
Therapy Natters
Therapy Natters
Perfectionism
Join Richard Nicholls and Fiona Biddle as they discuss perfectionism, from its different types to its consequences.
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Good day everyone. It's Therapy Natters time if you're new to us. This is a podcast series where myself, Richard Nicholls and co-host Fiona Biddle have a little natter about therapy. And by that I don't mean the northern Irish rock band popular in the 1990s, although they were fantastic. Hello, Fiona, are you familiar with the hard rock band Therapy?
Fiona:No, I'm not. I'm sorry.
Richard:Oh
Fiona:Hard, hard rock
Richard:yeah.
Fiona:and, um, whatever your t-shirt is representing not areas, not areas of music, of which I am familiar. I am sorry.
Richard:Therapy. Were, were a great band. And this was before I was interested in therapy, so it wasn't the title that drew me. It was very much the incredible guitar and drums and just screaming of, of the singer. Oh, absolutely fantastic. I had a bit of a shock though last year. When they announced the tour for the 30th anniversary of the album, the big album that really took off. I'm like, What? It can't have been 30 years ago because that would make me old now. But yeah, it was 30 years ago that the album Troublegum, fabulous album, if you like hard rock ladies, gentlemen, and everybody in between do have a dig into the Northern Irish rock band Therapy and their incredible album Troublegum.'cause That was so good.
Fiona:Trouble gum as in bubble gum,
Richard:Yeah. But it, instead of the word bubble,
Fiona:trouble. That's quite good.
Richard:it's a very angry album. As a lot of Hard Rock can be sometimes, but it's well worth a listen and it took me back and this is what music can do, can't it? It takes you back to how you felt.
Fiona:Absolutely.
Richard:I, I almost started smoking again. Because I just associated that album with just sitting there with a pack of Benson and Hedges. Drinking strong lager, happy days.
Fiona:Yeah, it's, it's just amazing, isn't it, with, with, with music, how it can take you back and just immediately the emotions that are associated with it, anchored to it, can just come flooding back, good or bad. I mean, there's still a couple of songs that I can't listen to because of negative associations.
Richard:Yes. And actually I've got there's a Ferocious Dog one that does that for me, and I've not listened to it for a while because it's a bit too much now.'cause of a recent experience. No. just, just, feel, I just feel it coming on. Just the sound of the violin, just
Fiona:Yeah. Yeah. I've, I've, I've got a couple that no.
Richard:Yeah.
Fiona:Can't do it. If they were to come on the radio. Off it goes. One was in a, I won't say what it was'cause I don't want to link it to anybody else. It was in a film soundtrack recently and I was
Richard:Dammit.
Fiona:damnit.
Richard:But there are some positive anchors.
Fiona:Yes. Oh yeah. The good ones are great. Yeah. Yeah. I've got got far more of those,
Richard:I was at a a, a stag event Last weekend, and it was in Bucharest, in Romania, and the people I was with didn't recognise this particular song that came on in this club that we were in and didn't realise why I jumped up and went Ah! And just flooded onto the dance floor and was given lots of free shots by all these Romanian people who were like, oh, this English guy gets this. And that was an Italian song called Bella Ciao. Are you familiar with Bella Ciao
Fiona:As opposed to Ciao Bella. No.
Richard:Well, it's, it's an old Italian song of the Italian women working in the rice fields, sort of angry at their landowners that's making them work for practically nothing. So it became like an anti-fascist song at some point, which Romania is very much into since Ceaușescu
Fiona:Who was communist. Not fascist, but. Beside, beside the point.
Richard:Yes, yes. It's two sides of the same coin, isn't it, really? it's a very anti dictator stuff. And so I leapt to the dance floor and wanted to jig about and, and, and scream and shout and raise the roof, and I got free shots out of it, which was great. And we are recording this on the Friday, and I'm about back to normal now, even though we got back on Sunday night.
Fiona:So you, you, you did your stag weekend well then.
Richard:I think so, yes. I hold my own with the youngsters. I wasn't quite the oldest one there as well, which was quite nice. And that's what sort of brought me back to when realising that the Troublegum album is 30 years old, that I'm not quite as young as I was, that I can't quite recover as quick as I used to. I can't quite dance like I used to. Never really been able to dance. I might have a little bit of dyspraxia, if I'm honest, but eh, now I don't care. And that's the important thing.
Fiona:That is the important thing. It's to just go with it and do it.
Richard:Mm-hmm.
Fiona:Yes. I mean, I've seen you on the dance floor many a time. I've joined you on the dance floor many a time and Yep, we don't care, do we? It doesn't matter.
Richard:It's a blooming Good job, as well.'cause Sometimes I'll be the first on the dance
Fiona:Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
Richard:All eyes are on me and I can't dance. I
Fiona:Oh, you can,
Richard:I don't have rhythm.
Fiona:you can
Richard:I can move to music. It depends whether you label that as dance or not. I'm off the beat, so it's, I've, you know, I danced to my own rhythm. Let's be fair. But you don't have to be perfect. It's okay.
Fiona:I wonder what perfect is in dancing terms.
Richard:There's no such thing.
Fiona:No, and my mind went then to Strictly in how they often score people with tens. You know, they get the 40 and which is perfect, but of course it's nowhere near perfect because they're not actually professionals. Well, half of them are, but it's, it's not possible to be perfect. So they're judging something that's less than perfect to be perfect,
Richard:And this is the problem that we find because a lot of perfectionism is about comparisons, comparison to a standard that probably doesn't exist
Fiona:Yeah, I mean there are, there are certain, there are certain things that you can be perfect in if you like. I, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago I was doing an Egyptology course, which had, Multiple choice questions, so it's perfect. I've got a hundred percent.
Richard:a hundred percent. Yeah.
Fiona:Yeah. So that's perfect. But that's meaningless really. The vast majority of the time you can't. no. Most things are comparative. And thinking of sport and how in things like gymnastics and ice skating, they had to change the marking systems
Richard:Cause of Torvill and Dean,
Fiona:and Nadia Comăneci in the.
Richard:Don't know them.
Fiona:She was a gymnast and she got perfect marks in the asymmetric bars. It was the same thing. She got the perfect marks, but she could always be better.
Richard:Have you ever seen the comparison side by, side of 1970s gold Gymnastics and then modern and just to see the difference that 30 or 40 years can make when we look at it and go, well, that was a gold you look at it now and go, so striving for more isn't a necessarily a bad thing.
Fiona:Yeah, and then just thinking about golf. You know, if you score a hole in one. You'd sort of think that was perfect, but what I gather, not that I know much about golf, but what I gather is that still most of the time they'd say, oh, but I still it, it shouldn't have bounced there. It, it should have done this. Or my swing still wasn't quite right or something. Yes, it went in the hole. But, and so you know, how many holes in one does even, to be topical, Rory McElroy, how many has he ever done? I don't know the answer to that, but it won't be many.
Richard:Mm
Fiona:sometimes, most of the time perfection is not attainable.
Richard:Mm-hmm.
Fiona:So why do we aim for it When you can't do it?
Richard:We had a question. Well, I had a question sent in. Um, It was from Simon from Lincolnshire and he says, I've been a long time listener and really appreciate the thoughtful way you explore psychological topics. I wondered if you might consider doing an episode on perfectionism. It's something I've struggled with for a long time and I imagine many others do too. For me, perfectionism often shows up as procrastination. I put off starting things because I'm afraid I won't do them perfectly. It's also made it hard to delegate or share work with others, and I often find myself redoing tasks unnecessarily to meet an unrealistic standard. It's exhausting, and yet I find it hard to break the cycle. I'd love to hear your take on what drives perfectionism, how it might be understood therapeutically, and what can help loosen its grip. Thank you so much for the work that you do. Simon from Lincolnshire. Well, I think there's gonna be plenty of listeners that might hear themselves in that question.
Fiona:it's such a common thing where the logic is why, why, but it is. It's so. Common for people to have perfectionist tendencies, and there are times when that's a good thing. If you are a, a chef in a fine dining restaurant and you want to get a Michelin star,
Richard:Ah.
Fiona:you probably need to have perfectionist tendencies. But if you have those tendencies when you go home and cook for your family.
Richard:Yeah.
Fiona:On Sunday lunch or something. If that's still the same, then that's when you've got a problem. If you are having surgery, I. I mean, I had surgery recently. I would quite like my surgeon to have a perfectionist streak, not just, it was back surgery. I don't want to, don't want him sort of say, well, I know it's one of these vertebra, let's, let's just, oh, that, that one will do. No, Hmm. There are times when it's a good thing.
Richard:Sometimes good enough isn't good enough.
Fiona:Yeah. Sometimes good enough is not good enough, but most of the time It is. And, you know, I hope that that guy wouldn't be taking that tendency into other things that he did.
Richard:becomes, it, it can become such a habit that it becomes part of personality.
Fiona:Yeah.
Richard:If it's not perfect, it's not good enough that it's all the, like dichotomous thinking. Black or white polarised thinking. It's all or nothing good or bad, and there is no gray area. And that can cause so many problems because that can influence your relationship with somebody that they're not good enough or I'm not good enough and can generate a whole bag of emotions to dig through that maybe you didn't need to. a lot of things come down to acceptance. Yes, it's context dependent, of course. But even taking your driving test, it would be almost unheard of, of somebody to not get a mark, a negative mark. You can make three major marks as long as you don't go over three, I think, with your driving test, they'll mark you down and go. Whoa, You know, too many of them and we're gonna fail you. oh, there's another one. There's another one. They're major things. But you've allowed them as long as obviously you recognise oh, that was a mistake I made, then. It's okay to accept your mistakes. That's part of being human. Because we are not perfect.
Fiona:Absolutely. And guess what? Awareness as you just indicated it's, if you are aware that when you're doing things, you're going to make some mistakes and that, that's sort of okay. You, you, you're doing your best not to. But inevitably things will go wrong in most human endeavors. Even if it's like a communication with, with a partner or, or anybody
Richard:Yeah.
Fiona:recognising that you're going to say the wrong thing sometimes
Richard:Yeah.
Fiona:that horrible word, but it's quite useful at times. I misspoke.
Richard:Misspoke.
Fiona:Yes. I really really don't like it, but it, it sort of conveys something, you know, just the wrong word came out you know, that sort of idea of that's a bit, I should have kept quiet and I should have said something else. And that's, that seems to be really. much more of a thing these days, especially with social media, that you're, you're, you are really not allowed to say the wrong thing on social media.
Richard:Well, I think, And this is where the defense mechanisms cause people problems because they can't add, it's difficult to admit to your mistakes'cause then you're not perfect. But that's okay It's okay to admit, oh yeah, I got, I've dropped the ball there. We've gotta own, our mistakes. Even if we didn't know there were a mistake, even if we then go, it's not a mistake and we double down on
Fiona:Yeah.
Richard:cause that's what causes problems. We double down on what is an innocent mistake, but was well-meaning, and then it becomes a problem. And that can happen in relationships, friendships. That psychological concept happens all through anything humans do that can go to the right to the top of government, go. Well, I'm, I, I'm, I've made the mistake, but I don't wanna admit that I made a mistake, so, well, I'm not gonna go back on it.
Fiona:And again, so society, society is, is absolutely daft on this, that politicians aren't allowed to say, I made a mistake, and I'm sorry. That's a sign of weakness. It's not, it's a sign of strength.
Richard:Yes, Hundred percent. admitting your mistakes, your failings. That is a sign of strength, that is a sign of maturity, emotional intelligence and confidence and assertiveness. We should embrace that. That's not who I was. I think I used to have a, a strong defense mechanism of, oh no, I didn't get anything wrong. I didn't get anything wrong. It. And it wasn't until I became a therapist in the early two thousands and learned a bit more about what makes people tick. That made me go. Oh, you know, I have that habit. That must have been really irritating to some of my work colleagues back in the day, and I asked them and they went, Yeah, you were a nightmare. I love you Rich, but, you're a nightmare. Oh, Was I? Oh Yeah, I couldn't work with you. Oh, that explains a lot. But that's not necessarily who I am anymore. But it needed the awareness. We needed to shine a light. on it and go, What's really going on?
Fiona:And presumably you found out why you had that need to be right.
Richard:Yeah, Yeah, because it pushed some insecure buttons in me that made me feel small and insignificant. And until I was aware that I had that need to feel smart, intelligent, better than. Until I realised that that was what was going on in the background that I didn't know that I could exist positively without that. That could have caused problems. And I'm glad I realized it when I was in my early to mid twenties.'cause you know, we have clients who come in in their fifties and it's, it's become so ingrained into them, and it's really problematic. There are three different types of perfectionism. We have self-oriented perfectionism. We have other oriented perfectionism, and then we've got socially prescribed perfectionism. And I'm not sure which one I would choose if I had to have one, but maybe self-oriented perfection. At least you got more control over that. Which is exactly as it sounds. It's self-oriented. You set the bar, and if you don't reach that bar, then you put yourself down, even though you set the bar. But rather than blaming yourself for setting the bar too high, you blame yourself for not hitting the bar. What, and being aware of that means you can lower the bar.
Fiona:Or keep the bar where it is and accept the fact that sometimes you're not going to meet it.
Richard:Yeah,
Fiona:So you can do either, and a mixture of both.
Richard:Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And then Other oriented perfectionism is about the standards you set for other people, it might include self-oriented as well, but it makes you look elsewhere and go, nobody's good enough. I have to do this. I'm gonna have to step in. So micromanagers will often fall into that
Fiona:And that ties in with what Simon was saying about not being able to delegate.
Richard:Yes, absolutely.
Fiona:if you delegate and you, you basically, this is, I'm putting a perfectionist hat on. If you delegate, uh, you have to just, check what they're doing. So you might as well have done it yourself in the first place,
Richard:Yeah, a lot to carry.
Fiona:Huh. If you need something done, do it yourself. it's that attitude, isn't it?
Richard:Yeah. I think the worst one would probably be the socially
Fiona:prescribed but we do all, all have an element of socially prescribed perfectionism I would say that, well, maybe socially prescribed norms, and then maybe if those norms become a little bit more. We talked the other week, didn't we? About somebody I saw in, um, Sainsbury's wearing pajamas. That's, that's going against the socially prescribed norm.
Richard:Hmm.
Fiona:The socially prescribed perfectionism would be, actually, there was somebody at the recent Oscars, was it. Some ceremony like that? I think it was Adam Sandler came in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt or something like that. And I mean, it must, it was a joke. Of course it had to be a joke'cause he couldn't really do that because that's going against the, the socially prescribed perfectionism of turning up at those sorts of ceremonies looking perfect.
Richard:Yeah,
Fiona:he got thrown out I think. But it was a joke. I presume it was a joke. He did, but it,
Richard:a protest.
Fiona:yeah, I'm, I'm pretty sure It was just a joke,
Richard:It sounds more like a protest because Oscars should be about films,
Fiona:Yes, you would. You would. You would think. You would think.
Richard:Yeah,
Fiona:sorry, I interrupted you. What else have you got about socially prescribed perfectionism?
Richard:Well, just that it is probably getting worse because of the amount of images that we share on social media nowadays and how filtered things can be. Where we look at everybody's show reel, everybody's highlight reel, nobody takes a photo of their, I say nobody. I like people who do take photos of the bad stuff that's going on in their life or them looking awful. I look terrible today. And it not be sort of fishing for compliments. Oh no, sweetie, you look lovely. No, you're right. You look awful. Look at the state of me. I want more of that, more honesty within our society so we aren't filtering and teaching our children that anything less than perfect is a failure'cause that's, dangerous. As we've seen with a lot of our clients over the years.
Fiona:As you were talking, I was thinking about in the past, what was it like, and I was thinking of my grandparents' generation the norms would've been much narrower.
Richard:Mm-hmm.
Fiona:So when my grandfather went to work, he was a civil servant, and I vaguely remember him going off to work. It was sort of so stereotypical with his bowler hat and umbrella. You know, that just would've been what they all did. And he couldn't have said, it's dressed down Friday, or whatever the phrase is this week and gone in. I mean, he wouldn't, my, my father has never owned a pair of jeans. I mean, it is No, no chance. My grandmother I would go, certainly never owned a pair of trousers,
Richard:Ah,
Fiona:the norms were very tightly controlled,
Richard:Hmm.
Fiona:so there was no, freedom. But how much that's then linked to being perfect. I don't know. It's, it's being, that's more being acceptable and part of the tribe,
Richard:I think there is in our, in our modern culture, there is a pushback to embrace the quirky, the different, the outside of the norm, and we're getting there,
Fiona:which is, I mean, that's been going on really well, probably in a small way since, um, I'm guessing since the first World War. And things that were going on in the twenties and so on, but I'd say really since the Second World War and a lot in the sixties of, um, the, the changes and the behaviours that were then deemed, well, it's sort of becoming acceptable, isn't it? It's just, just extending the norms.
Richard:What I don't want is for people to look at themselves then compare themselves to the outside world and carry with them this feeling that i'm not good enough
Fiona:Yes.
Richard:Because that's when perfectionism lowers our self-esteem. And without the awareness that's been going on, you can't challenge it.
Fiona:And you, you are right about that social media thing of people who only show the good stuff. And then you have others watching that and thinking, well, why am I not like that? Therefore, I'm not good enough. They need to realize that that's not their genuine life that's being portrayed. That's hard for young people who are just still developing to get that recognition and they, even if they, they might be able to intellectually get it and say, yeah, I know. I know, I know. But the feeling. To get that to tally with the intellectual understanding.
Richard:We all want to feel part of a tribe that we've got a sense of belonging. And I say all, which is a very absolute way of thinking about it, and maybe there are exceptions, but it's biologically hardwired into pretty much everybody really that we need to be accepted. that if we are not accepted by the group,
Fiona:There will be and always have been exceptions, but there will be reasons why there are exceptions, I believe. That something has caused them to choose separation as a safer option than the natural one of being part of. Who was that hermit who lived on top of a pole?
Richard:Oh yeah. That's a pretty rare thing to do, isn't it?
Fiona:I think so, yeah. I mean, there's, there's not one in my village.
Richard:Can't say I've seen one.
Fiona:I was looking for something to do with some Yeah, yeah, yeah. Looking for A new hobby.
Richard:When the time is right, go and live at the top, of that pole Fiona.
Fiona:Okay. I'll, I'll have a go. no thanks. Wouldn't even know how to start climate.
Richard:I, mean, Not necessarily about living at the top of
Fiona:Okay.
Richard:but I love the phrase, I'll just have a go.
Fiona:Yes.
Richard:As long as we mean it. And it's not, oh, I'll have a go, but I know I'm gonna try really hard at this, and it's gonna be blooming good. No, Genuinely, just have a go. I've been learning the guitar for 10 years. think Dawn bought me a guitar for my 40th birthday. And I'm, I'm no further forward than I was 9 years ago. Not really because I don't mind that I just strum along and play along to rock music. And I've got apps that allow me to listen to the music and it just misses out occasional note that you play and it feels like you're playing along to all the songs.
Fiona:That's good.
Richard:I like it. Yeah, it's great fun. And it doesn't matter that I'm not Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix or Tony Iommi
Fiona:You, you who? Anyway.
Richard:me Oh, interesting story about Tony Iommi. Tony Iommi is the guitarist in Black Sabbath.
Fiona:Oh.
Richard:when the band was really starting to get quite popular and they were all working in Birmingham doing different jobs. Tony Iommi worked in a metal factory and
Fiona:Heavy, heavy metal factory.
Richard:Well, supposedly, that's an idea of where the heavy
Fiona:Oh.
Richard:comes from. And Tony
Fiona:Oh, right.
Richard:part of this because on the day he was leaving, he went home at lunch time to have some lunch with his mom said, probably not gonna go back. They're not expecting me to go back. And his mom said, you go back Anthony, you go back to work, finish your final day'cause she's a Monty Python character.
Fiona:I was just, that's where I went. Yes.
Richard:So he did go back and there wasn't any work for him'cause he was supposed to be leaving. So they put him on a machine he'd never used before and it was a machine that would be, that would slice down sheet metal. He'd never really used that machine before. so when he was pushing metal into it and this massive guillotine came down, it cut off the ends of some of his fingers, and he's a guitarist.
Fiona:Oh.
Richard:And it was his it was his, fretting hand. And of course. I, I, he's lost the ends of his fingers. I cannot play the guitar now. And his, his motivation just dropped. His belief in himself absolutely plummeted until somebody gave him some, a song to listen to, by a guitarist called Django Reinhardt, who'd lost some fingers when he was a child in a fire. He'd literally only got a, on his fretting hand, only got a couple of fingers, but he was still able to play these this really quick sound. He's like, if, if Django Reinhardt can do it, then maybe I can too. And he melted some plastic off some fairy liquid bottles and made some fake fingertips so he could press down on the strings without it hurting his fingers. And whether he still does that now or not, I don't know, he might do all these years later'cause he does still play. And to be able to press down properly, had to loosen the strings. So the music that they were playing here, up here Twang, twang, twang, tw twang became, and it dropped down and became, this looser, guttural heavy metal sound. And that supposedly the origins of that heavy metal sound, it's Tony Iommi loosening the string so he can press down on them properly and be able to play this new sound. And then the, band got back together, started making more music. It was different music. But it caught on. And here we are all these years later, still having that guttural sound to a lot of hard rock music, all because of Tony Iommi cutting off the ends of his fingers.
Fiona:I was going to ask you about that you are learning Welsh. Um, do you have a go at that? Have you, have you gone to Wales? Spoken it or found somebody to speak with? No.
Richard:No, and I, do not think I ever will, to be honest. I might recognize some words on a menu. But my accent is not gonna be perfect. The way I conjugate verbs is not gonna be perfect.
Fiona:but we all have that experience. But it is throwing yourself into it, isn't it? I mean, my Ukrainians, they vary hugely as to how willing they are to just go for it.
Richard:Yeah,
Fiona:And it seems to be age related.
Richard:Well, in The
Fiona:The younger they are, The more they'll go for it.
Richard:it. up. Yeah. Cause maybe they don't have decades of I can't do this, I can't do this holding them back. They've got no, no evidence that they couldn't.
Fiona:Yeah.
Richard:They've only got evidence that, well I'm quite young and I've got an excuse if I can't. It's fine. I think we need to maintain that for the rest of our life. I'm, I dunno how to do this. I'm learning and that's fine. Even if I'm learning to do something that other people that are younger than me can do. That's fine. The older we get, the more we're gonna see that.
Fiona:And you can teach an old dog new tricks,
Richard:Yeah. So if you're listening to this and you are 70 and you want to learn some confidence boosting things, you want to help with your anxiety, you want to help with your perfectionism, you want to help with anything. Yeah, you can.
Fiona:not too late.
Richard:Absolutely not. There are people literally in hospices learning how to do stuff. And getting pride from it, even though they know yeah, my time here on this planet is running out, but I'm still going to do this. I'm still gonna learn to do this. Because, well, why not? is this. If this is my last chance, then this is my last chance. I'm, This is, something I've always wanted to do, so I'm doing it. Fair play. Hundred percent. What's, what's my excuse? We don't have any, the only thing that holds us back is ourselves. Anyway, fiona. Have you seen the time?
Fiona:Did just check it. Yes. We've nattered, haven't we? We have. We have nattered. I was very happy when I saw we were nattering about perfectionism.'cause I find it such a fascinating topic.
Richard:So many layers.
Fiona:Mm.
Richard:so Many things you can dig into. You could talk, there could be an entire podcast series about this and there probably is. So if you'd like to learn a little bit more about it, go and do some Googling about.
Fiona:Oh, and I,
Richard:within our go
Fiona:yes, we didn't actually get onto the what to do about it, but it is in evolve to thrive, so, Yeah,
Richard:in our Evolve to Thrive programme. You'll find some stuff there. The early bird discount, current time of publication is gonna be on. So yeah, jump on the discount on our Evolve to Thrive program that might really set you on a a positive course. If you've got some things you want to improve or change about your life, and if you've got any questions for us, whether it's for the very end of this series or for our next season three. When we get into that, then just let us know. We are never far away. Give us a shout. Have a super duper week, everybody speak to you then.
Fiona:Bye