THERAPY for PERFECTIONISM IN FLOWOOD
You don’t have to continue living with self-doubt, constantly questioning your abilities and skillset, and never feeling good enough.
You’ve always been successful at pretty much anything you wanted to do.
Sometimes you don’t have to try very hard because it comes so naturally. You’re not even sure what it would be like to experience actual failure. But you definitely know what it’s like to feel like you’re failing.
You criticize yourself for small mistakes that other people might not notice and wonder why you can’t be better. You double or triple check every project you deliver. And it’s exhausting – you’re not sure how you find the energy to keep going. You worry other people will think you’re lazy or a failure or a disappointment. So you don’t let up on yourself or your standards.
Maybe YOU’VE BEEN…
Procrastinating and missing deadlines you normally wouldn’t
Having trouble setting boundaries or prioritizing your needs
Experiencing panic attacks or crying spells
Beating yourself up for making mistakes, even small ones
Seeing yourself as a failure, a disappointment, or not good enough
Doubting yourself even though logically you know you’re capable or smart
YOU KNOW IT’S TIME TO TRY SOMETHING different…
Somewhere along the way you internalized the message that your self-worth comes from achievement. There’s a part of you that believes you only matter if you’re the best, if you perform well, and always deliver high quality results. Performance equals self-worth. So of course, it seems like the opposite is also true. If you’re not performing, you’re useless.
You want to be ok doing your best instead of feeling like a disappointment or a failure. You want to spend more time focused on things that make you happy.
You know you can’t completely get rid of problems and stress. But you’d like to handle it better, carry it a little more lightly, and know that you can trust yourself to deal with whatever comes up.
How I can help
The specific approach we take depends on your personality, your goals, and what feels most helpful to you.
Our work together is tailored for you. If this is your first time in therapy, we’ll start with identifying the thought, emotion, and behavior cycles you’re noticing in your life. If you’ve been in therapy before, we can use the insight you’ve previously gained as the starting point for our work together.
Instead of immediately fixing the problem, we’ll start with learning where it came from, why it’s there, and how it benefits you. You learned how to be a perfectionist somewhere, and it most likely started a long time ago. Maybe it helps you be successful,avoid external criticism, or earn praise and approval. Whatever the reason you started trying to be perfect, there was a good reason for it at some point in time. But maybe it’s no longer serving you and the life you have now.
Depending on your needs, we may pull from some of these methods:
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This work focuses on how thoughts, feelings, behavior, and events are connected in a loop. We’ll identify where these show up in your life and how they impact you.
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Sometimes called “parts work”, IFS is a powerful tool for reducing internal conflict. It provides a pathway for showing yourself the same grace and compassion you typically give to others and allows you to access the most objective, adult parts of your brain.
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We’ll gradually work on building your emotional regulation skills and incorporating these new tools into your life.
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This is where we take what you’ve learned in the earlier stages and help your brain put it all together.
THERAPY FOR perfectionism CAN HELP YOU:
Get relief from feeling stressed out, overwhelmed, and anxious
Understand why you’re so hard on yourself
Celebrate your successes and feel proud of your accomplishments
Believe you did your best and feel good enough
Be more forgiving of yourself when you make mistakes
Focus more on who you are instead of what you do
What if life didn’t feel so consumed by trying to be perfect?
It’s possible to separate your achievements from your worth.
FAQs
COMMON QUESTIONS
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Perhaps you’re one of those people who feels fine one minute, and the next you’re feeling overwhelmed and upset without knowing exactly what happened. We’ll look at something recent – an argument, a bad day, or a mistake – and use that as a starting point for identifying patterns. For most people, sorting through and labeling some of these things gives them a better understanding of why they’re feeling stressed or panicky.
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If you’ve previously worked with a therapist, you may already have learned some coping skills or how to identify the connection between thoughts, emotions, and triggers. We can use that foundation to help you make lasting changes.
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Not necessarily. I believe it’s important to begin with understanding where, how, and why a specific behavior started. Better questions might be – Is it working for you? How is helping you? What’s the purpose of it? Figuring out the answers to those questions is where the deeper work starts.
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If your life is pretty good, that means we can set different types of goals to help you “level up” and optimize what’s working. If you already have healthy habits and supportive people in your life, we can use that as a foundation for our work together.
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The short answer is it depends on a combination of factors – if you’ve been in therapy before, your specific issues, and your goals. Most people begin to experience some relief in the first few weeks because it feels good to finally start taking action. Over time small, gradual changes will build momentum and lead to lasting change. The average length of therapy needed to resolve a simple issue is about 4-6 months. Sometimes that’s all people need. Other times they choose to set new goals and continue our work together.