Ready to breathe a sign of relief? Welcome to Ask Dr. Jodi where you get trauma-informed mental health and relationship advice that you won’t hear anywhere else. Today, we’re exploring how perfectionism can seem helpful but often becomes a barrier to happiness and success. Learn why perfectionism holds you back, how it’s fueled by societal pressures, and practical steps to redefine your goals, embrace self-compassion, and find joy in progress instead of perfection. Discover ways to manage stress, build resilience, and create a balanced, fulfilling life.
Hi, I’m Dr. Jodi Aman, and today, we’re going to tackle one of the biggest roadblocks to happiness and self-acceptance: perfectionism. I’ll be sharing insights on why perfectionism feels helpful but actually holds us back from joy and peace. We’ll explore ways to let go of these unrealistic standards and replace them with healthier, kinder expectations. Let’s dive into how you can free yourself from perfectionism and live a more fulfilling life!
In this episode, Dr. Jodi discusses the traps of perfectionism and the toll it takes on mental health and overall happiness. While perfectionism may seem to keep us focused on success, it often leads to burnout, self-criticism, and a sense of never being “enough.” Dr. Jodi explains how perfectionism is rooted in a biological drive for social acceptance, making us feel that we need to meet impossible standards to belong.
She then provides actionable strategies for listeners to break free from this mindset. By redefining personal success, recognizing the downsides of perfectionism, and setting realistic goals, Dr. Jodi offers a roadmap to release anxiety and embrace a more balanced life. This episode is packed with practical advice to help you shed perfectionism’s weight and find joy in your achievements.
Thank you so much for listening! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review onApple Podcastsand share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
Dr Jodi Aman: Are you ready to let go of perfectionism this year? Because seriously, perfectionism holds you back. It holds you back from your best performance. It holds you back from joy. It holds you back from happiness. Perfectionism is like an obstacle that's in your way. And it's really weird because it kind of seems like it's helping you.
[00:02:15] Dr Jodi Aman: It's helping you succeed, or it's helping you be accepted, or it's helping you get to your goals. But every time somebody is struggling with perfectionism, it is an obstacle in their way to get to their goals. Because if you have to write something perfect, you rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it and rewrite it.
[00:02:38] Dr Jodi Aman: And it's never going to be perfect because perfect is undefinable. Perfect is undefinable. You'll never meet it. So you'll have to keep trying forever. Eventually, hopefully you stop, but sometimes it's hours and hours and hours. And if you're a perfectionist or you're a recovering perfectionist, who's always working on it, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
[00:03:02] Dr Jodi Aman: Perfectionism. takes a long time and during the long time that it takes, you are beating yourself up, talking negatively about yourself, telling yourself that you're not good enough, or you can't do it, or you have to work harder. You're burning yourself out. You're exhausted. You don't have time for fun. Um, it, it just gets in the way.
[00:03:29] Dr Jodi Aman: And I wanna tell you that perfectionism is not your fault, right? We've been in cultured in Western culture to hold ourself to standards of perfectionism, but it's all bs. It's all like a house of cards, right? We think that there's these expectations, these cultural or societal expectations that we have to be smart and pretty and young and perfect and cool and the best at everything, right?
[00:03:54] Dr Jodi Aman: Because you look at everybody else and it seems like everybody else is so great and we're constantly comparing ourself. Now, To understand why this is happening, it's important to look outside of yourself, because this is not coming from you. This is coming from the fact that we, as humans, have this innate need to belong because we're social beings.
[00:04:22] Dr Jodi Aman: Humans couldn't live alone in the world. So as we were evolving, we knew that we needed each other. We needed a group of people, a community in order to survive in the wild world that we had. And so we needed to belong. So that's still in there biologically. We're in smaller and smaller households, which is actually a detrimental to our mental health, but because we're social beings.
[00:04:47] Dr Jodi Aman: And we want that sense of belonging is so important to us, but we're more and more isolated in the way that we're living this modern world. And so that's increasing our, our striving for perfectionism because we're really so scared of being left out. You know how bad it feels when you're left out? It feels bad mentally.
[00:05:06] Dr Jodi Aman: It feels bad emotionally when you're left out. It feels like a rejection, but to like your biology, it feels like you can die. And that's why we are always trying to strive for perfectionism because we think these societal standards are standards by which we have to meet them or else we're kicked out of the group.
[00:05:28] Dr Jodi Aman: We're not accepted. We're not enough to be included. And so if we think about that logically or cognitively, we're like, okay, we don't have to put that kind of pressure on ourself anymore, but it's innate in there. And so we have to understand it so that we could override it because we don't need that kind of protection like we did in during hunter gatherer times, right?
[00:05:54] Dr Jodi Aman: We don't need that group in that same way. We want the group because emotionally, uh, spiritually, mentally, physically, we still want the group. We are still social beings, but we're so isolated in this world. We're in smaller and smaller households. Uh, we are separated a lot of the time, maybe like in our own rooms, on our own devices.
[00:06:19] Dr Jodi Aman: And that's really not helping us too much. You know, we used to live in multigenerational groups and people who still live in multigenerational families, their mental health, the studies say their mental health is a lot better when you have a lot of people in the house and from different generations because there's more people to problem solve.
[00:06:38] Dr Jodi Aman: There's more people to, um, to get out of your head and into their head. There's there's not much room for perfectionism when everyone's trying to get along and help each other. There's not much room for that. For somebody that's like an only child or they're not around other people a lot, perfectionism could get in there because really it's a negative thought.
[00:07:00] Dr Jodi Aman: It's an anxiety. It's a worry. Right? Perfectionism is a negative thought and negative thoughts expand when you're isolated. So we want to let go of perfectionism because it's not going to help you this school year. If you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student, whatever you do, if you're a counselor, whatever you do, You're doing something.
[00:07:23] Dr Jodi Aman: And because when you were younger, you had, you lived by the academic calendar. September means something to you and it means resetting goals. It means kind of a new, you know, that the season of summer is over and things kind of shift. And usually we, we have new plans. It's, it's almost like a new year. I think of the beginning of September is, is a bit of a new year.
[00:07:48] Dr Jodi Aman: I love to do it almost every season. Think of it as a new year where you could reset. Your intentions, you could reset whatever goals you have for exercise or whatever, whatever goals you have for self care, um, whatever goals you have to decrease these high expectations, these unrealistic expectations that we have on ourself that says you have to be enough, good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, uh, tall enough.
[00:08:13] Dr Jodi Aman: Cool enough, do everything enough, right? Be the best friend, be the most, the most everything, right? We have to be the best at everything because if we don't, we think that somebody is going to find us out that we're an imposter and we're not good enough to belong. If we thought about it, if we thought about it, like clearly like that, we'd be like, this is so stupid.
[00:08:36] Dr Jodi Aman: This is so stupid. It's in there. And we just kind of keep going and thinking that we have to do this or else, or else it's not okay. If we're not, it's like, like the anxiety, you know, it's an anxiety when it's really vague, when it's vague and it's like, you have to do this or else, then, you know, like, that's a little bit of a hooked thought.
[00:09:03] Dr Jodi Aman: It doesn't have much meaning. It's quite thin, but man, we believe it because it's like, we don't want that or else to come. You have to be perfect or else you have to meet this standard or else. And because we don't know exactly where the standard is, like exactly what cool enough looks like, totally undefinable.
[00:09:22] Dr Jodi Aman: So we try to push even higher. We try to push ourselves to be beyond what it could, we could imagine it could be. So that we meet that goal so that we are successful in that, that standard, that expectation. It's BS. First of all, it's undefinable. So we try to be perfect and we try to go beyond perfect because we don't really know what perfect is because we can't define perfect.
[00:09:47] Dr Jodi Aman: It's nonsense. Perfect is not a real thing. It's an impossibility and trying to strive for it is not perfect. You're giving up. Sometimes people give up relationships. They give up so much joy. They give up Their performance because they're so worried about not being good enough or not doing enough that anxiety gets in the way And they do worse on their test or they do worse Performing or you know, we get in our own way when we're anxious like that And so we think that if we let go of perfectionism, that means we don't perform as well.
[00:10:27] Dr Jodi Aman: And we have to accept ourself not performing as well. And I'm not trying to do this because I want you to perform better. That's the, that's the, what's that called? Like, like that's a side effect. When you let go of perfectionism, you perform better. And that's a side effect. That's not the goal. Right?
[00:10:46] Dr Jodi Aman: You're not letting go of perfectionism because you want to perform better because I think that might be perfectionism trying to out trick you and trying to really get in there again. You want to let go of perfectionism, have realistic goals, realistic expectations for yourself, redefine what success is, redefine what your goals are, be clear about them and intentional because when you're not intentional, you're unintentionally striving for perfect.
[00:11:16] Dr Jodi Aman: It just. It's, it's, it's makes you anxious. It makes you depressed. It makes you want to isolate yourself, which makes all of that worse. So, um, hopefully I've convinced you already to, to work hard at letting go of perfectionism. And so let's go over a couple of ideas I have for you. I'm going to just check if there's any.
[00:11:39] Dr Jodi Aman: Any, um, any chat you could, you could, uh, if you're on YouTube, you could put a chat in, put a chat in. That's what I'm saying. Uh, put a comment in and I could see it live. If you want to, if you're watching this recording, I'm on live every Monday at 8 PM. So sometimes I have guests or my daughter's on with me and sometimes I fly solo like tonight.
[00:12:04] Dr Jodi Aman: And so I'm really excited to always spend this time with my community on Monday nights at eight o'clock. All right. So let's look at. So first and foremost, when you're trying to get let go of perfectionism, you want to recognize the downside of perfectionism. Cause right now, if you're holding and grasping on perfectionism, you probably think it's your friend and it helps you.
[00:12:27] Dr Jodi Aman: And hopefully by now I've convinced you that it doesn't. So that's number one, recognize the downside. Number two, I want you just to be clear about your expectations and bring them down to realistic expectations. What do you expect yourself? You're not going to be perfect. You're human. You make mistakes.
[00:12:45] Dr Jodi Aman: You learn from them. It's great. Mistakes are great. Um, they don't usually hurt. Sometimes if people have been in abusive relationships, they, they're really afraid to make mistakes because there was danger in the past when they made mistakes. Their abuser might attack them at those times. And so that might become something that's an issue.
[00:13:07] Dr Jodi Aman: There's help. You could heal from that kind of trauma. You could work with somebody like me or somebody in your own context that, that could help you release those, those needs. Those were, those are real survivor skills that you put into place. And sometimes later, if the abuser's not there anymore, you don't necessarily need them.
[00:13:29] Dr Jodi Aman: And so they could retire, but you might need some help with that because he just brings up so much if they've had that experience. All right. So, um, yeah, redefine what enough is. You're enough just as you are. Redefine what enough is. Actually, you're so much better than you see yourself as. You're so much better than perfectionism and anxiety and worry see you as.
[00:13:57] Dr Jodi Aman: You're amazing. You're functioning. You're doing all this stuff that you don't really see in yourself because you're so busy seeing all the deficits that you have. And so we want to let that go. Stop seeing the deficits and start seeing your skills because that's going to change everything for you. All right.
[00:14:16] Dr Jodi Aman: Next is celebrate your wins. That goes with what I just said. If you, if you are constantly thinking of all the things that you didn't get to yet, what do you think that's going to do to you mentally? If you're constantly thinking of all the things that you don't get to and never see the things that you do do, you will always feel inadequate.
[00:14:39] Dr Jodi Aman: You'll always feel less than, you'll always feel behind. It is so stressful and it's exhausting. It zaps your energy and so you don't have energy to do anything else. But if you celebrate what you've done. Even if it's little, even if it's emptying the dishwasher, even if it's little, if you, if you celebrate the things that you done, that you did, sorry, it invigorates you.
[00:15:03] Dr Jodi Aman: It gives you energy that you could put towards the next task. And then inertia, one task after another, all motivating the next one and the next one and starting to feel good about yourself, starting to feel motivated and skilled. You feel happy. You feel happy with yourself. You feel, um, your confidence goes up.
[00:15:22] Dr Jodi Aman: Uh, you're, you know, you want to be around people and that's what humans need. That's what humans are longing for inside of themselves. So celebrate your wins. Okay. Next is externalized, externalized perfectionism. You know, we think that something that we believe is true that we have to do for ourself. So we're kind of externalizing it.
[00:15:46] Dr Jodi Aman: It's like a label on us. We need to be perfect or else. But if you think about it, this goes with that recognize the downside of it. When you think about it as something that is hurting you, that's something that's pressuring you, that's something that's making you feel bad, you're, you're taking it out of your identity and you're seeing it as a concept that is not good for you.
[00:16:09] Dr Jodi Aman: And from that little bit of a distance, It's like taking it out of your identity. It really helps you deny it or decline its influence in your life. So important. Really, really helpful. So externalize it. Um, when you're approaching tasks and perfectionism starts to get in the way, talk to it like it's a thing, right?
[00:16:33] Dr Jodi Aman: Talk to it, externalize like it's a, it's a, um, like it's its own personality. Oh, there's perfectionism. I knew you were coming. Just have a seat. I'm busy right now. Okay. You know, perfectionism. I knew you were coming. Instead of getting upset when you notice yourself trying to be perfect again, when you're trying to let go of it, don't get triggered.
[00:16:53] Dr Jodi Aman: Don't get upset. Don't judge it because that's going to attach you to it. When you get really upset. Now, listen to how this is, see how this feels in your body. When I say this, Oh gosh, I'm, I'm being perfectionist again. Like I'm supposed to not do that. See how like the energy is like being fed about it.
[00:17:10] Dr Jodi Aman: That's like an attachment that comes from judging and getting mad or getting bothered by the perfectionism. But if perfectionism came and you've noticed it and you're like, Oh my gosh, I'm being perfectionist. I know. Of course it's a habit I've had for a really long time. It makes sense. But you know what?
[00:17:27] Dr Jodi Aman: Perfectionism, I don't want, I want to let you go. Just have a seat. I'm doing my thing right now. doing something else right now, or I'm going slow and steady right now. I'm, I'm not, um, I'm not going to let you influence me and take over this thing. So if you see the energy is different, like you're not attached, you're not feeling overwhelmed by it or anything.
[00:17:47] Dr Jodi Aman: I'm just going to check my chat again. Okay. Oh, hello. Your mom and I, so someone's saying get smarter. My mom and I enjoy watching your show live each Monday. Thank you so much. Get smarter. And that's Eric, right? Hi, Eric. Hi mom. Um, so, uh, so what else? Okay. So slow and steady. So go after your goals, slow and steady.
[00:18:17] Dr Jodi Aman: Get them done a little bit at a time. So you're not overwhelmed at the end. If you're trying to be, if you have perfectionism inside of you, you know that. It makes you want to procrastinate because you're so worried about it and it's so much pressure to have to do something perfect that you delay it and delay it and delay it.
[00:18:34] Dr Jodi Aman: And then all of a sudden it's due and you have to do it all at once. And to be perfect, it's overwhelming. It's burns you out. It's exhausting. But if you just do a little bit at a time and you don't care about being perfect, things get done. Now I use this cause I'm not a perfectionist. At all. At all. If you know me, like I, I make, I get so much stuff done because I make tons of mistakes and I fix my mistakes before someone's even done the first thing.
[00:19:01] Dr Jodi Aman: Right? So I did, you know, I do 20 things, tons of mistakes, fix all my mistakes. Not all of them. Some would slip by, but it's worth it to me because I'm so glad to have all that stuff done. It's out there in the world, right? And I'm creating and I'm doing things. If I was a perfectionist, I get maybe one of those things done.
[00:19:20] Dr Jodi Aman: Um, but I do this with my house. So I, I, every time I go from one room to another, I bring something. I don't like clean my house till it's perfect. I do a little bit here and a little bit there when I'm seeing something, when I'm walking that way. And in general, my house, people come into my house and said, there's no clutter here.
[00:19:40] Dr Jodi Aman: And I think that there's no clutter, not because I'm a perfectionist, but because I'm not a perfectionist. It doesn't have to be perfect. So I just do a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, and I don't care. Um, that's what I mean about like performance is actually better when you're not a perfectionist.
[00:20:01] Dr Jodi Aman: It's very interesting. Okay, so next is start before you're ready. So the next tip here is start before you're ready. I'm giving you a lot of tips and this is going on long, but I'm going to try to wrap it up pretty quick. Start before you're ready because if you hesitate on a task, like, you know, you procrastinate because you don't want your so much pressure to be perfect.
[00:20:20] Dr Jodi Aman: You procrastinate. If you don't, if you hesitate, your mind says, Oh no, something's wrong. Let's find a problem. She's hesitating, right? It triggers your sympathetic nervous response. So your adrenaline goes off. If you hesitate, Not helpful if you're trying to get something done. Just start it. Don't think.
[00:20:41] Dr Jodi Aman: Don't overthink. Start before you think. And, um, that's a great tip to getting rid of perfectionism. All right. Next is, uh, just stop aiming for, for perfect, right? Decide intentionally that you're not going to aim for perfect and perfectionism slips in, you say, Oh yeah, I knew you'd come back. Just have a seat.
[00:21:03] Dr Jodi Aman: I'm busy right now. I love that script. I have used that for years. If you're one of my clients, you're probably laughing because you've heard me say that a million times. Or if you watch a lot of my videos, you've probably heard me say that a million times. Alright, ready? Okay, I think I've mentioned this already, but renegotiate what success looks like.
[00:21:22] Dr Jodi Aman: Set intentional expectations that you want that are realistic. that are doable and go for those because those you're going to achieve and you're going to feel really good about yourself. Then you could celebrate them, right? Celebrate your wins. Um, okay. Two more here. The last one, last two is get, um, get negative thoughts out of your mind.
[00:21:46] Dr Jodi Aman: Again, think about perfectionism, not as your friend to help you succeed or help you be accepted. Uh, see it as a negative thought. because it's really yourself beating yourself up and you need to be a little bit more kind to yourself when you have compassion for your humanism, right? That you're, you're non perfectionist.
[00:22:09] Dr Jodi Aman: You're non perfectionismistic human person. Like humans make mistakes is what I'm trying to say. Humans make mistakes and that's okay. Mistakes are not the end of the world. There's usually other chances to do stuff. You usually could fix your mistakes and move on. Most mistakes are benign and don't matter, right?
[00:22:30] Dr Jodi Aman: They're, they're not the, the detrimental and all hell breaks loose and lightning coming out of the sky sort of thing. Most mistakes are benign and don't matter too much. So you got to just make them cause you learn a lot from them and you learn more. If you're trying to be perfect, you don't learn anything because you're stuck on that one thought of being perfect.
[00:22:51] Dr Jodi Aman: Right? And last time, plan your downtime, plan your downtime. Cause if you don't plan your downtime, you're going to judge yourself. Cause you'll think I'm lazy. Cause when you, you hit a wall, when you're so burnt out from being perfect, then you hit a wall and you just can't move. You're immobilized. You don't want to do anything.
[00:23:09] Dr Jodi Aman: You're like doom scrolling on social media. Then you hate yourself. You feel so guilty about that because you feel lazy or you feel like I had so much stuff to do and I couldn't do anything. But if you planned to have rest and you planned that you were going to like play on social media or you're going to watch Netflix or something like that, if you plan it and you say, I'm going to stay in bed till noon tomorrow, then it's productive because it was a goal.
[00:23:36] Dr Jodi Aman: And, and you actually get to reap the benefits of that downtime. If you don't plan it, you hit a wall and you can't move, you hate yourself and you don't get the benefits of that rest. So that is my best tips to trying to let go of perfectionism this school year. Um, if you're on a school calendar, if you're, if you're a parent, if you're a teacher, if you're a student, you need to let go of perfectionism this year because it'll bring in so much more joy.
[00:24:10] Dr Jodi Aman: It'll help you get to know yourself as a joyful and skilled person, which I don't know, if you have perfectionism, you don't see that right now. And it's not a fun life when you don't see that, when you don't see how great you are.