It starts off innocently enough, perhaps as a review of a social situation. You ponder a potential faux pas, or consider how a comment might have landed. But the desire for that quick fix of reassurance quickly spirals into a detailed play-by-play of the entire interaction. The world begins to feel more constricted, and your perspective becomes myopic. With a sigh of exhaustion you wonder: how do I stop caring about what other people think?

As outlined in the previous post, perfectionism involves maintaining unrealistically high standards. If you don’t hit these standards, you feel inadequate and worthless. If you do hit these standards, you raise the bar a bit higher for the next time. As a result, it may seem that your only choice forward is to exert even greater effort to feel accomplished and worthy. But striving for improvement doesn’t resolve perfectionism; instead, it fuels the cycle. What's truly required is a different approach: conquering perfectionism demands finding acceptance with (and taking steps toward) embracing imperfection. Here are some methods to accomplish just that:

Did you know that there are actually different types of perfectionists? That’s right! Not all perfectionists are created alike. Researchers and clinicians have identified three primary ways in which perfectionism may manifest: self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially-prescribed perfectionism.