"Perfectionism: How to Stop Feeling Depressed"
Foreword...
Being motivated to become the best at what we do is one thing, and feeling anxious and depressed about being not good enough is another. The former gives us positive energy to productively work on our skills and get things done. The latter pulls us down, slows us down, and makes us doubt ourselves in what we do--consequently hindering us from reaching our full potential.
Objective: We'd like to keep on working hard to become the best version of us that we can be, but we'd like to be free of the depressing, discouraging, despairing feelings we get from being "not good enough".
Definition of Perfectionism
In psychology, perfectionism is a personality trait characterized by a person's striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.
Situation
When we react to a situation, very little has to do with the actual situation. It's more about the way we perceive or think about the situation, which had been learned and formed from our past experiences.
When Patricia got an 80% on her exam, she felt proud and happy.
When Kelly got 80%, she locked herself in her room and cried.
Patricia was thinking, "I did well because I studied. My parents will be proud."
Kelly would've been thinking, "I suck. I have no future. No matter how hard I try, nothing works."
Solution: Thought Diary
We can re-learn our way of self-talk by practicing challenging our thoughts. Challenging our thoughts is NOT something you should do in your head, as this can get messy and confusing! The best way is to write it down. Here is the diary that you can print out for your use. Go to page 7 of the document.
1. Write down the activating event - event, situation, a thought, mental picture, physical trigger
2. Write down words describing how you feel. UNDERLINE the one that is most associated with the activating event. Rate the intensity of this feeling from 0 to 100. Any physical sensations or actions carried out.
3. "What was I saying to myself? What was going through my head at the time?"
Underline the most distressing thought, and rate how much you believe this from 0 to 100.
4. Write down the evidence for the negative thought and the evidence against it.
5. Now, re-rate your emotion you felt from 0 to 100. Re-rate the negative thought (how much you believe it) from 0 to 100.
Afterthoughts
We don't always know what we are thinking. We may mistake feelings for thoughts. For example, one may say, "I feel like I am going to fail this test." Is this a feeling? No! It is a thought. The feeling that results from this thought are anxiety, fear, frustration, nervousness, and panick. Remember this as you do your thought diary exercise.
Try this now! It is a clinically proven method for changing our negativity.
