Is perfectionism poisoning your friendships?

Aug 19

The other day I listened to the Freakonomics Radio Network podcast No Stupid Questions, episode 184, titled “Are you doing too much?” where they dig into the topic of productivity, overwork, and excellence.

As always, my brain processes nearly everything through the lens of friendship (sorry I’m taking so long picking out a donut, I’m busy trying to decide what each of these donuts say about friendship 🍩🧐 )…

Which is to say: the episode got me thinking about perfectionism in friendship and how I’ve observed countless adults (coaching clients, students, workshop attendees, etc) suffering needlessly because they’re rolling their chocolate-covered friendships in spiky perfectionism sprinkles.

In the podcast, hosts Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan reference the book The Perfection Trap: Embracing The Power of Good Enough by Thomas Curran, who is one the world’s foremost experts about perfectionism. Curran’s meta-analysis from 1989 to 2016 found that each of these three forms of perfectionism is on the rise:

Self-focused Perfectionism

This is when you're really harsh on yourself about your flaws. If this is you, you might agree with the statements:

“It makes me uneasy to see an error in my work.”

“I expect myself to do everything perfectly / I must work to my full potential at all times.”

“If I do things with mistakes, I'm really bothered by my mistakes.”

Other-focused Perfectionism

This is when you expect other people to do things at an extremely high level. If this is you, you might agree with the statements:

“I demand nothing but the best from the people around me.”

“I don't keep people in my circle who aren’t excelling.”

“I can’t be bothered with people who won’t strive to better themselves.”

Socially-focused Perfectionism

This is when you assume that other people are judging you harshly and that they expect perfection from you.

If this is you, you might agree with the statements:

“If I do this thing badly, my friends are gonna think less of me.”

“The people around me expect me to succeed at everything I do.”

“My worth to my circle will go down if I don’t do things perfectly.”

~ ~ ~ A couple additional books that might help you tackle perfectionism ~ ~ ~

The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power by Katherine Morgan Schafler

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

How perfectionism shows up in friendship

As with most concepts I learn about and mull over, I’m processing this through the lens of friendship and how some of the friendship suffering that people are going through is tied to:

Self-focused friendship perfectionism: Expecting yourself to be flawless for your friends

“If I don’t show up to every invitation my friend sends me, I’m a horrible friend.”

“If I don’t reply to texts immediately, I’m a bad friend.”

Other-focused perfectionism: Expecting your friends to meet incredibly high standards

“They take so long to reply to my texts, they’re a horrible friend.”

“They canceled plans the last two times we were gonna hang out, so I’m thinking of dumping them.”

Social-focused perfectionism: Fearing that you’ll lose your friends if you’re not perfect

“If I tell my friend I don’t want to go to their kid’s birthday party, they’ll hate me.”

“If I don’t plan all of our outings, my friends will be disappointed and not want me around anymore.”

If you think you’re dealing with friendship perfectionism, pull over and check in with yourself, boo:

Are you carrying some less-than-helpful perfectionistic attitudes into your friendships?
What do you believe you’re owed from your friends?
What do you believe you owe your friends?
What kind of friendships do you want to create, grow, and inhabit?
Are some of your friendship-related frustrations or anxieties not about friendship at all but actually stemming from self-focused or social-focused perfectionism?

If the answer to that last question is yes, I encourage you to notice where you’re getting conditioned to expect perfection from your friendships. For example, if you’re consuming a lot of social media content, the constant barrage of highlight reels might trick your brain into believing that everyone else’s friendships more perfect than they really are, leading you to try to live up to a standard that isn’t even real. As I’ve written about on this blog before, sometimes we think our friendship has problems, but in reality, the problem is something else.

Are you conditioning your brain to expect perfection?

One way that you might inadvertently condition your brain to expect perfection in your friendships is through the examples you observe, surround yourself with, and compare yourself to.

There are all kinds of fancy scientific terms for this, like neural conditioning, predictive coding, and social comparison theory, but suffice it to say that even though you might think your brain is 100% your own domain, your expectations are shaped by what you observe other people doing.

Have you ever paused to think about how the friendship content you see affects your own ideas and expectations about friendship?…For real, stop and think about that, I’ll wait…

What depictions of friendship do you regularly see on social media, in movies/TV shows, and in the books you read? Are these depictions of friendships realistic and maintained by complex, multi-faceted, imperfect people — or is everyone and everything magically perfect in every way?

The irony is that good friendship behavior doesn’t always make for good ratings—though it’s far more Oscar-worthy in real life. Writers and producers could create more narrative-based shows where friends go through the occasional disagreement or rough patch, have a mature conversation to resolve their issues, rebuild trust, and move forward with new commitment — but reality TV is more likely to show people engaging in gossip, self-centered narcissism, stonewalling/silent treatment, and ratings-boosting screaming matches. (It’s no surprise that reality TV shows make up 67% of the top 100 primetime broadcasts for viewers aged 12 to 34.)

Let go of friendship perfectionism

Here are a couple practices you can start this week to help you dial down the perfectionism in your friendships—whether your perfectionism is focused on having impossibly high standards for yourself or others.

Try on more compassionate beliefs/behaviors. Write down the top 2-5 friendship-related scenarios that you have super high standards about, or that might veer into perfectionistic territory. Then write down an alternative behavior or belief that’s compassionate to yourself and compassionate to the other person. Examples:

Instead of thinking: “If I don’t reply to texts immediately, I’m a bad friend”

Try ➜ “If I don’t reply to texts immediately, I’m human. Unless it’s truly urgent, I can reply to my friend when I’m feeling focused and ready. They’ll probably still love me, and I can tell them I still love them even when I’m slow to text back.”

Instead of thinking: “They canceled plans the last two times, so I should probably dump them.”

Try ➜ “They canceled plans the last two times we were gonna hang out, so I’m gonna check in to see if they’d like to choose what our next hangout is, to make sure it’s something that fits for their life. I’ll let them know that I’m totally up for something easy and near-to-home for them.”

Feed your brain better friendship content. For the next month, focus on seeking out depictions of healthy, balanced, realistic friendships in the content you consume. Ask the people around you for suggestions, and ask them what their experience has been like becoming more relaxed and flexible in their friendships.

Some conversation starters you can try this week:

“What books, movies, or shows do you think do a good job of showing what real friendships are like?”
“What’s something that used to bother you in friendships that doesn’t anymore?”
“What’s something that you wish bothered you less in your friendships?”

If you’ve been inflicting your friendships to perfectionistic thinking, take a break and try on the idea that you might feel more at ease in your friendships if you didn’t expect yourself or your friends to be perfect all the time.

Instead of focusing on how to create an “ideal” friendship, write your own definition of what a healthy and durable friendship would look like. What would a long-lasting friendship that provides true happiness look like — and how would it cope and heal from moments of imperfection?

XO,
Kat Vellos
Author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships