If you measure progress on your issues in a perfectionistic manner, you are setting yourself up for failure. This article will discuss the perfectionistic way and the better ways to measure your progress.
When I work with clients as a Calgary psychologist and a Cochrane psychologist, it is important that we measure progress in addressing their issues whether their goals are to overcome depression, manage anxiety or anger, improve a relationship or reduce unhealthy behaviours such as substance use, binging and purging, or affairs. Unfortunately, many times people tend to measure their progress according to perfectionistic standards which are very difficult to attain. Doing so is ultimately detrimental to sustaining the motivation to address issues in a consistent manner. In the following section, I will give some examples of measuring progress in perfectionistic ways and the negative consequences of doing so.
Disadvantages of the perfectionistic approach
The perfectionistic or ‘all-or-nothing’ approach to progress usually rears its ugly head when the individual has already made some progress on their issues. At this point, many people begin to celebrate how long it has been since they last experienced their problem. Some people take things further and become focused on the goal of never having the problem arise again.
Although it is understandable that a person would want to put their issues completely behind them, in most cases it is unrealistic and counterproductive to measure progress in terms of never having the problem occur again. It is unrealistic because ‘life happens’ to everyone in handing us bad days and situations we encounter for which we’re not prepared. As such, even if you are diligent in using skills and techniques you’ve acquired to stay on track with your issues, factors beyond your control may lead you at times to ‘slip up’ and experience the problem again.
If at these times of ‘slip-ups’ you’re measuring progress in an all-or-nothing manner, you are likely to get down on yourself despite having done a great job of addressing your issues most of the time. You are also likely to experience frustration going forward because, despite your best efforts, factors beyond your control may occur and lead you to ‘slip up’ again.
Therefore, measuring progress in terms of never again experiencing your issues will feel like an exercise in futility. This can leave you lacking in motivation to the point that you get away from using the skills and techniques which have been working for you most of the time. This, in turn, really will send you ‘back to square one’ in trying to address your issues. Those are the results of using a perfectionistic, all-or-nothing approach to measuring progress on your issues. In the next section, I will provide some non-perfectionistic approaches to measuring progress which will provide you with significantly better results and motivation to work on your issues.
Better (non-perfectionistic) ways to measure your progress
There are two non-perfectionistic ways of measuring progress on issues which I encourage my clients to use. One is to measure progress by the frequency with which you are doing well in addressing your issues now compared with previously. This allows for you to have ‘slip-ups’ or bad days but still make significant progress.
For example, if in the last week your mood was positive for much of the week but you had one bad day during which you felt depressed at times, this would represent progress in addressing your depression compared with an earlier period in which you felt depressed through much of the week. Were you to measure progress in perfectionistic terms, your overall excellent week of progress would have been overshadowed by the one bad day.
A second non-perfectionistic way of measuring progress is to focus on how well you are doing in terms of processes rather than outcomes. Processes are the skills, techniques and actions you perform which help you to make progress. The good thing about measuring progress with processes is that, unlike outcomes or results, processes are within your control to perform. As such, focusing on how consistently you are performing these processes allows you to have a much better chance of seeing regular progress.
For example, you could measure your progress on the issue of managing anger by tracking how consistently you are using processes such as time-outs, taking deep breaths to calm your body, using constructive thinking and self-talk, mentally rehearsing challenging situations, and choosing the right time to have contentious discussions with people. Measuring your progress by how often you engage in these anger management processes is much less stressful than focusing on the perfectionistic goal of trying to avoid ever ‘losing it’ again.
You can enjoy similarly good results and increased motivation by focusing on the processes which lead to progress for any issue—not just anger management. Doing so will help you counteract the perfectionistic approach to measuring progress which, as I’ve discussed, yields results which are from perfect.
May you enjoy the benefits of measuring your progress in non-perfectionistic ways,
-Dr. Pat
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