How To Be An Imperfectionist

by Stephen Guise

How To Be An Imperfectionist Summary

In writing summaries my aim is to highlight the dominant themes of the book. I utilize paraphrasing and interpretation to convey these themes in my own words. Along the way, I include direct quotes from the author, along with thoughts of my own, that are intended to support or expand on what the author has presented in the book.

Before we dive into the summary I’d like to reflect on the etymology of “perfectionist” in the quote above, with focus on “one who believes a sinless life is obtainable.” Images of impossible absolutes are conjured; superhuman feats, godlike existence, limitless invulnerability, and the proverbial ability to walk between the raindrops. It’s no wonder that perfectionism is a doctrine and practice that keeps us glued to procrastination, depression, social anxiety, and overall irrational problem solving. It asks that much of us. It demands purity. It demands that the location, time, items, quality, size, and ultimately, the self, all be perfect in order to be worthy of action and experience.

Steven Guise describes three types of perfectionistic standards.

1. Perfect context - a type of perfectionism that restricts action taken towards a goal because the situations are viewed through the lens of a perfectionistic mindset that expertly dismantles the will to take action. The perfect context mindset includes restrictive rules about location, time of day, and resources.

2. Perfect Quality - This is the type of perfectionism that perfectionism is usually associated with. This shows up in intolerant attitudes about the quality of the effort and outcome towards a goal, activity, or thing. For example this may show up in family life or in academics and the person focused on perfect quality may struggle with less-than-perfect household cleanliness or academic grades.

3. Perfect Quantity - Perfection by quantity means being dissatisfied with actions that fall below a number threshold. The author believes that 95% of the world struggles with perfectionism, particularly because of this perfectionistic standard.

Guise states that “nearly everyone is unknowingly trained to be perfectionists by coping the goal size of the people around them.” For example, lose 20 pounds in two months, write a screenplay in a year, read 30 books a year, do 50 pushups. These are all achievable goals, however the quantity aspect places pressure and emphasis on what is “enough” to count as a “win” and it has the potential to discourage us as we set out to achieve our goals.

“Perfectionists do not accept a small amount of value or progress; they only want big, smooth, perfect wins.”

Guise describes goals like a bar that we must pole vault over. When we vault over the bar, the win is apparent and encouraging. We are more likely to continue going after the goal if we set the bar at a height that is achievable. The perfectionistic mindset will set the bar so high, often in the misguided attempt to motivate us to greatness, that we find ourselves unable to clear the height of the bar. It’s too high! Lower it in order to build momentum towards your overall goal and keep perfectionism at bay.

Perfectionism serves us much like a bomb shelter. It serves as an excuse generating shroud that surrounds and protects us, however this protection saps our will, engagement, and effort. The cost of staying safe from the fear of not being perfect ends up costing us our ability to engage and put forth effort into what we care about. This ultimately leaves us without a voice and essentially invisible.

When we want something that is important to us, the importance of obtaining it rises and as that importance rises so does our fear of not obtaining it. Clinging to perfectionism keeps us from facing the fear of not obtaining what we want. We end up stuck and mired in excuses and inaction.

The author identifies and describes the difference between two types of perfectionists:

1. The Overdriven Perfectionist - Never satisfied and never happy with what they or others achieve. The main struggles of the overdriven perfectionists are “unrealistic expectations” and “rumination,” (mental repetitive loop over a thought or problem without completion. Usually with thought magnification on problems and minimization of solutions).

2. The Paralyzed Perfectionist - Fear of failure leads to inaction and inability to engage in a meaningful life. The main struggles of the paralyzed perfectionist are “concern over mistakes” and “doubts about actions.”

The author also states that both overdriven and paralyzed perfectionists tend to struggle with the “need for approval.”

For those who are defenders of the merits of perfectionism, you’ll be interested in the chapter in which author does a dive into what research there is on “healthy” perfectionism and how it can be, though rarely, useful. The quote below is at the outset of that chapter and sums it up best.

“Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.”

~ Harriet Braiker

Perfectionism and the excuses that flow from it damage performance and the author goes into ways to notice and address these life restricting excuses and where they show up:

• writers block = perfectionism

• poor sports performance = perfectionism

• self-handicapping = perfectionism

• fear of failure = perfectionism

• social avoidance = perfectionism

• not exercising = perfectionism

• romantic avoidance = perfectionism

• procrastination = perfectionism (specifically failure to enter the implement phase). If you are looking for specific help with procrastination this book can be very useful.

How we change (this is only a summary, the book goes into much greater step by step detail with examples and action steps):

Build new habits through repetition that work around and weaken the unhelpful and ineffective perfectionistic mindset.

Take action, even if they are small actions. The actions that you take will feed your emotions and motivation to continue to put effort in and keep your willingness to engage from getting undermined by the perfectionistic mindset.

Don’t rely on motivation and feeling ready to change or take action. Take action for the sake of taking action. It is the best starting point and the best way to increase motivation.

The author stresses effort over perfection. Another way to phrase this is effort over outcome.

The author gives a breakdown of the “Imperfectionist Process” and what a “complete a cycle of successful, imperfect pursuit,” looks like.

1. Imperfect thoughts and ideas

2. Imperfect decision

3. Imperfect action

4. Imperfect adaptation

5. Imperfect but successful result

Keep your mind on the process and each action step of the process and less on the results.

Notice rumination and utilize acceptance for when it is an “unfixable” event and utilize actions for when it is a “fixable” event.

Understand that chance is not the same as failure. Understanding the distinction will help reduce rumination. Chance can be influenced by your persistence, but is ultimately out of your control.

Unlike chance, failure is more in our control because failure is tied to your strategies. Failure is related to the “how” and the system utilized to engage a goal or problem. Chance just happens, failure offers clues to how you can learn from the failure and make effective adjustments to your strategies and actions.

Manage your use of “should” and create overall healthier self-talk.

Use habit helpers such as timers, these include “the countdown starter,” “the focus timer,” “the Pomodoro technique,” and “the work and play carousel.”

Build confidence through strategy.

1. Notice your physical posture and engage in the practice of letting your posture be expansive and open.

2. Fake it until you make it by giving yourself permission to think and act like a confident person even if part of you doubts it. For fake it to make it to work, you allow yourself to suspend your doubts about yourself and engage life in the way that a confident version of you would. This is a practice and like anything builds with practice.

3. Adjusting your “benchmark.” The benchmark is the standard that you set for yourself. You get to decide the difficulty level of the benchmark. At long as it moves you towards your goal and keeps you focused and engaged then it is a useful benchmark. No matter how low. The author uses a personal example of building social confidence around women. He shares how moving his benchmark from being as suave as 007 to just saying “hi” made it possible to engage in the actions that build confidence instead of chronic rumination about not being confident enough.

4. Give up permission seeking and embarrassment avoidance except in the cases of harm and illegality.

5. Engage in small “acts of rebellion” against any excuses, expectations, or rules that are not helpful and supportive of you building your confidence or engaging with what has meaning for you in your life.

Impostor syndrome revolves around a preoccupation with making mistakes. Imposter syndrome is part of the perfectionistic mindset. It hinders action, it is dependent on and based on the fear of negative evaluation and esteem of others, it supports unrealistically high benchmarks that feed the impostor syndrome, and fails to adequately internalize actual success. In order to address imposter syndrome it is important to internalize your accomplishments and adopt an imperfectionist mindset.

How to confront fear and take action:

The binary mindset - this is a terrific way to engage in action when fear is high. This strategy is derived from the language of computers (0’s and 1’s). This strategy is used as an antidote to the “analog” mindset. A binary mindset is like a simple light switch. It is either on or off.

The analog mindset - is like a light switch or volume dial with an infinite amount of settings.

By utilizing the “binary mindset” we can engage in a task towards a goal without getting all caught up in “how good” it was or was not. When the author set a benchmark of just saying “hi” as a win, that was an example of using a binary mindset. The benchmark was just to say “hi.” The binary mindset only asks, “did I do it, yes or no?” The benchmark did not include “how good did I do it or how did I sound or how smooth was my delivery?” That would be an example of the analog mindset that is focused on “how” it was done and is focused on the details being perfect. The binary mindset allows us to redefine what perfection is to us. “Did I do it, yes or no? Yes, perfect!”

“Make success easier than failure and you’ll succeed.”

Progress, any progress, is success. Knowing and internalizing that can lead to greater persistence and consistency which is essential to succeeding towards your life goals.

Don’t rely on the projection of the mind. These projections about the future or outcomes are often inaccurate. Trust your experience when putting these tools into practice and let experience be your guide. Let yourself imperfectly experiment through trial and error to learn the best path forward and to become a better decision maker.