How to Manage Perfectionism When You Have ADHD
I know you want to do well at whatever you tackle, whether that’s in your professional or personal life.
And because of this desire, you may think there are advantages to being a perfectionist. Maybe you believe it pushes you to do your best work, catch mistakes before others notice them, or avoid letting people down.
I get it.
But if you have ADHD, perfectionism can sometimes end up getting in your way more than helping you move forward.
How Do You Know If You Are a Perfectionist With ADHD?
A perfectionist is someone who is unyielding in their pursuit of unrealistically high standards. So, you may wonder what an unrealistically high standard is. Good question.
Whether a standard is unrealistically high depends on your capacity and the context.
For example, imagine you are asked to prepare a short presentation for a team meeting. Given the time available, the goal may simply be to share a few clear points and move the discussion forward.
But if you believe the presentation needs to be flawless, anticipate every possible question, and demonstrate deep expertise, you may spend far more time preparing than the situation realistically calls for.
In this case, the standard you are holding yourself to exceeds what the context requires and what your time and energy realistically allow.
Similarly, you might spend a long time crafting an email because you want it to sound thoughtful, complete, and professional. You reread it multiple times and keep adjusting the wording.
But the context may simply require a clear response. The extra effort is driven not by what the situation calls for, but by the standard you feel you must meet.
Perfectionism can also show up before you begin a task. You may delay starting a project because you do not yet feel fully prepared or certain you can do it well.
But the context may require beginning before everything is figured out. When the standard becomes “I must know exactly how to do this well before I start,” that standard may exceed your current capacity and the reality of the situation.
The tricky part of this is that a perfectionist usually does not see the standards as unrealistic.
Instead, the standards feel necessary because anything less can feel uncomfortable, risky, or just not good enough.
Where Does Perfectionism Originate For ADHD Adults?
If you are a perfectionist, you may have come to be a perfectionist in part because of your ADHD. One way this may happen is when you’re trying to make up for actual or perceived failures in your past. Now you want to get it just right!
Many adults with ADHD have had experiences where they were criticized for mistakes, missed details, or not following through the way others expected. Over time, these experiences can lead you to believe that the only way to avoid future criticism or disappointment is to perform flawlessly.
While there may be many root causes for your perfectionism, like having ADHD, the reason you continue to be a perfectionist is that you think one of the following is true:
- Others will only value me if I am perfect.
- I only value myself if I am perfect.
Where do you see this thinking in your life?
What Are The Drawbacks of Perfectionism For ADHD Adults?
I’m sure you can name a few drawbacks to being a perfectionist right now.
For one, you may not be able to deliver on time or at all when you are trying to make your work better and better. Of course, this can affect your standing in the eyes of the people whose opinions matter to you, whether that’s your boss, colleagues, partner, friends, community members or others. For some people, this may even jeopardize their job.
You may even be reticent to experiment if it’s outside your comfort zone. And this may prevent you from excelling if you just try to stay in your lane, so to speak, where you are sure you can excel.
In addition, the time spent going down the perfectionist rabbit hole often does not payoff in terms of the value added in the quality of what you eventually deliver. In fact, there might be a point of diminishing returns.
In addition, you may experience a great deal of stress and not be able to relax easily.
Alternatively, you may give up easily because you don’t think you can achieve perfection.
But the biggest drawback of perfectionism for ADHD adults is how you may feel you let yourself down and consequently feel shame because of all these cascading effects of perfectionism.
What Do You Perceive Are The Benefits Of Perfectionism?
At the same time, you may also, whether conscious or not, believe there are benefits to your perfectionist tendencies.
For one, like other ADHD adults, you may think that being a perfectionist provides you with the motivation you need to get started and excel in various domains of your life.
Furthermore, without this tendency, so your thinking goes, you may not do your best work and then maybe even slide into mediocrity or slothness. Because you’re just going to become lazy, right?
And then you’ll lose your job, your relationship or something else. So, again, whether conscious or not, you may think perfectionism is helping you.
How Shame Can Fuel Your Perfectionism With ADHD
While understanding where your perfection originates from can be helpful, knowing what keeps it going can also be useful.
And shame is the one emotion that can fuel perfectionism and keep it firmly entrenched.
When shame is driving your perfectionism, your underlying narrative is that you are inherently flawed because of something you’ve experienced, done or failed to do.
You just don’t feel worthy.
And for some adults with ADHD, like the origin of perfectionism, this feeling of shame may have been in part built over time from messages from other people (parents, teachers, partners and others) that have been internalized, such as:
- You never deliver on time.
- You’re always late
- You make too many mistakes
- You’re too sensitive to feedback
Yes, some of these statements may be true to some degree for you, as they are for everyone else.
And no doubt you might make more mistakes, arrive late more often and deliver later than you want than your neurotypical peers because of your ADHD.
But if you feel shame, you are less likely to try to remedy the situation because you feel it’s just evidence of your character. And, if this were true, which it’s not, you would be less likely to feel motivated to do anything to make the situation better. Because if that is the way you are, you can’t, right?
Shame And Perfectionism Can Become A Reinforcing Spiral
Inevitably, what often happens is that the shame and perfectionism become a reinforcing spiral:
- You feel shame; you are not good enough
- So you engage in perfectionism
- When you engage in more perfectionism, you may fail in some way because of the time needed (not delivering on time, not doing a good job, etc.)
- When you feel you failed, you feel more shame
- And on and on…
You get it.
The key to stopping the spiral is to address both the shame and the perfectionism concurrently.
Before looking at that, you need to get clear on why you may be reticent to let go of your perfectionism.
Why You May Be Resistant To Letting Go Of Being A Perfectionist
To do that, you can look at what you perceive to be the costs and benefits of perfectionism. As well as the consequences of loosening your standards of perfectionism.
So you can then weigh these out and decide whether you want to put effort into decreasing your perfectionist behavior or not.
Using the information I shared above and information from your own life, ask yourself the following questions:
- What are the negative consequences of perfectionism in my life?
- How does perfectionism positively contribute to my experiences?
- If I decide to loosen my standards, how do I expect I might benefit?
- What do I anticipate will be the cost if I loosen my standards?
If you’re ready to let go of your perfectionism, let’s get on with looking at how you can do that.
How ADHD Adults Can Start To Let Go Of Perfectionism With Self-Compassion
But if you can both acknowledge your challenges related to your ADHD and treat yourself with self-compassion rather than doubling down on perfectionism, you are in a better position to make the changes you want to make.
As self-compassion expert, Kristin Neff, notes, when you are self-compassionate, you:
- Are aware/mindful of your mistakes, challenges and “lesser developed strength,” perhaps due to your ADHD. That is, you don’t ignore your challenges, and you also don’t define yourself by them.
- Also, recognize that though yours may be different, everyone struggles. Though it may feel like it sometimes, and other struggles may seem invisible, you are not the only one.
- And through this all, you treat yourself with kindness and not judgment.
If you can start to do this, then you might also be in a better place to keep perfectionism at bay. Because you’ll have less of a need to prove your value to yourself or others, right?
How ADHD Adults Can Be Perfectionists in Some Areas and Not Others
You might think of perfectionism as something you either are or are not. But for many adults with ADHD, perfectionism is often context-specific.
You may notice that you hold unrealistically high standards in certain areas of your life, while in others, you are far more relaxed. For example, you might agonize over every detail of a work project or email, but feel perfectly comfortable experimenting in the kitchen or trying a new hobby without worrying about doing it perfectly.
Recognizing this difference can be helpful. It shows that perfectionism is not a fixed personality trait you are stuck with. Instead, it is a pattern that tends to show up in particular situations, often those where you feel your competence, reputation, or sense of worth is on the line.
Once you begin to notice where perfectionism tends to appear in your life, you are in a better position to decide whether you want to continue holding those standards or experiment with adjusting them.
How ADHD Adults Can Meet Their Goals Without Being A Perfectionist
First, I’m not asking you to give up your standards; I’m just inviting you to temper your tendency to set unrealistically high standards. So you can work on being less of a perfectionist.
As you look at the example below, choose an area where you tend to be a perfectionist and consider how you could change your standard.
Below is an example of how Bob adjusted his standards at work.
1. Choose an Area.
Bob wants to be less of a perfectionist at work.
2. Adjust the Standard.
Currently, Bob expects all of his written communication, mostly emails, to be polished and to demonstrate that he is an expert in his field.
Bob decided a more reasonable standard would be that he would be clear in his communication and share what is needed, given the context.
3. Current Perfectionist Behavior
Currently, Bob spends 20 to 30 minutes crafting each email that he writes. Much of this time is spent agonizing over his word choice. He also tries to anticipate questions and concerns people may have and includes the answers to these in the email. Even if they did not ask them yet, he tries to include whatever comes to mind.
4. Goal to Reduce this Behavior:
To change this, Bob set a timer for 10 minutes for each email. He would check it over to make sure it was clear and that he answered all the questions that were asked. Then he would send it. If they needed more information from him, he would answer and, perhaps, schedule a phone conversation rather than emailing again if the answer seemed complicated.
5. Time Frame:
He decided to try out this new system for a month to see if it worked.
Are you game to try to adjust your standards?
What Is Possible When ADHD Adults Drop Their Perfectionist Masks
When you drop your mask and stop having unrealistically high standards, you might be able to:
- Enjoy an activity, like playing in an adult soccer league. Even if you no longer play as you did in high school.
- Work toward a goal, like creating a 6-figure business in a realistic time frame, given your previous business experience.
- Devote time to your most important professional tasks
- Make mistakes along the way and chalk it up to, “Well, stuff happens…”
- Enjoy activities you might not excel at, such as running a 5k.
- Have more time with family and friends
- Approach something as an experiment without attachment to the outcome.
- Be less stressed!
- And more.
Consider the contexts where you have unrealistically high standards. What would be possible for you if you aligned them with your personal capacity?
