In our newly released book, Anxiety... and how to conquer it, we briefly explore six personality types that are prone to anxiety.
In this brief series, I have chosen three of those types to explore.
We start with the perfectionist.
As I have often said to clients, I have never met a happy perfectionist.
I have met successful perfectionists, people who have risen to great heights in their chosen profession. They are the set it and forget it type of people. They can always be depended on to do a good job; their internal standards demand it. Such people are a boon to any company or business.
I have met skillful perfectionists. In the arts they turn out beautiful work because they are relentless until they get it “just right.” In music, Steely Dan comes to mind.
One famous example is the recording of the guitar solo on “Peg” from their brilliant album Aja. Fagen and Becker (the core of Steely Dan) auditioned seven different premier session guitarists – the best of the best – for the 30-second guitar solo. They generated dozens of hours of tape in the process. Guitarist Jay Graydon nailed it… after working on the short solo for about six hours.
But it is widely held that the drivenness and relentless obsessive perfectionism of Fagen and Becker is largely the cause of the demise of Steely Dan as well as the burnout and personality problems of nearly everyone who worked on that album. Especially the two principal members.
So as I say, I have met successful perfectionists and I have met skillful perfectionists.
But I have never met a happy perfectionist.
The very qualities that make a perfectionist reliable and excellent in their performance are also the characteristics that make them prone to anxiety.
For the perfectionist you see, the stakes are always high. Very high.
I want to give you an idea of what I am talking about by way of illustration. In the Smoky Mountains it is not uncommon while hiking a trail to come upon a ditch with a bridge fashioned from a felled tree. The ditches are typically dry and it is just a few feet to the grassy ground below. Walking the bridge is no problem, and even if you do fall off it is no big deal. You get up, dust yourself off, and get going again.
This equates to what performance is like for most people.
Not so, the perfectionist.
For the perfectionist, performance is less a ditch and more like the Grand Canyon.
Imagine stepping onto an incredibly long, narrow tree bridge on one side of the canyon and having to walk it to the other side.
Consider some of the points that would be in play:
• you would dread the trip
• you would hate the journey
• you would miss the experience
• you would feel nothing but relief IF you made it, because
• you would realize all that awaits you is another crossing (performance)
That is life for the perfectionist. Put succinctly, the stakes are just too high! And it is an ongoing experience, day after day.
In light of the above, I trust you need no help from me to see why the life of a perfectionist is chock-full of the opportunity for anxiety.
If you are someone who struggles with, and suffers from, the need for perfection, I encourage you to anchor what I am about to say into your heart and mind... and live with it until the truth of it sets you free.
Someone has already been perfect on your behalf.
Through the salvific work of Christ, we have been set free from that awful burden we call perfection. A burden, I might add, that is utterly impossible for us to attain. Don’t try to carry that burden. You are doomed to buckle under its load.
Theologically we champion the vicarious atonement of Christ. An interesting word, that. It comes from a Latin word meaning “substitute.” Vicarious refers to a deed or action done for another.
The Master accomplished on the cross what we could never accomplish for ourselves – our salvation.
But there is another way we can look at this truth, a way which sheds light on the subject of this article.
He was also vicariously perfect for us. There were no sins, no shortcomings, no imperfections in Him.
If you want liberation from the drivenness of perfectionism... and the anxiety it carries with it... rest and trust in the one who has already been perfect on your behalf.
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This is a great article. I have suffered from perfectionism most of my life. I have been able to manage it so much more as I get older because I am quicker to release it to the Lord. The pressure and stress of trying to get everything right is overwhelming. It is sad to watch my son deal with the same thing. He suffers from depression more than anxiety and it centers around being perfect for God. He is growing though, which is really amazing! Thank you for sharing this message! It is so helpful.
Dr. Mike and Susan, this was such a freeing message. The image of a perfectionist approaching every task as though they were crossing the Grand Canyon helped me understand why perfectionism creates so much anxiety and steals the joy from our accomplishments. Your reminder that “someone has already been perfect on your behalf” is so powerful. We do not have to carry the impossible burden of proving ourselves because Christ has already done for us what we could never do for ourselves. Thank you for pointing us away from anxious striving and toward resting in Him.