Do you constantly find yourself worrying that the work you’re doing might not be “good enough?” Do you also tend to worry about not being “good enough” as a person in general? If so, then let it be known that you are not alone. In fact, a sizable percentage of the human race has some form of perfectionism; they believe that no matter what, they’ll never truly be good enough. I just might be one of those people who suffers from this the most.
If there is one thing that never fails to bring me severe stress, it’s the endless, relentless fear that I’m not doing an adequate job: whether it be on a specific task, or as a general fact. In other words, I have a pretty severe case of perfectionism. I stated in the post, “What do I do? What ‘should I do?” that this, along with my poor time management skills, makes it easier for me to panic whenever I have many tasks to handle at once. Just as I did with time management in the previous entry, I will now elaborate upon my issues with perfectionism and why it causes me so much anxiety.
As I mentioned earlier, I am completely aware that tons of people have this problem of constantly trying to meet a certain standard in their lives, and never feeling fully satisfied with themselves. It’s definitely NOT an unusual condition, and it may very well be that the majority of all human beings suffer from it. With that said, perfectionism seems to have a particularly powerful influence on my day-to-day behavior. Perfectionism affects my life in two key areas.
Firstly, whenever I am given a responsibility or task to complete, I will often spend a considerable amount of time making sure that I do a “good job” on it. This mostly applies to tasks such as schoolwork assignments, duties at work, and long-term academic projects. It can also sometimes apply to less substantial things like household chores, exercise, meditating, buying products, and even playing video games. In any case, as I engage myself in the task at hand, I will quickly become obsessed with getting the most praiseworthy result that I can; with being able to feel genuinely proud about what I have accomplished. Of course, when you’re such a perfectionist and nit-picky person, it’s not easy to be fully satisfied with your work, and you tend to give yourself unreasonable standards for quality. Consequently, I will spend far more time than necessary to finish a particular task, with much of it spent struggling to meet these standards. Most of the time, I will be unsatisfied to some extent with the end product and believe that someone else could have done it a whole lot better.
For example: I rarely feel completely gratified with my own posts on this blog. No matter how hard I try, I can’t shake off the impression that the article I’m writing could be a little better. As a result, I have to make several modifications to each entry before I consider uploading it. I will sometimes even send the post to my mother for a quick review. Even when she says that it’s perfectly fine, I’ll still feel a little disappointed with how the post turned out in the end. Since I am apparently unable to make it as fantastic and well-crafted as I’d like it to be, I upload it anyway, hoping that at least others will appreciate it. So I guess you can say that I’m not a huge fan of my blog, because I’m so perfectionist and self-critical when it comes to writing. I also tend to assume that other people write far superior blog posts, including on the topic of Asperger Syndrome (please don’t try to convince me otherwise, because that’ll mean you’re putting down your own writing, which I do not wish to hear).
The second way in which perfectionism enters into my life is on a much more general level. It would be difficult to explain this issue fully without making the post over 3000 words long, so I’ll do best to give a basic summary. Whenever I take a good look at myself – what my social life looks like, how independent I am from my family, how hard I study, how productive I am at work, what I do with my free time, how much I contribute to charitable causes, among other factors – I’m always extremely discontented. Particularly when I compare myself to others in those areas, I can’t help but feel awfully pathetic, unaccomplished, and lazy. As a result, I keep on thinking that I need to do a lot more with myself and follow the suggestions of others in order to become a more admirable person.
For this reason, I like to give myself a bunch of activities casually recommended to me by other people on a regular basis. These recommended activities can include things that my parents said I may want to consider, advice given by my therapist or counselor, interests a friend has which they want me to try out, or suggestions from a book that I’m reading. Whatever the source may be, I will often perceive the recommendation as something that’s mandatory, an activity that I need to perform in order to feel better about myself. I will typically add the activity to my to-do list, put a reminder for it on my iPhone, and try to make absolutely sure that I eventually attend to it. Alternatively, I may myself stress out because I don’t have the time to engage in that activity or because I simply don’t want to do it. Again, even though it is merely a suggestion, I will treat it as a vital task or a direct command from someone else, thus feeling pretty awful and lazy when I cannot fulfill it.
Even if I do commit myself to performing an activity that was recommended to me, it doesn’t guarantee that I actually will get to it. Either I may forget about it completely, or I might be too busy with academic assignment, work-related stuff, and other responsibilities to make time for it. When that happens, I will naturally feel somewhat guilty and stressed – criticizing myself for “being lazy” and not “doing what I should be doing.” Yes, I know that it never was 100% essential, yet I cannot help to perceive it as if it were, since I’m so unsatisfied with myself and I constantly think that I need to do more with my life.
Once again, I fully realize that I’m not the only one who has these problems with perfectionism and self-disapproval. It’s something that affects those with or without autism-related disorders, including those without any disorders at all. All the same, I have a good feeling that those somewhere on the autism spectrum likely struggle with it more than “neurotypical” individuals do. It may have something to do with our troubles with executive functions, how we tend to interpret what other people say, or perhaps the way we grew up as children. In any case, I think it’s very important for all of us to be aware just how critical and nit-picky we can be toward ourselves – far more than most people are in our lives. I, for one, am currently trying my best to abandon my perfectionist way of thinking, and adopt a more encouraging, more relaxed way of looking at things. I believe that many others out there, Aspergers or not, may want to consider doing this as well.
Tim's Aspie Journal 