Perfectionism and Triathlon Don’t Play Nice Together-#3

In my second of nine articles exploring obstacles that may hold you back as you pursue your triathlon goals, I introduced you to how overinvestment in our sport can mean a kiss of death for both results and enjoyment in our sport. Perfectionism is another frequent obstacle I see in triathletes. Perfectionism is a triple-edged sword (if there is such a thing). One edge of the sword drives perfectionists to be perfect, so they often reach a high level of success. These triathletes push themselves to be their very best. The second edge of the sword is that striving for perfection is ultimately self-defeating because, as I will soon discuss, it interferes with your pursuing your goals with complete commitment, confidence, and courage. The final edge of the sword is that I have never met a happy perfectionist. They can’t be happy because they will never be perfect.

What is Perfectionism?

Perfectionism involves setting impossibly high standards for yourself and striving for goals that you will never, ever achieve. Yet you believe that anything less than perfection is failure not of the situation, but rather of yourself. When you fail to meet those hopelessly high standards, you berate yourself unmercifully for not being perfect. Perfectionists are never satisfied with their efforts no matter how objectively well they perform, and they punish themselves for not achieving perfection. For example, after I spoke to a group of elite young triathletes recently, a girl from the audience described to me how she had won a national title but was beating herself up for not doing a PR in the run.

At the heart of perfectionism lies a threat: if you aren’t perfect, bad things will happen to you, most commonly, you won’t be worthy of being loved, people will think you are a failure, you will be a failure in everything you do. This threat arises because perfectionistic triathletes connect whether they are perfect with their self-esteem; being perfect dictates whether they see themselves as successful people capable of being loved, valued, and respected. The price these triathletes believe they will pay if they are not perfect is immense and its toll can be truly destructive: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.

By the way, you don’t have to be a perfectionist in every part of your life to be considered perfectionistic. You only have to be a perfectionist in areas that you care about, for example, there are perfectionists in triathlon who don’t care about their work and have messy rooms.

Perfection and Popular Culture

We live in a culture that reveres perfection. Our culture has elevated success to absurd heights where being good is no longer good enough. Triathletes must now aim for being a professional or an Olympian, otherwise their efforts will have been in vain. Additionally, our athletic culture also worships at the altar of physical perfection. Triathletes are bombarded by images of perfect triathletes with perfect bodies and perfect performances who seem to never fail.

Perfectionism and Failure

Though it appears that perfectionistic triathletes are driven to succeed, their singular motivation in life is actually to avoid failure because they connect failure with feelings of worthlessness and loss of love (more on fear of failure in my next article in this series). Perfectionistic triathletes view failure as a voracious beast that stalks them every moment of every day. If these triathletes stop for even a moment’s rest, they believe that they will be devoured by failure and that is simply unimaginable.

Perfectionists suffer in one of two ways. First, perfectionists often do achieve some degree of success because they push themselves to be perfect. But, because they also suffer from a profound fear of failure, they often don’t fully realize their ability and achieve true success because they are unwilling to take the risks that are necessary to be successful. Second, admittedly, some perfectionistic triathletes do attain great success, but the price they pay in unhappiness and overall mental health is often significant.

Perfectionism and Emotions

You might think that perfectionistic triathletes experience excitement and elation when they achieve their high standards, but those emotions are far too normal for them. The strongest emotion most perfectionistic triathletes can regularly muster is relief! Where does the relief come from? They dodged another bullet of not being perfect and can still feel okay about themselves, but not for long because they are sure to be faced with another perfectionist moment in the very near future. Recently, I asked a group of young triathletes how long they thought the relief lasts and a girl threw up her hand and declared, “Till the next race!”

What emotion would perfectionistic triathletes who inevitably fail to meet their impossibly high standards experience? You might think disappointment. But disappointment is a very normal and healthy emotion that all triathletes will feel when they fail, the reaction of which is to increase motivation and effort so they will reduce the chances that they will feel disappointed again. Disappointment is far too healthy and useful an emotion for perfectionists to feel when they fail. Perfectionistic triathletes experience devastation after a perceived failure because they perceive it as a personal attack on who they are—successful triathletes—and their value as people because their athletic identity is such a large part of their self-identity. I say “perceived” failure because, objectively, they may have had a successful performance, for example, making the top ten or landing on the podium. But what most people would perceive as a success is often viewed as a failure for perfectionistic triathletes because their standards of success are so high as to be nearly unattainable.

The experience of devastation for perfectionistic triathletes following a perceived failure comes with a veritable tsunami of negative emotions including hurt, frustration, anger, sadness, humiliation, and shame. Unlike disappointment which motivates typical triathletes, devastation, with its accompanying emotional pain, has the temporary effect of sapping perfectionistic triathletes’ motivation and confidence. But even this energy-sucking effect doesn’t last long because their need to be perfect kicks back in and they are back on the treadmill of striving for goals they will never achieve.

Where Does Perfectionism Come From?

After almost every parent talk I’ve given, someone says to me, “I swear that I was born a perfectionist.” But the reality is that there is no scientific evidence that perfectionism is inborn. The research indicates that children learn their perfectionism from their parents, most often from their same-sex parent. Through their parents’ words, emotions, and actions, children connect being loved and valued with being perfect. This doesn’t mean that there are no inborn influences; some genetic attributes, such as temperament, may make children more susceptible to perfectionism. For example, someone who is born emotionally sensitive may be more vulnerable to the subtle cues of perfectionism that their parents, coaches, peers, and culture may communicate to them.

Parents pass on perfectionism to their children in three ways. Some perfectionistic parents raise their children to be perfectionists by actively praising and rewarding success and punishing failure. These parents offer or withdraw their love based on whether their children meet their own perfectionistic expectations. When children succeed, their parents lavish them with love, attention, and gifts. But when they fail, their parents either withdraw their love and become cold and distant, or express strong anger and resentment toward their children. In both cases, these children get the message that if they want their parents’ love, they must be perfect. Thankfully, in all my years of working with young triathletes, I have only come across a few parents who were this overtly perfectionistic.

Other parents unintentionally role model perfectionism for their children. Examples of how perfectionism is communicated by these parents include having to look “just perfect,” having great career success, their competitiveness in sports and games, and how they respond when things don’t go their way. Children see how their parents treat themselves—not well!—when they’re not perfect, so they feel they must be perfect, so their parents won’t treat them the same way. These parents unwittingly communicate to their children that anything less than perfection won’t be tolerated in the family.

The final type of parents that convey perfectionism to their children are not perfectionists at all; in fact, they are the antithesis of being perfect. But they are going to make darned sure their children are perfect! These parents project their flaws onto their children and try to fix those flaws in their children by giving love when their children are “perfect” and withdrawing love when they are. Unfortunately, instead of creating perfect children and absolving themselves of their own imperfections, they pass them on to their children and stay flawed themselves.

Excellence: The Antidote to Perfection

You should remove the word perfection from your vocabulary. It serves no purpose other than to make you miserable. You should replace perfection with excellence. I define excellence as doing well most of the time. Excellence takes all of the good aspects of perfection such as achievement, high standards, and dislike of failure. Excellence still sets the bar high; it is not average, above average, or even very good, it’s excellent. At the same time, excellence leaves out its unhealthy parts, for example, connecting achievement with self-esteem, absurdly high standards, unrealistic expectations, and risk aversion. And, importantly, it never connects failure with your ability as a triathlete or your value as a person. Excellence actually encourages you to fail—not repeatedly on the same thing due to a lack of effort, of course—because it understands that without some failure, you won’t continue to develop as a triathlete and true success won’t be possible. In embracing the freedom of excellence rather than the heavy burden of perfectionism, you can turn your gaze away from failure and all its associated baggage and toward success and pursue it with unfettered determination and gusto.

Do you want to take the next step in training your mind to perform your best in training and on race day? Here are four options for you: