We’re not in the market of making sweeping generalisations about people on the basis of their reproductive organs they happen to have but, let’s face it, when it comes to perfectionism us girls have a few issues. Whereas men seem to be able to merrily bumble along without letting their small mistakes rule their lives, we tend to completely (and needlessly) beat ourselves up over achieving anything less than 100%. Whether it’s our love lives, or work or our friendships, for a lot of us when we fuck up even the slightest it can feel like 9/10 actually equals zero.
It’s something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by top girls’ school Oxford High School, who are on a quest to stop female pupils from becoming obsessed with being perfect. In an initiative they’ve (somewhat gruesomely) called ‘The Death of Little Miss Perfect’ includes tests which get progressively harder within a time limit so pupils are unable to answer them in an attempt to show girls that ‘it’s fine not to get everything right’. Headmistress Judith Carlisle said, ‘Real life is not about perfection. Even the most successful of lives has its share of setbacks, disappointments and failures.’ She also added that, unlike boys, girls are too keen to fulfil other people’s expectations for their lives over and above their own, adding, ‘I’ve had parents in my study who’ve said “I want my daughter to go to Cambridge to study architecture” and I’ve turned to them and said “lovely, but what does your daughter want?” It looks like girls are so keen to not let people down, we can let one mistake define us.
I’m certainly guilty of letting one mistake ruin a shit-tonnes of good work and it started when I was a teenager. I got (humble brag alert!) all As and A* for GSCE, for example, bar a C in physics. No big deal, right? So why is it that I always lead with that bad mark when I tell people about my school-life? Because that imperfection is a yucky black-mark ruining my otherwise shiny white record and, as a result, it (in my head at least) defines my whole secondary school career. It applies to my adult life as well. When I look back at my career it’s always those interviews that I fluffed and those deadlines I missed that stick out in my head. Who cares about that time I lead a press conference in front of a huge crowd of industry professionals? Remember that time you dropped that folder in an interview, you idiot? And don’t even get me started with my imperfection with my romantic relationships – mainly because, if you do, it’ll keep me up all night worrying…
I’m not just an anxiety riddled worry wart – the vast majority of the office feels the same way, too. One of us became so obsessed with the fact that she couldn’t get the exactly correct colour red for the cover of her dissertation right completely overshadow all the pride she’d taken in the three-years of insanely hard work. And another, just today, described the crippling shame she felt when she noticed a spelling mistake in an (otherwise perfect) email she sent – why is it we put so much pressure on ourselves?
‘From my coaching and counselling experience women have tended to be more harsh on themselves,’ Prof Stephen Palmer of City University London, author of Beat Low Self Esteem with CBT to The Debrief. ‘Especially in areas they consider to be really important. For example, in the workplace some may attempt to avoid failing by not putting themselves forward for promotion or take up other opportunities, which can be career limiting.’
So there is obviously a problem, but Prof Stephen Palmer doesn’t believe it’s something we’re born with – the behavior is learnt. ‘As children many of us learn from our parents or other significant others, to rate ourselves based on our traits or what we do behaviourally. With critical parents, teachers or siblings we may learn that whatever we do is not good enough and we may develop a core belief, which we walk around with as adults. We get ourselves into the self-esteem trap because if you say you are OK because of anything, then one day you may fail or lose it (eg your looks, your partner, owning property, fail a professional qualification and so on).’ There seems to be a disproportionate amount of concerns like this for women, so no wonder we are so hard on ourselves.
Prof Stephen Palmer is, however, keen to point out that some women can avoid this – and so can all of us. ‘You can break the cycle. To avoid the self-esteem trap it, focus on rating your behaviour but never on rating yourself as a person. Learn to accept yourself, warts and all with a strong preference for improvement but realistically you don’t have to. For example, say to yourself, “I have failed my exam, but it does not mean I’m a failure. I can still accept myself.” Interestingly this may reduce anxiety and enhance performance. You need to focus on enhancing self-acceptance and ditching the whole self-esteem concept.’
So the ticket seems to be to rate our successes and failures but to never let them define you as a person – that way failures would feel like just one of those things that happen rather than a total assassination of our character. Probably time I got over that whole Physics GCSE thing then, isn’t it?
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophiecullinane
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.