black Swan."   In this film,  Nina, trains obsessively to perfect her art, she sacrifices human connection to the point where she is social-a-phobic, she starves herself to ‘perfect’ her body and she chooses safety and technique in her dancing to ‘perfect’ the white swan in fear of really letting go and tapping into the unknown which is black and fearful!  It is true that when she does finally let go and find her black swan she consciously leaps to her death… but is this not typical of the maladaptive perfectionist?  Harm is favoured and welcomed, the lesson secondary and missed…

The fitness world can inspire this level of destructive obsessiveness; I have known body sculpting competitors who have risked kidney failure to compete, obsessive instructors who have worn their knees and hips out and had their careers end at a far too early age, people who have trained through torn muscles only to have the injury prolonged, trainers who have been hospitalised for ailments and were sprung doing pull ups from their hospital bed...!!!  It is as though we believe with becoming obsessive with perfecting our passions, we are licenced to be indestructible! 

“Perfectionism” seems like a shiny attractive thing that brings people closer to themselves and their life’s ambitions.  As an individual who has been a slave to maladaptive perfectionism, I can tell you that you are in for a world of pain!  Perfectionism has inspired a world of doubt within me and held me back!  I have taken fewer steps because I have doubted my abilities; I have closed my eyes too often because of the fear of the unknown…. Life offers change and many perfectionists shy away from it because it takes them beyond their control…. But what if control only brings ignorance, and frustration, and a lack of hope?  I guess this is where the imperfect and the more daring have an advantage.  If we learn and accept failure, maybe we can be delighted with our passions rather than obsessed with them, and  if we accept our shortcomings as unique to us, maybe they become valuable to our life’s experience.  If perfectionism is to hold any glow of positivity, it must be the inspiration to do what is better for ourselves, rather than something that hinders us and leads us to a world of non-achieving and disappointment.