Some thoughts on perfectionism...

[The David]

A journal entry from the other week:

I have discovered the joy of learning. And the funny thing is, it wasn't where I thought it was. In fact, it wasn't even close.

Flashback to high school: I only had one year of formal education at the time of my graduation, of course, but that one year was special. It was the year I found a new way to mask the insecurities that had previously been masked by just avoiding society completely. It was the year I discovered perfectionism.

I was never a stranger to it, but during that year I became very intimate with it. Maybe it was because there were so many people watching me. Maybe it was because the attention I had previously received was now divided among an entire class. I will not pretend it was any of those things, because I know exactly what the reason was. It was that magical letter that was written to me every six weeks, telling me that I was not a complete failure of a human being. It was report cards.

It was worse than perfectionism. I didn't even accomplish as much as other perfectionists do. I essentially ended high school with a 0.34. That's not my GPA, mind you, but the difference between my GPA and perfection (since we now have 'weighted GPA', perfection isn't even enough. You have to be perfect at the right things). That seemed to matter almost as much. In college, I forgave myself for my 3.65. All that mattered was that I be perfect in college.

Of course, that didn't work either. Perfectionism only goes so far, and for me, the limit seems to be a 3.65. Sure enough, I did no better in college. In fact, I did even worse. I made two Bs (Bad) and four As (Almost good enough). I now had a 3.64.

I went into this semester of college with the intention that I would make straight As because I wanted to do well, but that I would be more forgiving of myself. That lasted about two days. Yes, two days into the semester I was already afraid that I would do poorly.

I have high expectations of myself in every area of life. It bothered me to realize that so many people under much worse circumstances are doing so much better than I am. They make straight As, get into elite schools, and get scholarships, no matter how bad the odds are. I always considered myself to be very intelligent and never understood why my intellect was stagnating. Well, the answer was pretty much "Duh, you aren't doing anything with it". Having that concrete grading scale to measure myself against makes it unnecessary to actually enjoy school. Students can take 15 hours of lower-level courses, basically just regurgitate information and come out pretending like they have accomplished something, with a paper to prove it.

Then I started thinking. How important are grades? I could cheat to get an A. I could work really hard and get a B, if I had a tough course or a bad teacher. Putting any moral standards aside, I would still choose the latter, so obviously, grades are not my top priority. Still, learning was not at the top, either. I was still using education to keep my ego intact.

I knew I could not make it through the semester carrying this sort of baggage. I wrote everything out on paper that I had been thinking; why I was willing to compromise my intellect but unwilling to accept the grades that such compromise deserves, and why it was not enough simply to do the best I could do. In truth, it is much harder to learn in school than it is to simply have my ego stroked. Realizing this led to a sort of emotional breakdown. Not the collapse-into-tears type of breakdown, but that familiar feeling when part of you dies and you know you not only cannot resuscitate it, but that its death is natural and necessary for something better to be born. I was dragged out of complacency kicking and screaming, locked out of my comfort zone and left on the streets. It was a very awareness-raising experience.

If, at the end of the semester, my efforts earn an A, then maybe that letter will become something more to me than simply an ego trip. But if using every moment in the best way that I know how earns me an imperfect grade, it will still be a grade I can accept with pride.

Well, a week after writing that lofty, inspirational speech, I am still a perfectionist and am currently about to have a panic attack from all the things I have to do and don't feel I can. But I think I'm sort of on the right track now.

[Zukin]

Students who are perfectionists actually end up getting a lot more stressed because they view intelligence as a fixed quantity.

Check out this story for a better way to view intelligence and learning:
New study yields instructive results on how mindset affects learning

[The David]

Originally Posted by Zukin

Students who are perfectionists actually end up getting a lot more stressed because they view intelligence as a fixed quantity.

Check out this story for a better way to view intelligence and learning:
New study yields instructive results on how mindset affects learning

Brilliant article. It is sad to think that some students would avoid taking a subject that might bring their GPA down. It is sadder to think that I'm probably one of them.

[Kaspian]

Grades are only a reflection of how well you play the academic game, not how smart you are or how much you learned. They only really matter in the academic realm, not outside it.


Check out the section on Triage in Steve's post Ten Tips for College Students.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I would also triage individual assignments. If I felt an assignment was lame, pointless, or unnecessarily tedious, and if it wouldn’t have too negative an impact on my grade, I would actually decline to do it. One time I was assigned a tedious paper that represented 10% of my grade. I really didn’t want to do it, and it required a lot more hours than I felt it was worth. I was headed for an A in the class, and if I didn’t do this assignment, I’d drop to an A-. So I respectfully told the professor I was declining the assignment and that I thought it was a fair trade to receive an A- in order to reinvest those hours elsewhere. He already knew me and understood my reasons. He gave me an A-, and I was fine with that. It was indeed a fair trade. In fact, looking back I wish I’d done this sort of thing more often.

If it helps, take some time to free-write about your performance anxiety. What's the worst thing that can happen if you don't get a particular assignment on time? What's the worst that happens if you get a bad grade on a test or in a class? Will the world come to an end? Will your mother stop loving you? Will your friends think less of you? If so, would you prefer to spend more time with people that respect you for who you are, not how you perform? Will it hurt your future job prospects or keep you from getting into the grad school you want? How likely are the negative consequences? Can you live with them?

I also have some strong perfectionist tendencies, but I am more proud of my bad grades than my good ones. That 3.2 in organic chemistry means more than the 3.95 average it brought down. Want to know why? Because sacrificing test scores for my overall well-being was a bigger challenge than nailing another 4.0.

Detach your sense of self worth from your grades. You are not how well you perform or what you do.

Focus instead on learning for the sake of learning.

[The David]

Originally Posted by Kaspian

You are not how well you perform or what you do.

That is a lesson I have had to learn so many times this past year, in so many parts of my life. I think I'm finally starting to get it.

I went to counseling earlier and will probably be getting on some sort of medicine for ADHD. Letting go of perfectionism would help a little, but it's affecting every area of my life and I'm tired of acting like I don't have a problem.