Impossible to Please, or Life with a Perfectionist

You might know someone like this. Nothing is ever right for them. There is no pleasing this person. It could be your partner, or it might be your boss. They pick at you, point out every mistake, and are never satisfied. Get skilled, because you're in a relationship with a perfectionist. Taking care of yourself and knowing how and when to set limits is going to be key to your survival and mental well-being. They are not likely to change, so you need extreme self-care so you don't get angry and bitter, depressed, or overwhelmed.

In Impossible to Please: How to Deal With Perfectionist Coworkers, Controlling Spouses, and Other Incredibly Critical People (New Harbinger Publications, 2012), psychologists and writers Neil Lavender and Alan Cavaiola do a great job of writing a guide for staying sane. Here are some of their tips:

1. Don't expect the controlling person to change.

2. Set your own expectations and benchmarks. (You will never meet theirs.)

3. State your own boundaries, clearly and without attitude or defensiveness.

4. Give yourself a little time to respond to unreasonable requests. You can say that you'll get back to them, and buy yourself a little time to consider how you want to respond.

5. Speak up. If the controlling person is at work, let them know how their behavior impacts your work, and what you would like them to do in the future. If you are in a personal relationship with the controller, let them know how their specific comments or behavior makes you feel, and what you would rather they do next time.

6. Agree to disagree.

7. Don't expect the other person to validate your feelings. Know that your feelings are important even if the controller can't acknowledge them.

8. Stay in your adult role. Just because they may behaving like a critical parent, don't become a child.

9. It can help to create distance for a while.

10. With criticism, assert your right to want something else or be different. Critical controllers tend to operate like there is only one right way to do everything, and its theirs.

11. Don't show your frustration; it won't help.

12. Don't let them undermine your self-esteem and self-confidence.

13. If you're at work, consider speaking up to HR or someone with the authority to change things.

14. If it's in your personal life, get a little counseling to identify some coping strategies or help you make other plans.

Why do people become perfectionists? It can't be fun. While it's good to have high standards, controlling perfectionists push away others with their perfectionism. They may have deep-seated anxiety and their rigidity is how they cope. Often they are not happy, and more likely to be stingy with others and fear-based. Perfectionists are often unhappy and critical with themselves underneath that idealized view of themselves. People who are generally at peace with themselves don't invest in criticizing others with this intensity and mission. In close relationships we have to be vulnerable, and it has to be okay to be imperfect. People don't love you because you're perfect.

Impossible to Please has some useful strategies for getting perspective and getting up above the controlling perfectionist in your life with your self-esteem intact. This is a helpful book in the effort to not take their criticism personally, because the need to belittle you is really about them.

Stepping Off The Stress Train

You know those scary movies that come out this time of year, where there are frightening phone calls coming in, and the character discovers the chilling fact that the threatening phone calls are coming from INSIDE their own house? What if your stress set point works the same way, and you have to look at your own role in whipping yourself up into being "stressed out"? In reality, you are the main person who can decide to actively change your own thoughts that are keeping you stressed, and making active lifestyle changes to deal with stress more effectively.

The good news is that you have more power than you have realized in the past to effectively manage stress. You might start by keeping some notes in a stress journal. Note what is happening when you are stressed, what you are thinking, how you are feeling both physically in your body, as well as emotionally. Write down what you did in response to the stress. Record what made you feel better or get past the stress and let it go. There are valuable clues in a stress journal, by watching for patterns that may illuminate other healthier choices you can make.

Watch out for excuses. Some people blame other people or events for their own stressed out state, not taking responsibility for their own negative internal dialogue which makes them overreact to normal events. Try not to blame stress as an integral part of your personality, your work, or your family, which negates your own power to create healthier patterns.

It's better to build your awareness of what stresses you, and make an active plan to manage the stress.

In relationships, I try to get my patients to take responsibility for their own part, rather than blaming others. Make sure you are doing good self-care, including getting regular cardiovascular exercise (enough to make you sweat), eating to keep moods stable, and weeding out those negative  thoughts which make you believe you are powerless and helpless. You're not, unless you resign!

Take a look at your schedule as well. I am always concerned that my patients schedule with regard for balance, including regular breaks and time to connect with those you love, play, exercise, and have down time. If you don't take care to preserve time for these important activities, you are by default choosing to victimize yourself, and stay on the stress train.

Try to avoid unnecessary stressors. This may mean you need to be more careful about your boundaries, and learn to say "no" both at work and in your personal life if you are already fully committed. For example, make a commitment to yourself NEVER to work through lunch. Seek out people who don't stress you out, and in fact help you relax and feel good.

Try doing less. Some people just chronically overschedule, and need to create more realistic expectations for themselves. Practice under-scheduling if this is you, and experiment with how that feels. Scheduling yourself too tightly just makes your blood pressure boil.

Be in charge of not inviting stress in to your life. Turn off news before bed. Listen to soothing music in your car. Allow more time for things than you think it will take.

Be more communicative about expressing your feelings. Keeping them all tucked inside can amp your stress up further.

Be careful not to deal with stress by medicating it with alcohol, food, drugs, caffeine, oversleeping, over-shopping, or other unhealthy behaviors that end up creating more problems and their own stress. Passive stress reducers, like watching TV, are not as good as doing something active like taking a walk outside for 30 minutes and noticing nature.

You may also want to lower your standards. Perfectionism leads to more anxiety and stress. Take a more protective stance with your own emotional and physically. Give tasks only the energy they really deserve, and don't be a spendthrift with your own energy.

Reframing stresses can also be helpful. For those stressors that you can't escape, try to keep the big picture in mind. Some stressors are temporary and will pass. Reminding yourself to keep that big perspective in mind and try to laugh about it can make a big difference in how stressed you get. Try to see the positive in what you are learning from such stressors, and how it may be making you stronger as an individual.

Do something fun or enjoyable every day, even for fifteen minutes! Squeeze in some time to self-soothe with a bubble bath with scented candles, talk with a good friend, curl up with a great book, get outside to see what's blooming this week in your neighborhood, or play with a pet. You'll be surprised how you can lower your own stress set-point through self-care.

When it comes to stress, you are the conductor on your own stress train, and only you can decide to get off it. Life is so short, and we have so much medical evidence about how our own internal stress level leads to health issues like high blood pressure, hypertension, heart problems, and many others. Don't stay on the stress train any longer than you must! You will be happier, and so will those who care about you.