Hey, fam, Hello's Sunshine. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by perfectionism, this show is for you. For this Wellness Wednesday, we're joined by Catherine Morgan Schaffler, a psychotherapist and expert on perfectionism. She doesn't see perfectionism as a flaw though, rather as a superpower. So today we're going to learn how to harness that power of perfectionism and use it to our advantage. Don't miss this insightful conversation that could change the way you view yourself and your ambitions.
Stop trying to be balanced, stop hemorrhaging your energy trying to be someone who you're not, and follow your desire, follow your pleasure, trust in those things.
It's Wednesday, August twenty eighth. I'm Danielle Robe.
And I'm Simon Boyce, and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day. Today's Wellness Wednesday is presented by Coliguard.
Okay, perfectionism, perfectionism. How do you feel when I say.
The word when you say the word perfectionism, That's a really good question. I think about women honestly, I think about the way that that term has been weaponized against women. M hm, because you don't really hear people saying, oh, he's such a perfectionist. It's always women, and it's always the women who are perceived to be difficult. Interesting. I know a few perfectionist men, for sure, But does anybody actually label them that republic setting No, I think you're
right about that. I'm excited to talk about the topic today. So I'm trying to think about how I'm a perfectionist, and the first thing that comes to my mind is packing. I feel like I procrastinate packing because I need the perfect outfit. And you know this because we've traveled together. I only go in a carry on, my carry on and my Dagne Dover carry all, and so if it's
not fitting in there, it's not coming. And so then I go through this whole thing in my mind, like, well, what if it's raining, and what if it's cold, and how do I fit two to three pairs of shoes and my blow dryer?
And I just get crazy.
That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. I'm a packing perfectionist. Okay, here's my perfectionist tendency. It actually happened to me this morning. I have a DIY project that I have to do at my house. I'm doing. I'm doing closet doors in my kid's room, and I don't know how to do this. I've never done it before. I'm sitting outside of Lows and the procrastinator perfectionism is keeping me inside the car like I'm in freeze mode.
You know there's Fike flight or freeze. I'm sitting in the car and I'm just scrolling and I realize you're sitting here because you're afraid to mess up this project.
Well, first of all, the car is your comfort place.
The car is the comfort place because we live in Los Angeles and we live in our cars. But I had to literally do a pep talk with myself, like you know what, you just got to go in there. You got to go into Low's and you got to act confident and go to the lumber department, like you know how to make these closet doors.
Did the pep talk work.
I got the plywood, I got all the supplies.
Go Simone, Simone, he did it.
But procrastination, this is something that we're going to get into in our conversation today. But procrastination is definitely a vehicle for perfectionism or like.
A symptom of right. Yeah, well, we're not the only ones who deal with perfectionism. We open this topic up to our bright side besties and we asked you on social media to share how perfectionism shows up in your life. And I want to read some of the responses. So one person said, my live in boyfriend is a perfectionist. I am not, and we are always fighting. Help. That's hilarious, not the fighting part, but I love that he's the perfectionist.
Someone else said perfectionism can cause anxiety and be overwhelming. One other bestie said perfectionism mostly keeps them living in fear. Wow, that's kind of like you, Simon.
It is. I just kidd If you're sitting in your car fearful, I feel you, I see you.
Yeah.
Well, our guest today is here to help us break out of that cycle of fear and offer a new perspective on perfectionism. Catherine Morgan Schaeffler is a therapist, a writer, and author of the book The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control, A Path to Peace and Power. So she's got a hot take on perfectionism. Y'all, and she's encouraging all of us to embrace and harness the power of our perfectionism. And I'm sure you're wondering, Okay, that sounds great, but
what does that actually look like. Well, the key to unlocking that is identifying the type of perfectionists that we all are, and she has a quiz that's going to help us with that.
So Simona and I both took the quiz. I don't know how I feel about it, so we're going to get some insights from Catherine. And we also posted this on our Hello Sunshine social accounts and the response was fantastic, So thank you to all of our besties who shared responses. You guys are the best besties. And if you want to reach out to us, hit us up on Hello Sunshine's Instagram or on our TikTok at the bright Side pod or via email at Hello at the brightsidepodcast dot com.
We really love hearing from you, Simone, and I always feel like this is our show, meaning all of us, So let's hear from the expert herself. Katherine Morgan Schaffler. Katherine, welcome to the bright Side.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
So perfectionism, I have to tell you, Simone and I are so excited for this interview because dare I say we both suffer.
In different forms? Yeah?
I think so. Yeah. I think a lot of people do those. So as we sort of get into this conversation, I think it's important that we're all on the same page. How do you define perfectionism?
Yes, so I define perfectionism in a different way than I think commercial wellness defines it, and interestingly, so does the research work world. Right, So I define a perfectionist as a person who sees an ideal. Right, it's a unique human cognitive capacity. We can imagine a version of reality which doesn't yet exist and that is new and
improved in some way. And a perfectionist sees an ideal and also sees the reality plunked down in their laps, and they feel an active compulsion to bridge the gap.
Right.
So the difference between a perfectionist and an idealist, for example, as an idealist sees that gap too, but they're like, oh, wouldn't that be nice if we could have the ideal? A perfectionist sees the gap and it's like, wouldn't that be nice, and then they feel that they need or want to do something about bridging the gap, which I think is a really beautiful, natural, healthy impulse.
I think of sort of the cliche meme that goes around Instagram, which is like I saw the problem and thought somebody needed to solve it, so I became that somebody, which I guess is not how I thought of perfectionism before. Yeah, I mean, perfectionism.
First popped up in psychological literature as a really positive thing. And what's really interesting is to watch the arc of how we've kind of taken perfectionism and shrunken it down to this behavioral thing that's bad. And that's not how I see perfectionism at all. I think of perfectionism that as a problem to be fixed, but a power to be harnessed.
Like, I'm not here to.
Say perfectionism is one hundred percent great.
It's not.
There are real dangers around it, and I talk about those dangers in the book. But for the most part, I think, what if we looked at perfectionism as this part of you that you never have to get rid of, a b could actually enjoy and see makes you who you are.
So before we talk about harnessing the power of it, which I really love, and I do want to get into the positive. I think we have to talk about the negative, which is what happens when it goes into an unhealthy place. How does it affect people and people in those people's lives.
Perfectionism when it's you know, maladaptively expressed, which is the research term for unhealthy perfectionism is maladaptive. Healthy perfectionism is adaptive and just taking a quick step back, research for decades had supported the notion that perfectionism can be both flexible and rigid, healthy and unhealthy all that stuff. So negative perfectionism is really tied to a person's sense of self worth. And self worth is not the same as
self esteem. So self worth is about what you believe you deserve as a human being, right, and self esteem is about what you think about yourself right. So self esteem is like I think I'm hot, good at math, bad at cooking, really patient with kids. Self worth is like I believe I deserve reciprocity, safety, love, joy without having to earn it. And a perfectionist who's in a healthy place is in touch with their self worth, and
a perfectionist who's engaged in maladaptive perfectionism. It can feel like until I get this thing right, I don't deserve to relax, or I don't deserve to be in a relationship until I'm making this amount of money, or I'm xyz. You're basically making your sense of being present and joyful and like actually having fun with your life contingent upon you achieving some external outcome, and that is something that we can all fall prey to and gets really dangerous really quick.
Okay, we have to get into why you're so qualified to talk about this with patients as a therapist, also as an on site counselor at Google, and you have your own personal connection to perfectionism as well. I hear that you didn't even understand how much of a perfectionist you were until you started losing control. What happened.
It is such a cliche, right to not realize something critical about your life until you get sick, But that is what happened. I, when I was thirty three, got diagnosed with cancer, and it was a really treatable cancer and I never really felt like I might die.
I felt like it was.
All manageable, but it did completely turn my life upside down. You know, I lost a pregnancy. I had just been married one year. I didn't have time to freeze my eggs before I started chemotherapy, and just all these professional opportunities and personal achievements that I had worked for it for so many years just disappeared in the span of two weeks. And anybody who has any kind of chronic illness will know that the busyness of being sick just
takes up so much of your time and energy. And I just did not realize how much I over indexed on control until I lost so much of it, and I was like shocked by that, And that is where this book was born from, of like how can I be a perfectionist? Which I realized I was in my exploration of this topic and I don't never know where my phone is and like obsessed with doctor Brene Brown, and she'd like, how is this adding up? And I just realized how much we've tried to squeeze perfectionism into
this little ring box. When perfectionism is so kaleidoscopic, it's so much more. We think of it as this like behavioral type a thing. When perfectionism can manifest emotionally, it can manifest cognitively wanting to perfectly understand something. It can show up in so many ways.
I've heard you say that your book, The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control is asking the reader to answer one question, and that is, can you assume, for just one moment that nothing is wrong with you? How did you arrive there?
Yes?
Well, I wrote the book for women because perfectionist, turns out is a very gendered term. And you know, I had a practice on Wall Street. I worked with a lot of women who are sort of in big law and finance, and they came into my office not being able to shake the sense of I should be happy with my life, like I have what I need, I'm safe, I achieved some of my goals, but there's a problem. I want more. I'm such a perfectionist, I just can't
be happy with enough. And the men that came into my office never talked about perfectionism in that way, and they never describe themselves, for example, as a recovering perfectionist, right. They just think of themselves as hies, drivers and people who have a strong and clear vision. And that's what perfectionists tend to be. It's just that when we see those qualities animated in women. There is a cultural reflex to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, You're doing too much, You're
being too ambitious, you need to balance yourself out. Basically, women are conditioned to register a desire for more as a deficiency in gratitude.
You know, say that again.
Women are conditioned to register a desire for more as a deficiency in gratitude. And it's like, you can be grateful and want more, you can be angry and.
Full of love. You don't have to choose.
I loved the conversation you had about this with Reese Witherspook because she was talking about her desire to create Hello Sunshine in that interview and that she got all these kind of reactions that were essentially saying, but why do you want to do that? And her answer was because I want to? And as women, when the answer to why we want to do something is because I want to, that can be a really disquieting answer for that reason, because we're conditioned to not allow our own
desire to be enough of a justification. Yeah, And it is, like I'm here to say it is, if you want to do it, there's probably really good reason for your wanting.
To do that. We have to take a quick break. But when we come back, psychotherapist and author Katherine Morgan Schaeffler is breaking down the five types of perfectionists. We're back with Catherine Morgan Shaffler. We do have this idea of perfectionists with like a color coded closet and perfect notepads and just a type a organized person. And it's interesting to hear that a perfectionist comes in many forms. You could have an unruly apartment or a messy car and still be a perfectionist.
Yeah, So as I see it, there are five types. You could be one type of perfectionist when it comes to dating, for example, and a whole other type of perfectionist at work. So I'll go through the five types really quickly. The first type we could start with is the classic and this is I think most similar to the archetype we think of when we think of a perfectionist. This person is like very you know, maybe prep be structured. All types have pros and cons, because perfectionism has pros
and cons. The pros of the classic perfectionist are that these are people who naturally infuse structure into everything that they do. They do what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it in the way that they said that they.
Would do it.
But the cons are these are not people who necessarily operate in the spirit of collaboration, let's say. And so you can feel like I see this person every day, but I don't know a lot about this person, because the relationship is transactional in some ways, because it's just
about getting things done. And on the classic perfectionist side, they can feel really taken for granted and taken advantage of sometimes because it's like, sure, this person always likes to plan the vacation or you know, do the deck or whatever it is, but that doesn't mean it's not work, and that we don't want to be appreciated for the work we do. And so the next type is the
procrastinator perfectionist, another really relatable type. Right, So procrastinator perfectionists in essence want things to be perfect before they start. So the pros of this type are that these are really thoughtful people. They can see something from a three hundred and sixty degree angle and they are so well prepared. But the cons are that their preparative measures like spill past the point of diminishing returns, and they're like over prepared and never execute on the thing that they long
to do right. And then the counterpart to the procrastinated perfectionist is a messy perfectionist. And this type of perfectionist is in love with starting. I call them start happy. They will just really get enveloped in the romanticism of a fresh beginning.
Right.
So I'm going to start a podcast and this is what it's going to be called, and I'm going to be an Airbnb super host, and I'm also going to you know, become a photographer and a dog walker and do yoga certification training. And just like they start so many things and then they hit the inevitable tedium where stuff gets boring or complicated or some combination of both.
And you know, it's very hard to continue along the process when the process, because it's alive and real in the world, isn't unfolding in the perfect way that it does in the beginning. And then we have the intense perfectionist. And this type of perfectionist wants the end of the process to be perfect.
Right.
So these are like your Steve Jobs kinds of people who are totally focused on the outcome, and the pros of this type are that they will get it done. The cons are that sometimes the means don't justify the ends, and intense perfectionists loose sight of that.
Right.
So, an example might be somebody who, yes, they get their team to achieve the Q two goal, but in Q three half their team quits because they're all miserable because the work environment was so toxic. And so the last type is the Parisian perfectionist. The best way to describe the Parisian perfectionist is this type wants to be
perfectly liked and wants to perfectly like others. And I named it Parisian perfectionists after the beauty aesthetic of French women, who are so elegant and beautiful in my opinion, and make it all look so effortless, but behind the scenes are doing a whole lot of work to kind of exude that. And Parisian perfectionists are almost kind of embarrassed about how much they care about how much work they put in. And the pros of this type is that
these are naturally warm people. They're naturally inclusive. The cons are that and I think we all do this sometimes in our desire to feel ideal connection, we take shortcuts to connection, which look like people pleasing. And when you get in a pattern of people pleasing, you know you can't do that without, in tandem abandoning yourself.
Should we get into our quiz results?
Yeah, let's do it. Okay.
I took your quiz at perfectionist guide dot com slash quiz. I'll kick us off. I have forty three percent messy perfectionist, forty three percent procrastinator perfectionist, and fourteen percent Parisian perfectionist.
Mmm.
I like that profile. If you think it tracks with you, I think so. Tell me a little bit again about the messy perfectionist.
So in love with starting high energy, Yeah, you know, always wants to be saying yes to everything, has troubled down the line after the initial excited yes, being like, oh my god, what did I get myself into?
Yeah, totally feeling overwhelmed by just the drudgery of execution. That that tracks for me?
How about you, Daniel, I'm fifty seven percent intense perfectionist, twenty nine percent Parisian perfectionist, and fourteen percent procrastinator perfectionist. Mmm. Okay, Well, does that track with you? I don't know. I think I like the perfectionist in me, so I feel like the intense perfectionist has a negative connotation, and I actually really like it about myself, So I don't know.
No, it doesn't have a negative connotation. Again, all this stuff has two sides to every coin, right, So the intense perfectionist is like, you know, when you're managing that energy well, and by well, I mean in a way that is aligned with your values. Like people feel really safe around intense perfectionists because they're like, oh, these are people who can hold boundaries very well when they're managing it.
And we didn't talk about this before, but intense perfectionists don't really care that much or as much as Parisian perfectionists, at least about being liked. So they're effortlessly direct. And I think the challenge of that isn't being who you are, but is other people's reaction to that, especially if you're a woman, because it's like, how dare you say exactly what you need as a woman without cushioning it with all these apologies or you know, soft language or whatever
it is. But I don't think any of these profiles are bad or good, and I didn't present them to say, hey, look out for this. You could be somewhat of an intense perfectionist. Sometimes I presented them to say, hey, this is who you are as much as a two minute online quiz can tell me who you are. Identity is
at best. Provisional is one of my favorite quotes. But it's really about saying, here's where you have some trouble, Here's where you have some pain points, Here's where you need to ask for help, not here's where you need to churn this thing about. Like you know, simone your
messy perfectionism, for example, that's good to know. The goal is now not to become someone who's not super excited about starting projects and is not that The goal is to become someone who, when you get to the middle of the process, you say I need help here.
Asking for help is huge and not great at that.
Well, it's also.
About knowing where you can give help effortlessly, like the stuff that takes you five minutes as a messy perfectionist, like starting a dating profile, for example, super fun and easy for a messy perfectionist, maybe not for ourselves, but for other people, right for someone else that could take months. That's like, well, I don't have the right pictures that I don't have the this, and I don't have that.
And for you to just offer help to people who are really struggling with stuff that is easy for you is such a great way to connect. And also to receive help for stuff that you know other people could do in their sleep that's hard for you. And that's really the whole point of understanding more about yourself isn't to say let me change, It's to say, let me know exactly where I can ask for help. And I reframe asking for help as asking for help is a
refusal to give up. Right, I can't stand this thing that's always said in mental health spaces, which is like asking for help is not a weakness. It's like there was a point in time when we needed to hear that message, when we really pathologized asking for help and glorified total independence. But we're over that time. You know, we did a lot of work, it's a culture, we did a good job. We're over that time. How we need to stop saying that because saying to someone asking
for help isn't a weakness. It's like me walking into a room and unprompted, you guys both go, Catherine, your shirt is not ugly And I'm.
Sitting there like, who said it was ugly? You know, It's like, let's not.
Start by talking about how something isn't terrible, and instead let's talk about how if you're asking for help, that means you are determined, empowered, you're feeling strong. So it's like when we're feeling most strong, most powerful, that is when we can feel most generous with the help we give and the most open to help that we can get right.
We need to take another short break, but we'll be right back with more from psychotherapist and author Katherine Morgan Schaffler. And we're back with Katherine Morgan Shaffler.
So you point out that typically the advice for perfectionists is often a version of quote just stop, don't be so controlling, learn to relax. Those words obviously don't work on people. What are better tools? Yeah?
Well, I would say understanding that the research back sets up perfectionism is what's called an enduring identity marker. So if you identify as a perfectionist, you are likely to identify that with that for your whole life. And I think we talk so much about tools and tricks and hacks, and it's like, one of the most beautiful simple tools is stop hemorrhaging energy trying to be someone other than who you are going to work.
Wait, that's so interesting. It's an identity marker.
It's an identity marker. Just like people who say I'm a romantic or I'm an activist or I'm an artist. That's part of who they are. You can't eradicate that, and that's a good thing.
So I have a question for you. Then. I have never identified as a perfectionist until my therapist said to me, you might want to consider it because you're procrastinating. I still don't even really want to take on the title. What do you think that means? I think that's okay.
You're allowed to connect with and identify with any framework that you want to interest. And I'm so glad you asked that question, because I think it's really important that you know you're the one who signs on the dotted line of whether you are a perfectionist or not, whether you're too uptight or not. There's a lot of fluidity in all of this, so it's important to use your
own experience as the deepest validation of your reality. If you don't like the idea that you're a perfectionist, that's fine, you don't have to. It's just one way amid many, many, many infinite ways to think about who you are, how you're changing, what you want.
What's one thing that we can all do today to better harness the power of our inner perfectionist?
Again, I would say to return to that invitation I give to my reader, which is, assume there's nothing wrong with you. I gets a very radical assumption to make, because we're always like, now, how can I find the thing or the little cluster of things that's getting in my way? And how can I move it so that it gets out of my way? And sometimes what's in our way is the false belief that we need to fix ourselves or feel a certain way, or do a
list of things before we can call ourselves healthy. More specifically, I would say, abandon the idea of balance. Balance is not real. We used to when we were little girls be told this fairy tale that a prince is going to come and rescue us one day on his white horse, and everything's going to be happily ever after after that and in womanhood we've just replaced the prince with the
word balance. It's like, one day, if you just get the right pie chart of exercising and putting yourself out there and doing work you're engaged in but also having a hobby and also doing nothing but also doing your five favorite things and making time for yourself all this stuff, then you're going to achieve balance. And it's going to feel like a seatbelt clicking into place and your life is just going to go smoother after that. And it's like, that's not real. I don't know one balanced woman. I
don't know one balanced woman. And the quicker that we can understand that trying to find balance is like trying to find a needle in a haystack that doesn't have a needle in it. To begin with great, like, I'm all for that. That's what I want women to do. Stop trying to be balanced, Stop hemorrhaging your energy trying to be someone who you're not, and follow your desire, follow your pleasure, trust in those things. You know, it's the echo of hysteria that like, what do you mean
trust what feels good? It's like it's such a simple question that I ask in the book of of like does your life feel good to you? Does this friendship feel good? We make all these pros and cons lists and intellectualize everything to death. It's like, does this feel good in your body? It's a good barometer, And we don't trust ourselves because for a long time, and clinical psychology has a dark history of this, we pathologized women who did anything other than what was expected of them.
And this idea that like, well, if I trust what it feels good, I'll become a hedonist and I'll get wasted every day and binge watch TV for a year and quit my job and hurt everyone around me and abandoned my commitments. It's like, no, none of that will happen. What will happen is that you'll have time, some time to restore and you'll feel better, and then you'll return to whatever you most want to return to with a lot of energy, premium quality energy, and it's going to feel good. Right.
But using does this feel good?
As a barometer just feels so reckless to so many women because we're out of the practice of asking that question.
Slash.
We were never in the practice of asking that question, So you know, it's a new idea to imagine there's nothing wrong with you. Just do what you like and what makes you feel good. It feels selfish, it feels reckless, it feels all these things. Just because it feels that way, said every therapist ever, doesn't mean it is that way.
Well, thank you for giving us permission to do that, Catherine, and thanks for coming on the bright side. Thank you.
This was such a pleasure.
Thank you. Katherine Morgan Schaffler is a psychotherapist and author of the book The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control.
That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're back with another edition of Mom Friend Life. Coach and founder of the Mother Company, Abby Schiller joins us to talk back to school and how to deal with an empty nest. You don't want to miss it.
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I'm Simone Boye. You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.
I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O b A.
Y See you tomorrow, folks. Keep looking on the bright side.