May 17, 2025 • 26 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
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TD Flenaugh (00:00):
TD, welcome to the falling for learning podcast I
(00:06):
am. TD Flenaugh, so today we'regoing to talk about
perfectionism. Now if you havebeen following the show, you
know that this is something thatI have been dealing with for a
long time in my life, and I saythat I'm a recovering
perfectionist, and if you have achild that is like an
(00:27):
overachiever or it's justdriving themselves crazy, you
want to stay tuned for thisshow, because I'm going to give
you some insight on how tosupport them, even when they are
driving themselves crazy, eventhose kids need support. Stay
tuned.
(00:57):
Hi. Thank you so much forjoining the Falling for Learning
Podcast. I am TD Flenaugh, wehave this podcast to help
parents and caregivers withhaving the resources, strategies
and tools needed to make surethat their children are on track
for learning and to stay ontrack for success. You Yes.
(01:25):
Okay, perfectionism. Now you mayor may not have this issue, but
here are some things that youneed to look for with your kids.
Sometimes you have kids that youreally need to get motivated.
You really need to help themout, and then you'll have kids
on the other side of thespectrum, where they're always
taking on a lot, where they arevery upset when they have made a
(01:49):
mistake, where they are not donewith something, even though you
think it looks really good, andthey still feel like it needs to
be better. And they're workingon it, and they keep working on
it, and they're up late at nightand they're up early in the
morning. And in fact, you seethem driving themselves crazy. I
(02:11):
am a recovering perfectionist,and if you see these qualities
with your kids, here are somethings that you can do to help
them. Now. First of all, youjust saying that it's good
enough, or it looks good, or,you know, you don't need to do
more than that, doesn't helpthem. I want to tell you right
away that I know that I'm aperfectionist, and part of it is
(02:35):
being judgmental about peoplewho feel like this is good
enough, and it's, you know, I'mstopping here. I'm not doing
more than that. I'm not doingall of that. The perfectionist
person's gonna be thinking,Okay, uh, you're, you know, low
quality loser, whateveradjectives come to mind. But
(02:57):
basically, they don't trust yourjudgment. So you could be their
parent or whoever, but they havetheir own standard that they're
not living up to what you'retalking about, and they're going
to keep working and keep drivingthemselves crazy, even though
you may say it's okay. They havetheir own standard. So you need
(03:18):
to know that you just sayingthat it's good enough. It
doesn't make it good enough forthem as a perfectionist. So
perfectionist do often just takeon more. They feel like, okay,
I'm able to do it. I'm I can, Icould get it done. And for a
long time, I even touted myselfas what you call a how girl,
(03:39):
meaning that even thoughsomething may seem very
difficult or hard, I'm going tofind out how to do it, how to
get it done. And when I'm sayinghow it's not like other people,
it's me like I'm going to wakeup earlier, I'm going to go to
bed later. I'm going to fit thisin, in this little 10 minute
break that I have, I'm going toget it done. And so that is a
(04:04):
little bit of inside of the mindof a perfectionist. So you're,
you know, you're gonna see thishappening. Now, obviously they
take a lot of pride in theirwork. As a perfectionist, you're
really gonna be taking a butthere it's a two, a two edged
sword. So where it really getsin, you know, to be problematic
(04:25):
is that when they're in themiddle of doing something that
they were like for sure theycould do, because they could
handle anything, they're goingto be really stressed out.
They're going to be maybe havingpanic attacks. They're going to
be having all these challengesbecause they took on too much,
but at the same time, are notable to stop themselves, but
(04:46):
keep working and not lettingthemselves off the hook, not
giving themselves grace, right?
So that's something that youreally need to take note of.
They're not going to givethemselves grace. So. As a
parent, you can talk to themabout, you know, what
perfectionism is, and really letthem know, you know, there's
(05:07):
nothing wrong with highstandards, but you are human,
right. Remember last episode Iwas talking about how my second
grade teacher was really, youknow, writing on my report card
how I finally realized that Ican make mistakes and accepting,
accepting, you know that I makemistakes because I'm a human
(05:29):
which is something hard to do.
Like it sounds crazy, but whenyou have a kid that is doing
this and really causingthemselves problems and pain,
because, of course, it is anunattainable goal. It's
unattainable, but it doesn'tmean that the perfectionist is
going to stop trying to reachthat perfection and just driving
(05:52):
themselves crazy with them. Soone thing that about it is that
what you're going to do tosupport them is help give them
boundaries, right? So let's sayit's a school project that
they're working on. So you wantto make sure you have the RAM,
you know, what are theparameters of this assignment?
(06:13):
When is it due? What is supposedto be done? Right? Because
they're going to keep editing,revising, redoing, doing
different things over and overagain, tweaking it. But you can
say, Okay, this is due onFriday, right? So like that
Thursday evening. You know,every day up to that point,
(06:36):
maybe you know they're workingon it. You give them a deadline.
You're working. You could worktill nine o'clock. You cannot
work past that. And you know,give them set boundaries, and
help them to set boundaries forthemselves. But when this first
starts, when you start seeing itset boundaries. Say, Okay, I'll
let you work till nine o'clock.
But you're going to have to knowthat these are the parameters.
You need to have seven pages.
(06:59):
You need to have five pictures,whatever it is. And he said you
could do a little bit more thanthat, right? But you're not
going to do more, you know?
You're not going to driveyourself crazy, like you will
drive yourself with crazy withthis. And being a little bit
less than perfect is not goingto harm you, right? And in fact,
(07:19):
giving them an idea that 85% isgood, even though it sounds
crazy to perfectionist when Istart thinking in these terms,
like 85% is kind of good enough.
Then, you know, when I'vestressed myself out, stayed up
to three o'clock in the morning,then I really understood like,
(07:41):
okay. Like, this is gonna thisis okay. Like, I can do this. I
can go to sleep, I can get somerest. I can, you know, call my
friends. I could go out withpeople, because I have met these
goals. So, like, checklists areyour friend. Like, the the
guidelines for assignment areyour friend. So you could check
those things off. Have you donethis? Have you done this? Have
(08:03):
you done this? Right? Andperfection has taken another
step. They might be looking morelike, okay, all my sentences
have different beginnings. Allof my sentences like I have high
level vocabulary, like they'relooking for things that make
their work Excellent. So youcould help them set a parameter
for that and start checking offthe boxes for it. Just to let
(08:27):
you know some things that I'vedone in the past, like one time
I had a project that I wassupposed to do notes for every
chapter, and let's say the bookhad 17 chapters, and I was
supposed to do notes for everychapter, but for whatever reason
in my mind, my notes had to belike a paragraph. Let's say
(08:52):
every chapter I had to do likefive things, like five notes. I
had to do a paragraph for everynote that I was doing. So of
course, like, how many pages ofthat? 1717, chapters, five
paragraphs for each chapter.
Needless to say, I didn't getthis done because I had other
classes. I stayed up all night.
(09:14):
I was so stressed I didn't getit done because I was part of
the perfectionism is, you know,really slow work because I might
be on chapter five, but I don'thave all of the the details that
I said I needed if I'm goingback to look at those parameters
of the chapter. I mean of theassignment. Did the teacher
actually say a paragraph forevery note? No, but in my mind,
(09:38):
I felt like that's what I neededto do. So that's what I was
doing. I actually, like, end upstaying home, working all day
trying to get that done, becausethe then the chapters, I mean,
like the the paragraphs have toalso be perfect, right? So, you
know, let's say I worked all dayand I was only on the. The, you
(10:00):
know, 12th Chapter, and it was,do you know, so I really just
drove my you do things, andyou'll see your kids do this. If
they are, you know, sufferingfrom perfectionism, they'll
drive themselves crazy with thisand and you have to help them,
like setting off boundaries. ButI am bringing this up because I
(10:21):
recently just had a majorproject that I was working on,
and actually the project didn't,wasn't as long as maybe some
other people, because they gaveme parameters like you only had
to do. You only could do thismany pages, you know. And for
the second part, you only coulddo this many pages, and you
know, then you have to do thisvideo. And you know, all the
(10:44):
they, I looked at theparameters. 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 crazywith it. And actually, sometimes
we think having more time willhelp. And it doesn't
necessarily. When yourperfection is when you have more
(11:05):
time, you think, Oh, I could addthese extra layers to make it
really, really good, and again,lengthening the amount of time
that you're going to work. Andwhere this really gets tricky
is, you know, for me, I have myown projects that I have for
myself. You know, have booksthat I write, I have, you know,
(11:28):
you know, several differentthings that I want to send out
to people. And where it getstricky is, I'm the person who
sets that deadline. Andobviously I could tweak
something and mess with it andtweak with it and mess with it
and never get it done and neverget it sent out. Um, and, you
know, writing a book like, Okay,I think I need to add this
(11:50):
chapter. And you know what? Ithink this particular character
needs to be fleshed out more,and I think I need to add a new
subplot to this book. And so, ofcourse, with perfectionism, one
of the one of the byproducts,right are unfinished products
right there. It's never going tobe good enough for it to come
out. So when you set your owndeadlines, but you're like,
(12:14):
This, can't possibly go out.
It's not good enough to go out.
And I still don't have a fleshedout character for this. And I
feel like I saw this otherthing, and I should have added
more about this particularsetting, and maybe even the next
setting, and then add this tweakto the setting. And throughout,
I should have gone back, youwill not get your work done. And
(12:36):
then the other part is you lookat 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 overtime is that you don't get what
you want done right. But in yourmind, you have this big,
unattainable goal, and you arejust driving yourself crazy. And
(12:59):
I'm gonna keep saying drivingyourself crazy, because if you
have a child that suffers fromperfectionism, you are going to
see them torturing themselvesand things that you could do for
them is, again, help settingboundaries. 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 andhave fun as a family. At this
(13:21):
time, I'm gonna let you knowmake sure that you are balancing
your work ethic with yourquality of life right, like
things that are just fun, rest,self care, because perfectionist
get into this rabbit hole oftrying to finish this task to
(13:41):
the highest quality as possible,and they sometimes don't
accomplish their goals, becauseinstead of getting through the
work right, they are adding tothe work right. They are making
sure every part is perfect. Andmaybe stuck on number two, they
may have 10 to do, but on numbertwo, they're just trying to
(14:04):
really make sure it's perfect.
Instead of saying, I'm going towork, I'm going to check off all
the things that it's supposed todo, 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'mgoing to go to number four
instead of progressing.
Sometimes they are, you know,stuck in a rut. They're working.
(14:25):
What they have is really nice,what's good, but it's not done,
and it won't be done until theyget themselves in a place where
they can understand that thereare human, that they're not
perfect, and that it won't beperfect, and they're setting
themselves up for failure byexpecting perfection from
themselves, again unattainableand just bending your wheels.
(14:48):
You're not going to reach thatgoal of being perfect, but you
are going to drive yourselfcrazy and sometimes not reach
the goals that you want. Right?
You're not going to get thatthing done because you. You have
decided that it's never going tobe 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 Ido this and this and this, it'll
(15:09):
be perfect. But instead ofhaving 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. Theyfind other things to add to it,
and when you see that happening,you have to support them and
letting them know that you needto set boundaries. Help them set
(15:29):
boundaries and set boundariesfor them so that they can move
forward and they can get to theother side of what their goals
and dreams and outcomes are.
We're going to have more abouthow to help them move forward
right after these messages,thanks for joining us.
(15:53):
The rewrite method and therewrite method workbook are your
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(16:13):
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(16:34):
Okay, so getting them out ofthis rut of not getting done
this especially helpful fortimes when the job is not a set
deadline. The good thing abouthaving a set deadline is, you
know, obviously they have to getit done by that point, and then
they need to move on. Now, likeI said, sometimes they'll
finagle that, like I did. I toldyou about that project where I
(16:56):
just stayed home and worked onit and worked on it, instead of,
like, going to school andturning in what I had. You can
help them pace it out, if theyhave, you know, you could help
them set a goal when they don'thave a set time to get something
done, like a self project thatthey want to do, like they want
(17:16):
to write a book or they want todo this particular project, tell
them to set a time and thenpaste it out by this date you
need to have this much done. Bythis date, you need to have it
done. Having set number ofthings that need to be done for
the day or per week is reallyhelpful. So that is how you
(17:37):
could Gage, like, am Iperseverating too much on
particular details and notmoving 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 30minutes on this, I'm going to
spend an hour on this, and thenI need to move on, no matter
what, even if they're not done,because the goal is progress.
(17:58):
And when people are in thatperfectionist rut. They're not
being productive, they're notmoving forward and getting
things done. They are reallypaying attention to details and
really getting particulardetails good and right, but the
overall project's not done, andagain, really bad for
(18:19):
perfectionists, because theyhave this unattainable set of
standards for themselves andthem not meeting their goals,
then they're beating themselvesup more. So it's a vicious cycle
of a really, of really makingthings harder for yourself,
right, and then not getting yourfull joy out of life because you
(18:40):
have set these unattainablegoals, you've set these
unrealistic expectations foryourself, and then you are
really down on yourself becauseyou did not meet these
expectations. So just to tellyou, like being on, like having
this podcast was one of the bestthings that I've done to really
(19:01):
help me try, you know, break outof the perfectionism cycle. Now,
of course, there are sometimes Iget stuck in it again, and I
have to realize that I'm in itand note that I'm doing it, and
then help myself move forwardlike I'm going to set myself up
(19:22):
with a finite amount of taskthat I need to do. I'm going to
give myself a particulardeadline that I need to follow,
pacing myself when I have setgoal, set deadlines that are
imposed by others, when I set myown deadlines, of course, I can
finagle those, move them around,and again, that is what
(19:44):
perfectionists do, becausethey're not moving forward. They
are not attaining all of theirgoals, because they are focusing
on the details and not makingprogress forward. And so helping
them to do that is reallyimportant. Mm. Uh, so me having
this podcast every day, everytime I do the podcast, it's not
(20:04):
perfect, it's not what it'ssupposed to be, but I met. Met
set my goal of making sure Irelease a podcast episode every
week. And even if it's notperfect, even if you know
there's some some issues, I'mstill putting it forward and
out, because that's a goal thatI set for myself. So that's
something that perfectionist candeal with, is saying I'm going
(20:27):
to be consistent about somethingright, not perfect at something,
but consistent at something, andthen learning from what you did
wrong and how to get better, butnot beating yourself up for it.
Now, if I was waiting for thetime when I'd have a perfect
podcast, you would have neverseen one episode, and we're now
(20:48):
on episode 99 so I am out of therut in some ways, but when I got
into this, this recent projectthat I needed to turn in, I did
some driving myself crazy bystaying up really late, waking
up really early, revising,editing, repeating, revising,
editing, repeating, reading itagain, looking up something
(21:10):
else, saying, oh, I need to addthis other thing. And just
continuing on and on and on. Butagain, like I said, I had a set
that deadline imposed by others,but other things I, you know,
fell by the wayside. I wasn'tdoing certain tasks that I was
supposed to do because I wasputting everything in on this
(21:33):
particular task. And you know,you know, the thing that I'm
learning about myself is like, Igotta set limits for myself. I
gotta really, like, look atmyself and notice when these
things are happening, when I'mbeing judgmental and when I'm
saying judgmental. It's just inmy mind, I'm not telling
someone, no, you need to do thisor that maybe I am now that I'm
(21:58):
thinking maybe I did have someconversations where I was, like,
telling people they should dowhatever, but, but really, I
really am saying in myself,like, Oh no, that's kind of
weakness, right? So that's athing that I say to myself, some
of that stinking perfectionistthinking, like, that's a
weakness. If you're saying youcan't do all of this, of course,
I can do it all. You may not beable to do it, but I can do it
(22:20):
all. And so these are thingsthat 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 amnot going to be able to do it
all. I am I'm going to run outof time. I am going to have a
setback, and it's not going tobe perfect. It's just not going
(22:44):
to happen. And having remindingmyself by looking at the
guidelines, setting myself forguidelines, right? What I want
to do, pacing myself, givingmyself you're not working on
this past 10 o'clock. You arenot going to wake up at four and
start working on this. You canwake up at eight, even if you're
up. You're gonna stay and enjoythe day. You're gonna give
(23:08):
yourself some rest just layingin your bed and start working at
eight o'clock on your weekend,right? And those kind of things
that you could do for yourselfand help your child do these
things for themselves, so theycould recognize that
perfectionism is not attainable,but setting goals and making it
(23:29):
happen is part of that, and thatfailure, failing, making
mistakes, is part of thelearning process. And when you
are trying to do something oraccomplish something that you've
never done before. It is part ofa learning process, and
ultimately, you're going to makemistakes, and that is okay to
(23:51):
make mistakes. Give yourselfgrace when you make mistakes,
tell yourself it's okay thatyou're going to keep moving. You
don't have to start everythingover. You don't have to to throw
everything away, or, you know,just stop and just focus in on
that mistake, but you could moveto the next thing and learn from
(24:12):
what you didn't get. The otherthing about perfectionism is
knowing that you can work withothers. You can delegate some of
your tasks to others, not thatyou have to be a help, a how?
Girl, right? A person who'sgoing to find out how to do it
by stretching themselves to themax where they cannot, you know,
(24:34):
where you you really can'treally do anything else besides
work, right? I'm going to workduring my break. I'm going to
work at four o'clock in themorning. I'm going to work until
12 midnight, right? But insteadthinking about like, Who can
help me with this, right? Who,you know, maybe paying someone
to, you know, clean your housesometimes, or paying someone to
(24:57):
do different things instead ofneck. Collecting the parts in
your life so you can get thisparticular task done. And maybe
you can't pay people, but youcan ask someone for help. You
could barter with someone. Youcould, you know, see if they
could do a favor for you,because later on, you could do a
favor for them, and you've beendoing favors for them. Maybe so.
(25:17):
So recognizing that you'relearning when you're trying to
do a task that you've never donebefore, and giving yourself
grace when you're makingmistakes, that's something that
you could do to help your childto move forward when they're
stuck in this perfectionism loopthat they might be on. Thank you
so much for joining us. I hopetoday that you do something that
(25:41):
is going to give your child thecompetitive advantage, whether
they are a perfectionist orsomeone who's slow to get things
started right. Have a greatweekend.
Thanks again for supporting thefalling for learning podcast,
(26:02):
new episodes go live everySaturday at 5pm you can watch us
on youtube.com, at falling forlearning or listen on all major
podcast platforms, such asApple, Google, Audible, Spotify
and much more for moreresources, visit falling in love
(26:25):
with learning.com we reallyappreciate you. Have a wonderful
week. You.
TD, welcome to the falling for learning podcast I
(00:06):
am. TD Flenaugh, so today we'regoing to talk about
perfectionism. Now if you havebeen following the show, you
know that this is something thatI have been dealing with for a
long time in my life, and I saythat I'm a recovering
perfectionist, and if you have achild that is like an
(00:27):
overachiever or it's justdriving themselves crazy, you
want to stay tuned for thisshow, because I'm going to give
you some insight on how tosupport them, even when they are
driving themselves crazy, eventhose kids need support. Stay
tuned.
(00:57):
Hi. Thank you so much forjoining the Falling for Learning
Podcast. I am TD Flenaugh, wehave this podcast to help
parents and caregivers withhaving the resources, strategies
and tools needed to make surethat their children are on track
for learning and to stay ontrack for success. You Yes.
(01:25):
Okay, perfectionism. Now you mayor may not have this issue, but
here are some things that youneed to look for with your kids.
Sometimes you have kids that youreally need to get motivated.
You really need to help themout, and then you'll have kids
on the other side of thespectrum, where they're always
taking on a lot, where they arevery upset when they have made a
(01:49):
mistake, where they are not donewith something, even though you
think it looks really good, andthey still feel like it needs to
be better. And they're workingon it, and they keep working on
it, and they're up late at nightand they're up early in the
morning. And in fact, you seethem driving themselves crazy. I
(02:11):
am a recovering perfectionist,and if you see these qualities
with your kids, here are somethings that you can do to help
them. Now. First of all, youjust saying that it's good
enough, or it looks good, or,you know, you don't need to do
more than that, doesn't helpthem. I want to tell you right
away that I know that I'm aperfectionist, and part of it is
(02:35):
being judgmental about peoplewho feel like this is good
enough, and it's, you know, I'mstopping here. I'm not doing
more than that. I'm not doingall of that. The perfectionist
person's gonna be thinking,Okay, uh, you're, you know, low
quality loser, whateveradjectives come to mind. But
(02:57):
basically, they don't trust yourjudgment. So you could be their
parent or whoever, but they havetheir own standard that they're
not living up to what you'retalking about, and they're going
to keep working and keep drivingthemselves crazy, even though
you may say it's okay. They havetheir own standard. So you need
(03:18):
to know that you just sayingthat it's good enough. It
doesn't make it good enough forthem as a perfectionist. So
perfectionist do often just takeon more. They feel like, okay,
I'm able to do it. I'm I can, Icould get it done. And for a
long time, I even touted myselfas what you call a how girl,
(03:39):
meaning that even thoughsomething may seem very
difficult or hard, I'm going tofind out how to do it, how to
get it done. And when I'm sayinghow it's not like other people,
it's me like I'm going to wakeup earlier, I'm going to go to
bed later. I'm going to fit thisin, in this little 10 minute
break that I have, I'm going toget it done. And so that is a
(04:04):
little bit of inside of the mindof a perfectionist. So you're,
you know, you're gonna see thishappening. Now, obviously they
take a lot of pride in theirwork. As a perfectionist, you're
really gonna be taking a butthere it's a two, a two edged
sword. So where it really getsin, you know, to be problematic
(04:25):
is that when they're in themiddle of doing something that
they were like for sure theycould do, because they could
handle anything, they're goingto be really stressed out.
They're going to be maybe havingpanic attacks. They're going to
be having all these challengesbecause they took on too much,
but at the same time, are notable to stop themselves, but
(04:46):
keep working and not lettingthemselves off the hook, not
giving themselves grace, right?
So that's something that youreally need to take note of.
They're not going to givethemselves grace. So. As a
parent, you can talk to themabout, you know, what
perfectionism is, and really letthem know, you know, there's
(05:07):
nothing wrong with highstandards, but you are human,
right. Remember last episode Iwas talking about how my second
grade teacher was really, youknow, writing on my report card
how I finally realized that Ican make mistakes and accepting,
accepting, you know that I makemistakes because I'm a human
(05:29):
which is something hard to do.
Like it sounds crazy, but whenyou have a kid that is doing
this and really causingthemselves problems and pain,
because, of course, it is anunattainable goal. It's
unattainable, but it doesn'tmean that the perfectionist is
going to stop trying to reachthat perfection and just driving
(05:52):
themselves crazy with them. Soone thing that about it is that
what you're going to do tosupport them is help give them
boundaries, right? So let's sayit's a school project that
they're working on. So you wantto make sure you have the RAM,
you know, what are theparameters of this assignment?
(06:13):
When is it due? What is supposedto be done? Right? Because
they're going to keep editing,revising, redoing, doing
different things over and overagain, tweaking it. But you can
say, Okay, this is due onFriday, right? So like that
Thursday evening. You know,every day up to that point,
(06:36):
maybe you know they're workingon it. You give them a deadline.
You're working. You could worktill nine o'clock. You cannot
work past that. And you know,give them set boundaries, and
help them to set boundaries forthemselves. But when this first
starts, when you start seeing itset boundaries. Say, Okay, I'll
let you work till nine o'clock.
But you're going to have to knowthat these are the parameters.
You need to have seven pages.
(06:59):
You need to have five pictures,whatever it is. And he said you
could do a little bit more thanthat, right? But you're not
going to do more, you know?
You're not going to driveyourself crazy, like you will
drive yourself with crazy withthis. And being a little bit
less than perfect is not goingto harm you, right? And in fact,
(07:19):
giving them an idea that 85% isgood, even though it sounds
crazy to perfectionist when Istart thinking in these terms,
like 85% is kind of good enough.
Then, you know, when I'vestressed myself out, stayed up
to three o'clock in the morning,then I really understood like,
(07:41):
okay. Like, this is gonna thisis okay. Like, I can do this. I
can go to sleep, I can get somerest. I can, you know, call my
friends. I could go out withpeople, because I have met these
goals. So, like, checklists areyour friend. Like, the the
guidelines for assignment areyour friend. So you could check
those things off. Have you donethis? Have you done this? Have
(08:03):
you done this? Right? Andperfection has taken another
step. They might be looking morelike, okay, all my sentences
have different beginnings. Allof my sentences like I have high
level vocabulary, like they'relooking for things that make
their work Excellent. So youcould help them set a parameter
for that and start checking offthe boxes for it. Just to let
(08:27):
you know some things that I'vedone in the past, like one time
I had a project that I wassupposed to do notes for every
chapter, and let's say the bookhad 17 chapters, and I was
supposed to do notes for everychapter, but for whatever reason
in my mind, my notes had to belike a paragraph. Let's say
(08:52):
every chapter I had to do likefive things, like five notes. I
had to do a paragraph for everynote that I was doing. So of
course, like, how many pages ofthat? 1717, chapters, five
paragraphs for each chapter.
Needless to say, I didn't getthis done because I had other
classes. I stayed up all night.
(09:14):
I was so stressed I didn't getit done because I was part of
the perfectionism is, you know,really slow work because I might
be on chapter five, but I don'thave all of the the details that
I said I needed if I'm goingback to look at those parameters
of the chapter. I mean of theassignment. Did the teacher
actually say a paragraph forevery note? No, but in my mind,
(09:38):
I felt like that's what I neededto do. So that's what I was
doing. I actually, like, end upstaying home, working all day
trying to get that done, becausethe then the chapters, I mean,
like the the paragraphs have toalso be perfect, right? So, you
know, let's say I worked all dayand I was only on the. The, you
(10:00):
know, 12th Chapter, and it was,do you know, so I really just
drove my you do things, andyou'll see your kids do this. If
they are, you know, sufferingfrom perfectionism, they'll
drive themselves crazy with thisand and you have to help them,
like setting off boundaries. ButI am bringing this up because I
(10:21):
recently just had a majorproject that I was working on,
and actually the project didn't,wasn't as long as maybe some
other people, because they gaveme parameters like you only had
to do. You only could do thismany pages, you know. And for
the second part, you only coulddo this many pages, and you
know, then you have to do thisvideo. And you know, all the
(10:44):
they, I looked at theparameters. 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 crazywith it. And actually, sometimes
we think having more time willhelp. And it doesn't
necessarily. When yourperfection is when you have more
(11:05):
time, you think, Oh, I could addthese extra layers to make it
really, really good, and again,lengthening the amount of time
that you're going to work. Andwhere this really gets tricky
is, you know, for me, I have myown projects that I have for
myself. You know, have booksthat I write, I have, you know,
(11:28):
you know, several differentthings that I want to send out
to people. And where it getstricky is, I'm the person who
sets that deadline. Andobviously I could tweak
something and mess with it andtweak with it and mess with it
and never get it done and neverget it sent out. Um, and, you
know, writing a book like, Okay,I think I need to add this
(11:50):
chapter. And you know what? Ithink this particular character
needs to be fleshed out more,and I think I need to add a new
subplot to this book. And so, ofcourse, with perfectionism, one
of the one of the byproducts,right are unfinished products
right there. It's never going tobe good enough for it to come
out. So when you set your owndeadlines, but you're like,
(12:14):
This, can't possibly go out.
It's not good enough to go out.
And I still don't have a fleshedout character for this. And I
feel like I saw this otherthing, and I should have added
more about this particularsetting, and maybe even the next
setting, and then add this tweakto the setting. And throughout,
I should have gone back, youwill not get your work done. And
(12:36):
then the other part is you lookat 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 overtime is that you don't get what
you want done right. But in yourmind, you have this big,
unattainable goal, and you arejust driving yourself crazy. And
(12:59):
I'm gonna keep saying drivingyourself crazy, because if you
have a child that suffers fromperfectionism, you are going to
see them torturing themselvesand things that you could do for
them is, again, help settingboundaries. 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 andhave fun as a family. At this
(13:21):
time, I'm gonna let you knowmake sure that you are balancing
your work ethic with yourquality of life right, like
things that are just fun, rest,self care, because perfectionist
get into this rabbit hole oftrying to finish this task to
(13:41):
the highest quality as possible,and they sometimes don't
accomplish their goals, becauseinstead of getting through the
work right, they are adding tothe work right. They are making
sure every part is perfect. Andmaybe stuck on number two, they
may have 10 to do, but on numbertwo, they're just trying to
(14:04):
really make sure it's perfect.
Instead of saying, I'm going towork, I'm going to check off all
the things that it's supposed todo, 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'mgoing to go to number four
instead of progressing.
Sometimes they are, you know,stuck in a rut. They're working.
(14:25):
What they have is really nice,what's good, but it's not done,
and it won't be done until theyget themselves in a place where
they can understand that thereare human, that they're not
perfect, and that it won't beperfect, and they're setting
themselves up for failure byexpecting perfection from
themselves, again unattainableand just bending your wheels.
(14:48):
You're not going to reach thatgoal of being perfect, but you
are going to drive yourselfcrazy and sometimes not reach
the goals that you want. Right?
You're not going to get thatthing done because you. You have
decided that it's never going tobe 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 Ido this and this and this, it'll
(15:09):
be perfect. But instead ofhaving 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. Theyfind other things to add to it,
and when you see that happening,you have to support them and
letting them know that you needto set boundaries. Help them set
(15:29):
boundaries and set boundariesfor them so that they can move
forward and they can get to theother side of what their goals
and dreams and outcomes are.
We're going to have more abouthow to help them move forward
right after these messages,thanks for joining us.
(15:53):
The rewrite method and therewrite method workbook are your
go to resource for helping kidsto learn to fall in love with
writing. It has the tips, tools,resources, strategies and skill
(16:13):
building activities to help kidsfall out of writing, hoot and
into loving to write, get yourbook set today.
(16:34):
Okay, so getting them out ofthis rut of not getting done
this especially helpful fortimes when the job is not a set
deadline. The good thing abouthaving a set deadline is, you
know, obviously they have to getit done by that point, and then
they need to move on. Now, likeI said, sometimes they'll
finagle that, like I did. I toldyou about that project where I
(16:56):
just stayed home and worked onit and worked on it, instead of,
like, going to school andturning in what I had. You can
help them pace it out, if theyhave, you know, you could help
them set a goal when they don'thave a set time to get something
done, like a self project thatthey want to do, like they want
(17:16):
to write a book or they want todo this particular project, tell
them to set a time and thenpaste it out by this date you
need to have this much done. Bythis date, you need to have it
done. Having set number ofthings that need to be done for
the day or per week is reallyhelpful. So that is how you
(17:37):
could Gage, like, am Iperseverating too much on
particular details and notmoving 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 30minutes on this, I'm going to
spend an hour on this, and thenI need to move on, no matter
what, even if they're not done,because the goal is progress.
(17:58):
And when people are in thatperfectionist rut. They're not
being productive, they're notmoving forward and getting
things done. They are reallypaying attention to details and
really getting particulardetails good and right, but the
overall project's not done, andagain, really bad for
(18:19):
perfectionists, because theyhave this unattainable set of
standards for themselves andthem not meeting their goals,
then they're beating themselvesup more. So it's a vicious cycle
of a really, of really makingthings harder for yourself,
right, and then not getting yourfull joy out of life because you
(18:40):
have set these unattainablegoals, you've set these
unrealistic expectations foryourself, and then you are
really down on yourself becauseyou did not meet these
expectations. So just to tellyou, like being on, like having
this podcast was one of the bestthings that I've done to really
(19:01):
help me try, you know, break outof the perfectionism cycle. Now,
of course, there are sometimes Iget stuck in it again, and I
have to realize that I'm in itand note that I'm doing it, and
then help myself move forwardlike I'm going to set myself up
(19:22):
with a finite amount of taskthat I need to do. I'm going to
give myself a particulardeadline that I need to follow,
pacing myself when I have setgoal, set deadlines that are
imposed by others, when I set myown deadlines, of course, I can
finagle those, move them around,and again, that is what
(19:44):
perfectionists do, becausethey're not moving forward. They
are not attaining all of theirgoals, because they are focusing
on the details and not makingprogress forward. And so helping
them to do that is reallyimportant. Mm. Uh, so me having
this podcast every day, everytime I do the podcast, it's not
(20:04):
perfect, it's not what it'ssupposed to be, but I met. Met
set my goal of making sure Irelease a podcast episode every
week. And even if it's notperfect, even if you know
there's some some issues, I'mstill putting it forward and
out, because that's a goal thatI set for myself. So that's
something that perfectionist candeal with, is saying I'm going
(20:27):
to be consistent about somethingright, not perfect at something,
but consistent at something, andthen learning from what you did
wrong and how to get better, butnot beating yourself up for it.
Now, if I was waiting for thetime when I'd have a perfect
podcast, you would have neverseen one episode, and we're now
(20:48):
on episode 99 so I am out of therut in some ways, but when I got
into this, this recent projectthat I needed to turn in, I did
some driving myself crazy bystaying up really late, waking
up really early, revising,editing, repeating, revising,
editing, repeating, reading itagain, looking up something
(21:10):
else, saying, oh, I need to addthis other thing. And just
continuing on and on and on. Butagain, like I said, I had a set
that deadline imposed by others,but other things I, you know,
fell by the wayside. I wasn'tdoing certain tasks that I was
supposed to do because I wasputting everything in on this
(21:33):
particular task. And you know,you know, the thing that I'm
learning about myself is like, Igotta set limits for myself. I
gotta really, like, look atmyself and notice when these
things are happening, when I'mbeing judgmental and when I'm
saying judgmental. It's just inmy mind, I'm not telling
someone, no, you need to do thisor that maybe I am now that I'm
(21:58):
thinking maybe I did have someconversations where I was, like,
telling people they should dowhatever, but, but really, I
really am saying in myself,like, Oh no, that's kind of
weakness, right? So that's athing that I say to myself, some
of that stinking perfectionistthinking, like, that's a
weakness. If you're saying youcan't do all of this, of course,
I can do it all. You may not beable to do it, but I can do it
(22:20):
all. And so these are thingsthat 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 amnot going to be able to do it
all. I am I'm going to run outof time. I am going to have a
setback, and it's not going tobe perfect. It's just not going
(22:44):
to happen. And having remindingmyself by looking at the
guidelines, setting myself forguidelines, right? What I want
to do, pacing myself, givingmyself you're not working on
this past 10 o'clock. You arenot going to wake up at four and
start working on this. You canwake up at eight, even if you're
up. You're gonna stay and enjoythe day. You're gonna give
(23:08):
yourself some rest just layingin your bed and start working at
eight o'clock on your weekend,right? And those kind of things
that you could do for yourselfand help your child do these
things for themselves, so theycould recognize that
perfectionism is not attainable,but setting goals and making it
(23:29):
happen is part of that, and thatfailure, failing, making
mistakes, is part of thelearning process. And when you
are trying to do something oraccomplish something that you've
never done before. It is part ofa learning process, and
ultimately, you're going to makemistakes, and that is okay to
(23:51):
make mistakes. Give yourselfgrace when you make mistakes,
tell yourself it's okay thatyou're going to keep moving. You
don't have to start everythingover. You don't have to to throw
everything away, or, you know,just stop and just focus in on
that mistake, but you could moveto the next thing and learn from
(24:12):
what you didn't get. The otherthing about perfectionism is
knowing that you can work withothers. You can delegate some of
your tasks to others, not thatyou have to be a help, a how?
Girl, right? A person who'sgoing to find out how to do it
by stretching themselves to themax where they cannot, you know,
(24:34):
where you you really can'treally do anything else besides
work, right? I'm going to workduring my break. I'm going to
work at four o'clock in themorning. I'm going to work until
12 midnight, right? But insteadthinking about like, Who can
help me with this, right? Who,you know, maybe paying someone
to, you know, clean your housesometimes, or paying someone to
(24:57):
do different things instead ofneck. Collecting the parts in
your life so you can get thisparticular task done. And maybe
you can't pay people, but youcan ask someone for help. You
could barter with someone. Youcould, you know, see if they
could do a favor for you,because later on, you could do a
favor for them, and you've beendoing favors for them. Maybe so.
(25:17):
So recognizing that you'relearning when you're trying to
do a task that you've never donebefore, and giving yourself
grace when you're makingmistakes, that's something that
you could do to help your childto move forward when they're
stuck in this perfectionism loopthat they might be on. Thank you
so much for joining us. I hopetoday that you do something that
(25:41):
is going to give your child thecompetitive advantage, whether
they are a perfectionist orsomeone who's slow to get things
started right. Have a greatweekend.
Thanks again for supporting thefalling for learning podcast,
(26:02):
new episodes go live everySaturday at 5pm you can watch us
on youtube.com, at falling forlearning or listen on all major
podcast platforms, such asApple, Google, Audible, Spotify
and much more for moreresources, visit falling in love
(26:25):
with learning.com we reallyappreciate you. Have a wonderful
week. You.
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