Perfectionism - How to Get out of the Loop | Ep 99

TD Flenaugh discusses perfectionism, sharing personal experiences and strategies for parents to help their children. Perfectionism can lead to stress, burnout, and unrealistic standards. Flenaugh emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries, providing clear guidelines, and encouraging progress over perfection. She suggests using checklists, setting deadlines, and delegating tasks to help children manage their workload. Flenaugh also highlights the need for self-compassion and recognizing that mistakes are part of the learning process. She advises parents to support their children in balancing their work ethic with a good quality of life.

Transcript

TD Flenaugh: 0:00

TD, welcome to the falling for learning podcast I am. TD Flenaugh, so today we're going to talk about perfectionism. Now if you have been following the show, you know that this is something that I have been dealing with for a long time in my life, and I say that I'm a recovering perfectionist, and if you have a child that is like an overachiever or it's just driving themselves crazy, you want to stay tuned for this show, because I'm going to give you some insight on how to support them, even when they are driving themselves crazy, even those kids need support. Stay tuned. Hi. Thank you so much for joining the Falling for Learning Podcast. I am TD Flenaugh, we have this podcast to help parents and caregivers with having the resources, strategies and tools needed to make sure that their children are on track for learning and to stay on track for success. You Yes. Okay, perfectionism. Now you may or may not have this issue, but here are some things that you need to look for with your kids. Sometimes you have kids that you really need to get motivated. You really need to help them out, and then you'll have kids on the other side of the spectrum, where they're always taking on a lot, where they are very upset when they have made a mistake, where they are not done with something, even though you think it looks really good, and they still feel like it needs to be better. And they're working on it, and they keep working on it, and they're up late at night and they're up early in the morning. And in fact, you see them driving themselves crazy. I am a recovering perfectionist, and if you see these qualities with your kids, here are some things that you can do to help them. Now. First of all, you just saying that it's good enough, or it looks good, or, you know, you don't need to do more than that, doesn't help them. I want to tell you right away that I know that I'm a perfectionist, and part of it is being judgmental about people who feel like this is good enough, and it's, you know, I'm stopping here. I'm not doing more than that. I'm not doing all of that. The perfectionist person's gonna be thinking, Okay, uh, you're, you know, low quality loser, whatever adjectives come to mind. But basically, they don't trust your judgment. So you could be their parent or whoever, but they have their own standard that they're not living up to what you're talking about, and they're going to keep working and keep driving themselves crazy, even though you may say it's okay. They have their own standard. So you need to know that you just saying that it's good enough. It doesn't make it good enough for them as a perfectionist. So perfectionist do often just take on more. They feel like, okay, I'm able to do it. I'm I can, I could get it done. And for a long time, I even touted myself as what you call a how girl, meaning that even though something may seem very difficult or hard, I'm going to find out how to do it, how to get it done. And when I'm saying how it's not like other people, it's me like I'm going to wake up earlier, I'm going to go to bed later. I'm going to fit this in, in this little 10 minute break that I have, I'm going to get it done. And so that is a little bit of inside of the mind of a perfectionist. So you're, you know, you're gonna see this happening. Now, obviously they take a lot of pride in their work. As a perfectionist, you're really gonna be taking a but there it's a two, a two edged sword. So where it really gets in, you know, to be problematic is that when they're in the middle of doing something that they were like for sure they could do, because they could handle anything, they're going to be really stressed out. They're going to be maybe having panic attacks. They're going to be having all these challenges because they took on too much, but at the same time, are not able to stop themselves, but keep working and not letting themselves off the hook, not giving themselves grace, right? So that's something that you really need to take note of. They're not going to give themselves grace. So. As a parent, you can talk to them about, you know, what perfectionism is, and really let them know, you know, there's nothing wrong with high standards, but you are human, right. Remember last episode I was talking about how my second grade teacher was really, you know, writing on my report card how I finally realized that I can make mistakes and accepting, accepting, you know that I make mistakes because I'm a human which is something hard to do. Like it sounds crazy, but when you have a kid that is doing this and really causing themselves problems and pain, because, of course, it is an unattainable goal. It's unattainable, but it doesn't mean that the perfectionist is going to stop trying to reach that perfection and just driving themselves crazy with them. So one thing that about it is that what you're going to do to support them is help give them boundaries, right? So let's say it's a school project that they're working on. So you want to make sure you have the RAM, you know, what are the parameters of this assignment? When is it due? What is supposed to be done? Right? Because they're going to keep editing, revising, redoing, doing different things over and over again, tweaking it. But you can say, Okay, this is due on Friday, right? So like that Thursday evening. You know, every day up to that point, maybe you know they're working on it. You give them a deadline. You're working. You could work till nine o'clock. You cannot work past that. And you know, give them set boundaries, and help them to set boundaries for themselves. But when this first starts, when you start seeing it set boundaries. Say, Okay, I'll let you work till nine o'clock. But you're going to have to know that these are the parameters. You need to have seven pages. You need to have five pictures, whatever it is. And he said you could do a little bit more than that, right? But you're not going to do more, you know? You're not going to drive yourself crazy, like you will drive yourself with crazy with this. And being a little bit less than perfect is not going to harm you, right? And in fact, giving them an idea that 85% is good, even though it sounds crazy to perfectionist when I start thinking in these terms, like 85% is kind of good enough. Then, you know, when I've stressed myself out, stayed up to three o'clock in the morning, then I really understood like, okay. Like, this is gonna this is okay. Like, I can do this. I can go to sleep, I can get some rest. I can, you know, call my friends. I could go out with people, because I have met these goals. So, like, checklists are your friend. Like, the the guidelines for assignment are your friend. So you could check those things off. Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? Right? And perfection has taken another step. They might be looking more like, okay, all my sentences have different beginnings. All of my sentences like I have high level vocabulary, like they're looking for things that make their work Excellent. So you could help them set a parameter for that and start checking off the boxes for it. Just to let you know some things that I've done in the past, like one time I had a project that I was supposed to do notes for every chapter, and let's say the book had 17 chapters, and I was supposed to do notes for every chapter, but for whatever reason in my mind, my notes had to be like a paragraph. Let's say every chapter I had to do like five things, like five notes. I had to do a paragraph for every note that I was doing. So of course, like, how many pages of that? 1717, chapters, five paragraphs for each chapter. Needless to say, I didn't get this done because I had other classes. I stayed up all night. I was so stressed I didn't get it done because I was part of the perfectionism is, you know, really slow work because I might be on chapter five, but I don't have all of the the details that I said I needed if I'm going back to look at those parameters of the chapter. I mean of the assignment. Did the teacher actually say a paragraph for every note? No, but in my mind, I felt like that's what I needed to do. So that's what I was doing. I actually, like, end up staying home, working all day trying to get that done, because the then the chapters, I mean, like the the paragraphs have to also be perfect, right? So, you know, let's say I worked all day and I was only on the. The, you know, 12th Chapter, and it was, do you know, so I really just drove my you do things, and you'll see your kids do this. If they are, you know, suffering from perfectionism, they'll drive themselves crazy with this and and you have to help them, like setting off boundaries. But I am bringing this up because I recently just had a major project that I was working on, and actually the project didn't, wasn't as long as maybe some other people, because they gave me parameters like you only had to do. You only could do this many pages, you know. And for the second part, you only could do this many pages, and you know, then you have to do this video. And you know, all the they, I looked at the parameters. But when I looked at the parameters, I also was like, Well, I also need to add in this, and I need to add in that, and, you know, and I just kind of really drove myself crazy with it. And actually, sometimes we think having more time will help. And it doesn't necessarily. When your perfection is when you have more time, you think, Oh, I could add these extra layers to make it really, really good, and again, lengthening the amount of time that you're going to work. And where this really gets tricky is, you know, for me, I have my own projects that I have for myself. You know, have books that I write, I have, you know, you know, several different things that I want to send out to people. And where it gets tricky is, I'm the person who sets that deadline. And obviously I could tweak something and mess with it and tweak with it and mess with it and never get it done and never get it sent out. Um, and, you know, writing a book like, Okay, I think I need to add this chapter. And you know what? I think this particular character needs to be fleshed out more, and I think I need to add a new subplot to this book. And so, of course, with perfectionism, one of the one of the byproducts, right are unfinished products right there. It's never going to be good enough for it to come out. So when you set your own deadlines, but you're like, This, can't possibly go out. It's not good enough to go out. And I still don't have a fleshed out character for this. And I feel like I saw this other thing, and I should have added more about this particular setting, and maybe even the next setting, and then add this tweak to the setting. And throughout, I should have gone back, you will not get your work done. And then the other part is you look at other people's things as a perfectionist, and you're like, oh, this stuff is not perfect. I can't have my stuff out there, not perfect, like other people's. And what happens over time is that you don't get what you want done right. But in your mind, you have this big, unattainable goal, and you are just driving yourself crazy. And I'm gonna keep saying driving yourself crazy, because if you have a child that suffers from perfectionism, you are going to see them torturing themselves and things that you could do for them is, again, help setting boundaries. Let them know you gotta go to sleep at this time. You've gotta stop working on it. At this time, we're gonna go and have fun as a family. At this time, I'm gonna let you know make sure that you are balancing your work ethic with your quality of life right, like things that are just fun, rest, self care, because perfectionist get into this rabbit hole of trying to finish this task to the highest quality as possible, and they sometimes don't accomplish their goals, because instead of getting through the work right, they are adding to the work right. They are making sure every part is perfect. And maybe stuck on number two, they may have 10 to do, but on number two, they're just trying to really make sure it's perfect. Instead of saying, I'm going to work, I'm going to check off all the things that it's supposed to do, get the basics down, then I'm going to go to number three, then I'm going to get the basics down for number three, and I'm going to go to number four instead of progressing. Sometimes they are, you know, stuck in a rut. They're working. What they have is really nice, what's good, but it's not done, and it won't be done until they get themselves in a place where they can understand that there are human, that they're not perfect, and that it won't be perfect, and they're setting themselves up for failure by expecting perfection from themselves, again unattainable and just bending your wheels. You're not going to reach that goal of being perfect, but you are going to drive yourself crazy and sometimes not reach the goals that you want. Right? You're not going to get that thing done because you. You have decided that it's never going to be good enough. And and you're kind of telling yourself, well, if I do this and this and this, it'll be perfect. As soon as I do this and this and this, it'll be perfect. But instead of having an exhausted list, right, there's 20 things on this list, I'm going to get it done, and I'll be done with that. They find other things to add to it, and when you see that happening, you have to support them and letting them know that you need to set boundaries. Help them set boundaries and set boundaries for them so that they can move forward and they can get to the other side of what their goals and dreams and outcomes are. We're going to have more about how to help them move forward right after these messages, thanks for joining us. The rewrite method and the rewrite method workbook are your go to resource for helping kids to learn to fall in love with writing. It has the tips, tools, resources, strategies and skill building activities to help kids fall out of writing, hoot and into loving to write, get your book set today. Okay, so getting them out of this rut of not getting done this especially helpful for times when the job is not a set deadline. The good thing about having a set deadline is, you know, obviously they have to get it done by that point, and then they need to move on. Now, like I said, sometimes they'll finagle that, like I did. I told you about that project where I just stayed home and worked on it and worked on it, instead of, like, going to school and turning in what I had. You can help them pace it out, if they have, you know, you could help them set a goal when they don't have a set time to get something done, like a self project that they want to do, like they want to write a book or they want to do this particular project, tell them to set a time and then paste it out by this date you need to have this much done. By this date, you need to have it done. Having set number of things that need to be done for the day or per week is really helpful. So that is how you could Gage, like, am I perseverating too much on particular details and not moving forward. And if that's so, then you need to say, Okay, then I'm that means you're going to say, I'm going to spend 30 minutes on this, I'm going to spend an hour on this, and then I need to move on, no matter what, even if they're not done, because the goal is progress. And when people are in that perfectionist rut. They're not being productive, they're not moving forward and getting things done. They are really paying attention to details and really getting particular details good and right, but the overall project's not done, and again, really bad for perfectionists, because they have this unattainable set of standards for themselves and them not meeting their goals, then they're beating themselves up more. So it's a vicious cycle of a really, of really making things harder for yourself, right, and then not getting your full joy out of life because you have set these unattainable goals, you've set these unrealistic expectations for yourself, and then you are really down on yourself because you did not meet these expectations. So just to tell you, like being on, like having this podcast was one of the best things that I've done to really help me try, you know, break out of the perfectionism cycle. Now, of course, there are sometimes I get stuck in it again, and I have to realize that I'm in it and note that I'm doing it, and then help myself move forward like I'm going to set myself up with a finite amount of task that I need to do. I'm going to give myself a particular deadline that I need to follow, pacing myself when I have set goal, set deadlines that are imposed by others, when I set my own deadlines, of course, I can finagle those, move them around, and again, that is what perfectionists do, because they're not moving forward. They are not attaining all of their goals, because they are focusing on the details and not making progress forward. And so helping them to do that is really important. Mm. Uh, so me having this podcast every day, every time I do the podcast, it's not perfect, it's not what it's supposed to be, but I met. Met set my goal of making sure I release a podcast episode every week. And even if it's not perfect, even if you know there's some some issues, I'm still putting it forward and out, because that's a goal that I set for myself. So that's something that perfectionist can deal with, is saying I'm going to be consistent about something right, not perfect at something, but consistent at something, and then learning from what you did wrong and how to get better, but not beating yourself up for it. Now, if I was waiting for the time when I'd have a perfect podcast, you would have never seen one episode, and we're now on episode 99 so I am out of the rut in some ways, but when I got into this, this recent project that I needed to turn in, I did some driving myself crazy by staying up really late, waking up really early, revising, editing, repeating, revising, editing, repeating, reading it again, looking up something else, saying, oh, I need to add this other thing. And just continuing on and on and on. But again, like I said, I had a set that deadline imposed by others, but other things I, you know, fell by the wayside. I wasn't doing certain tasks that I was supposed to do because I was putting everything in on this particular task. And you know, you know, the thing that I'm learning about myself is like, I gotta set limits for myself. I gotta really, like, look at myself and notice when these things are happening, when I'm being judgmental and when I'm saying judgmental. It's just in my mind, I'm not telling someone, no, you need to do this or that maybe I am now that I'm thinking maybe I did have some conversations where I was, like, telling people they should do whatever, but, but really, I really am saying in myself, like, Oh no, that's kind of weakness, right? So that's a thing that I say to myself, some of that stinking perfectionist thinking, like, that's a weakness. If you're saying you can't do all of this, of course, I can do it all. You may not be able to do it, but I can do it all. And so these are things that we tell ourselves, but in the end, because I am a human, that's a reality that I am not able to change right now. I am not going to be able to do it all. I am I'm going to run out of time. I am going to have a setback, and it's not going to be perfect. It's just not going to happen. And having reminding myself by looking at the guidelines, setting myself for guidelines, right? What I want to do, pacing myself, giving myself you're not working on this past 10 o'clock. You are not going to wake up at four and start working on this. You can wake up at eight, even if you're up. You're gonna stay and enjoy the day. You're gonna give yourself some rest just laying in your bed and start working at eight o'clock on your weekend, right? And those kind of things that you could do for yourself and help your child do these things for themselves, so they could recognize that perfectionism is not attainable, but setting goals and making it happen is part of that, and that failure, failing, making mistakes, is part of the learning process. And when you are trying to do something or accomplish something that you've never done before. It is part of a learning process, and ultimately, you're going to make mistakes, and that is okay to make mistakes. Give yourself grace when you make mistakes, tell yourself it's okay that you're going to keep moving. You don't have to start everything over. You don't have to to throw everything away, or, you know, just stop and just focus in on that mistake, but you could move to the next thing and learn from what you didn't get. The other thing about perfectionism is knowing that you can work with others. You can delegate some of your tasks to others, not that you have to be a help, a how? Girl, right? A person who's going to find out how to do it by stretching themselves to the max where they cannot, you know, where you you really can't really do anything else besides work, right? I'm going to work during my break. I'm going to work at four o'clock in the morning. I'm going to work until 12 midnight, right? But instead thinking about like, Who can help me with this, right? Who, you know, maybe paying someone to, you know, clean your house sometimes, or paying someone to do different things instead of neck. Collecting the parts in your life so you can get this particular task done. And maybe you can't pay people, but you can ask someone for help. You could barter with someone. You could, you know, see if they could do a favor for you, because later on, you could do a favor for them, and you've been doing favors for them. Maybe so. So recognizing that you're learning when you're trying to do a task that you've never done before, and giving yourself grace when you're making mistakes, that's something that you could do to help your child to move forward when they're stuck in this perfectionism loop that they might be on. Thank you so much for joining us. I hope today that you do something that is going to give your child the competitive advantage, whether they are a perfectionist or someone who's slow to get things started right. Have a great weekend. Thanks again for supporting the falling for learning podcast, new episodes go live every Saturday at 5pm you can watch us on youtube.com, at falling for learning or listen on all major podcast platforms, such as Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and much more for more resources, visit falling in love with learning.com we really appreciate you. Have a wonderful week. You.