teenagers often feel under great pressure to be perfect. perfectly smart. best looks. best at sport. best at socialising. Unfortunately, for lots of this leads to an increase in anxiety and can minimize individual development. So how can we best help students when overcoming perfectionism?
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What is Perfectionism?
Perfectionism is defined as ‘straining compulsively and unceasingly towards unobtainable goals and measuring their self-worth by productivity and accomplishment’. The problem here is clear. If you set unobtainable goals and measure your self-worth against those goals, you are likely to be continuously disappointed, angry and stressed when you unavoidably fail.
Though both male and female students can suffer from perfectionism, it seems that it may be a lot more common in female Camiseta Leeds United students. A recent survey carried out by the department for education found that a third of teenage girls report issues around anxiety and depression.
Anecdotally, from my experience of running workshops with InnerDrive for over 30,000 students a year in over 140 schools, lots of teachers are reporting higher levels of stress, anxiety and perfectionist traits in students (especially in high achieving female students).
As well as hurting general well-being, perfectionism can cause a concern of failure. If your whole self-worth and identity is tied to your success, then mistakes and setbacks are seen as a threat. The common perfectionist answer to this problem? avoid situations that have an element of risk. better to have the perception of best than to risk it and everyone sees your imperfections.
How to get rid of Perfectionism
Understand The cost of Perfectionism – Educating people about perfectionism (i.e. what it is) and what the consequences of it are is a good starting point.
One study found that ‘a brief affordable intervention is effective at decreasing the psychological distress in maladaptive perfectionists’. The crucial here is to do so in a helpful and safe environment. By going over hypothetical situations, Camiseta TSG 1899 Hoffenheim it can de-personalise it and make sure a non-judgemental atmosphere.
One way to do this is to ask students to give recommendations to a hypothetical student who worries about having to get best grades whilst being best in all other aspects of life (music/sport/fashion/relationships) and then leave them time to reflect on how they could follow their own recommendations themselves.
Remember nobody is best – A lot of students today suffer from FOMO (Fear of missing Out). often students see others living ‘the best life’ and try to measure up. It can be a constant battle to remind them that no-one is as delighted or as best as they may appear on Facebook. A great functional example for students is to show them how ‘easy’ it is to toss a coin and get 5 heads in a row, as demonstrated in this video below:
To see how it was actually done, click here. This video helps students understand that what they see online is often a fake Camiseta Manchester City reality where people often project an image that is not real.
By helping students understand what is going on ‘behind the curtain’ with others, as well as developing malleable skills such as self-compassion, we can help students have a healthy relationship with their own problems and understand that is part of what makes us all unique.
Strive For Excellence, Not Perfection – perfection is a myth. It doesn’t exist. It is an illusion. instead of chasing this leprechaun, goal for high standards. As legendary American Football instructor Vince Lombardi once noted that ‘Perfectionism is not attainable. but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence’.
Research suggests that by proactively taking steps to educate students who have perfectionist traits about the difference between having an ethic of excellence and chasing unobtainable perfectionism will ‘enhance resilience and minimize levels of risk among perfectionism’. These benefits include minimizing anxiety, anxiety and improving mental wellbeing.
One of the best books I can recommend for those keen to harness this mindset, is An ethic of Excellence: building a culture of Craftsmanship with students, by teacher Ron Berger. In it, he highlights lots of strategies, such as having his students work on long-term projects in buy for them to develop a sense of pride in their work, a heavy emphasis on high quality regular feedback from teachers, as well as encouraging students to draft and re-draft their work before submitting it.
Teachers can help make the difference between an ethic of excellence and perfectionism very clearly. The former is focused on becoming as good as you can be and developing your skills. The latter focuses on not making any mistakes and avoiding looking bad. In an ethic of excellence, mistakes are checked out as possible learning opportunities and not something to be covered up, embarrassed by or judged on.
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