How Perfectionism Impacts Your Money
Many of us are perfectionists, and we believe it’s a good thing. But is it? Perfectionism doesn’t mean just having high standards or wanting to do a good job. Perfectionism is where we set very high, usually impossibly high standards for ourselves, and sometimes for those around us.
Since the standard of being perfect is, by definition, an impossible standard, perfectionism leaves us unable to enjoy our smaller and medium sized victories. In fact, it’s typically an “all or nothing” proposition. Rather than fail at achieving a goal or a task where we set an impossible standard, it’s easier to not do it all. “Better” isn’t ever good enough. So, making slow, steady progress becomes unacceptable.
Perfectionists struggle to make progress in many areas of life. But today, we’ll talk about perfectionism and money.
One of the first steps to winning with money is setting a vision for the future & setting goals. A perfectionist will, of course, want to set a perfect vision for the future. An idyllic life filled with amazing trips, expensive toys, early retirement at the perfect location (perhaps multiple houses), college at elite schools for their kids and a huge retirement nest egg that allows them to exit the working world early for a long relaxing retirement, and etc. They will then set goals that are overly aggressive (to say the least). Then they’ll put together a budget that they expect to work exactly as they planned it, with no flexibility, and often setup unrealistic tracking systems to track every detail. So, what happens? The budget doesn’t work exactly right, they struggle to keep it updated and it becomes apparent quickly that they aren’t going to achieve their impossible goals.
So, those of us who are not perfectionists think… “well, why not just make the expectations and goals more realistic?” Unfortunately, that’s not how perfectionism works. The typical response for a perfectionist isn’t to make their goals more realistic. They instead abandon the effort. If they can’t do it perfectly, why do it at all? It’s “all or nothing”. And “nothing” is usually the winner.
That’s why it’s important for perfectionists to realize their tendencies and realize that attempting to be perfect is a fool’s errand. What we all need to do is work on getting better, a little at a time. If we set realistic long-term goals (adjusting them, as needed), and setup some short term very achievable goals, we can create some nice quick wins. We can build on those quick wins & move ourselves forward toward bigger wins. For people with debt, there’s often at least one debt that’s pretty small. So, a good short-term goal will often be to pay off that smaller debt and celebrate the win!
My perfectionistic clients need a lot of extra help & encouragement. They often don’t take note of the wins and progress along the way. So, it’s up to me to point it out to them & push back if they try to minimize their achievements. What I often hear is “well, OK so I paid off the small debt, but I really should have paid off two more by now”. You can hopefully see how self-defeating that can be. That’s what I try to point out & help them work through their tendency to never be happy with any achievement. What I hope to hear is something like “I’m feeling defeated this month since I was $200 short of my monthly goal, but I know that’s because my perfectionism is acting up.” There can be real progress made by realizing that we’re going to still feel like we’re not where we want to be but also understanding also why we feel that way. And then moving forward anyway. I offer a lot of encouragement along the way to help them avoid their impulse to feel like a failure and give up.
We have a lot of negative mindsets that get in our way when we try to win with money, but perfectionism may be the worst mindset of all. If that feels like it just might be you, or if you’re the spouse of a perfectionist, I may be able to help. To find out, click here to go to my calendar and setup a Complementary Consultation. We can learn more about one another and find out if Financial Coaching is a fit.
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