Breaking old patterns

A self-employed artist asked me to help her sell more work. The problem was that she was a perfectionist. She was sweating every detail to the point that it was either taking two or three times as long as it should, or work wasn’t getting done at all.

She explained that her perfectionism held her back in other places, too, such as spending too much time preparing for houseguests (cleaning under the rugs), and triple-checking her grammar on routine e-mails. It made her feel frustrated; she wanted to be less uptight and looser with her approach to things.

I explained to her that her brain was “hardwired†in a way that made her think things needed to be “perfect.†She did not have control over her perfectionist tendencies; rather, it seemed that they had control over her. If she was going to change this pattern, she would have to rewire her brain.

The four-step process I took her through went like this. First, she created a vision of how she wanted things to be; to do this, she closed her eyes and created a picture. She would spend about 30 percent less time completing work. She would spend half the time on cover letters and proposals and she envisioned more companies getting to see her work, and she saw more money coming in.

For fun, she pictured herself not getting on her hands and knees to clean for houseguests, and firing out some grammatically “challenged†e-mails, “like my friends do all the time.â€

Just imagining how things would go made her feel that a change was possible; it gave her something real to aim for.

The next step was to talk about and write down any limiting beliefs that were driving her perfectionism. By doing this, these beliefs would not have a hold on her any more.

She identified her need for approval from other people as being the most powerful limiting belief she held. “If it’s not perfect, people will disapprove of me.†We agreed that the truth was that people would still like her just as much if she weren’t such a perfectionist — and maybe more.

The third step was to practice doing things in a different way, one more in line with her vision. I asked her to pick a specific situation that week. She agreed to spend only two hours getting a project ready for a client, which would normally take her five hours. She committed to using a timer so there would be no cheating.

I explained to her that the first time out, doing something different like this might feel uncomfortable, but that the next time would be a little easier. The brain resists any rewiring. She would just have to trust that feeling discomfort was a healthy thing in this case.

She used an affirmation to help her with this. “I spend less time preparing art to go, and more people get to enjoy it.â€

The next week, she reported back that it felt quite difficult, but she was glad she did it and, “from my client’s point of view, they probably could not even see the difference.â€

The final step was to practice doing things with that “freer†approach until it eventually felt comfortable to her. I explained to her that at some point her brain would be fully rewired. Then she would be able to choose when and how much perfectionism she wanted to use for each situation. She would be in charge of her perfectionism instead of her perfectionism being in charge of her.

It took about six months of using her affirmation and practicing, but she did ultimately drop the affirmation because she had finally arrived. “I just don’t need it any more.â€

Brooke Loening is a life coach in Sharon who works with individuals, and runs weekly coaching groups on growth in career, health and relationships. To make column suggestions, e-mail bloening@snet.net.

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