Perfectionism and the Core Belief of “Not Good Enough”
Perfectionism shows up in a host of behaviors such as people-pleasing, difficulty with boundaries, time management issues, stress, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, overthinking, and overwhelm.
In my work as a counselor I have seen that at the very core of perfectionism there is a limiting belief of “I am not good enough.”
Something (or many things) happened in our early lives to spark that belief.
Once that belief begins as a hypothesis in our young brains, we look for ways to prove that it’s true.
We rarely look for ways to prove that it’s false, because the brain is wired to look for problems it can solve.
If it’s false, there is no problem to solve, but if it’s true then WE ARE IN DANGER!!! Our brains can easily overlook evidence that this belief is false, but ruminate on evidence that can seem to prove that it is the tiniest bit true.
We collect these evidences and carry them around, like rocks in a bag.
They weigh us down and slow us down.
We do not want to pick up any more rocks, so we obsess over our performance and exhaust ourselves with striving to be good enough.
Not only do we keep lugging around this big heavy bag of rocks, but we are trying to sprint while doing so. And make it look effortless.
There are strategies to work on perfectionist beliefs, but if we do not work on the core belief, we will still be running at a full sprint, trying to conquer an unwinnable race.
How do we work with our core “not good enough” beliefs?
EMDR Therapy
My favorite go-to is EMDR Therapy. This approach to therapy considers whatever started that limiting belief to be a trauma of sorts. By understanding how perfectionism shows up in your life, we can identify those early memories and reprocess them using EMDR therapy. It always amazes me how healing a memory at the brain level like this can cause the brain to generalize learning to other memories.
It’s like when you are filling out a form online and content autopopulates to other text fields.
It changes “I’m not good enough” to
“I am valued.”
“I am worthy.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“That was more about the other person’s stuff than mine.”
With that core belief altered in a more adaptive way, your brain applies that new learning to other situations and you find yourself starting to move through life differently.
I’d like to note that EMDR Therapy does not allow you to believe something that is untrue. It is not about just making up whatever story you’d rather believe and sticking with it. It helps you process the memory in a way that you see it in a different perspective, and the untrue belief you have been hanging onto is finally exposed as untrue so you can see what IS true.
EMDR is not an exercise in sugar-coating.
Sometimes the truth ends up being, “That experience is in my past. It’s over and it doesn’t have to impact me anymore.”
Can you imagine how freeing it feels to shed the belief that you are not good enough?
Honestly, at first it can feel strange. Maybe even uncomfortable because you know that feeling of “not good enough.” It’s been with you for so long.
You might find yourself acting differently.
When I experienced EMDR in my training (we had to practice on each other with real issues) I found myself chatting up strangers in stores and not procrastinating phone calls anymore (the next day!). It quickly addressed some of my self-consciousness, my limiting belief that I should just stay quiet because nobody is going to want to hear what I have to say.
Parts of Self
Another way I like to work with these beliefs is to explore parts of self.
Really I am talking about memory networks here, which are the associations that our brains have connected between memories.
It is easier for our brains can conceptualize them as parts of self.
I actually work a lot with parts of self when we do EMDR Therapy, because sometimes a part will have strong feelings about the work we are doing, and if we do not get that part on board we won’t be able to make progress.
Parts of self may be as simple as emotions (I wrote about this previously). We may have a Fearful Part, or an Empathetic Part, an Angry Part, a Sad Part.
In the framework of the Internal Family Systems Theory, we have parts of self who fall into categories of Exiles, Protectors, and Firefighters.
An Exile Part is usually a part that other parts of self believe must be hidden. Nobody can know about this part, it is shameful, disgusting, wrong, etc.
The Protector Parts (cough cough, Perfectionism!) take on the job of protecting that Exile. It strives to be perfect so nobody would ever guess that Exile is there. Perfectionism often works closely with a Critical part – the Critical Part has to make sure we know all the things we are doing wrong so we can do better.
Firefighters roll in when the Protector Parts fail. Firefighters do something dramatic to help our systems feel better, disconnect from the pain of failure. They get us engaging in behaviors like substance use, overeating or overly restricting calories, binge-watching, mindless scrolling, workaholism, excessive exercise.
Sometimes parts of self are tied to certain ages.
It’s very common, when clients will bring up a body sensation or a feeling, for me to ask “What age goes with that feeling?” They usually can go right to it and then we get an idea of what might be going on.
When something traumatic happens, our brains store it in different parts of the body, and it gets stored as frozen in time. Understanding the story that part of self has to tell can unlock that memory.
We can help it know that it’s safe now.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
CBT is another helpful tool in working with the limiting beliefs underneath perfectionism.
In this type of therapy, we learn about the ways our thoughts inform our feelings. We learn to recognize the unhelpful ways we are thinking. With perfectionism, we almost always find some “all or nothing” thinking.
“If there is the tiniest thing wrong with this project, the whole thing is crap.”
“Ten people told me that I did a fantastic job, but one person criticized me. I am a failure.”
When we learn to catch ourselves in an unhelpful thinking pattern, we can be intentional about changing the narrative.
Sometimes it’s hard for our brains to believe at first. We are used to going straight to the worst extreme. When this happens, we sometimes think of something more neutral so it will be believable.
I have always been ashamed of my big feet.
In fact, in high school I squeezed myself into a pair of ski boots one size too small because my real size was a different color than the smaller sizes and everyone would know how big my feet were. As a result, I couldn’t make it through my ski lesson and ended up spending the day by myself instead of skiing with the rest of the youth group.
If someone had tried to get me to think, “My big feet are beautiful” I would have sent them packing. No way could I believe a thought like that. But thinking something more neutral, like, “My feet help me balance” would have been more believable. That kind of a thought could start me on that path towards believing something more adaptive.
Another tactic with unhelpful thoughts is learning to tolerate the discomfort of letting them be there.
We can acknowledge them, but not give them excess fuel. If we do not send extra energy to them, it’s a kind of a brain hack. Your brain thinks, “Oh, we are not going to obsess over this? Ok, it must not be a big deal”.
This is not easy.
We might have to catch ourselves repeatedly venturing into those unhelpful thoughts, but as soon as we catch ourselves, we can think, “Oh yeah, that thought is there again” and redirect.
I am a big fan of creating mantras that I can remember to help myself do this. One that I often use when I want to redirect my thoughts is, “I know what this is, and we are not doing this right now.”
Journaling is very helpful in self-work with unhelpful thinking styles.
Another unhelpful thinking style is to dwell on the worst case scenario. Journaling our wins every day can really help with this. That helps with all or nothing thinking, too. It gets us to recognize that some things did go well today, it’s not all bad.
Journaling helps with perfectionism in so many ways that I am going to write another blog post all about journaling.
Most of this article is about how therapy helps perfectionism.
I am sorry if you were looking for quick strategies in 3 easy steps. If you ever find that some where, please let me know!
That core belief of “not good enough” is stubborn and probably tied to pain from your past. I can’t, in good conscience, share many tips and tricks for working with perfectionism without emphasizing the importance of delving into that core belief. Digging up that core belief can be tricky and painful. It it tough to do alone.
I want to help you lose the bag of rocks and stop the full sprint. Call me when you are ready to get started.
Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her downtown Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.
