The Messy Perfectionist
I heard a story on NPR recently about the different types of perfectionists - it was super interesting and helpful! I have always been told I’m a perfectionist. I have sort of accepted it as truth but when I look around at the dust collecting in the corners of my bedroom, and when I feel genuinely surprised - again and again - at 4pm that I haven’t planned for dinner that night, I start to wonder, “What standard of perfection is this?!” A very low one, in my opinion. Perhaps that’s the perfectionist in me??
Enter Katherine Morgan Schafler, a therapist and writer, who recently wrote a book called The Perfectionists Guide to Losing Control about the five types of perfectionists and their gifts and challenges. She even has a quiz you can take! It turns out I am mostly a Parisian Perfectionist (ooo la la!! I like that one!) and a Messy Perfectionist. The Parisian perfectionist tends to focus her perfectionism on connecting with others and can engage in toxic people pleasing. The Messy Perfectionist is an enthusiastic initiator of projects and ideas, but loses steam when the projects hit that boring grind mid-task. Basically, for the Messy Perfectionist, the imperfect reality of working on a task after the novelty wears off leads to disengagement and boredom.
Even though I scored slightly higher on the quiz for the Parisian Perfectionist, I really feel “seen” by the Messy Perfectionist description. I have left my last two jobs after about 5 years. Both jobs I adored initially. I had amazing bosses I couldn’t wait to impress. But slowly, as the shiny newness wore off, it all started to feel like, well, work. And I didn’t want to do it anymore. Luckily, I have a career that is pretty forgiving for this kind of messy perfectionism, but I have puzzled over my pattern and worried what it means about my work ethic or even my choice of careers. Schafler’s explanation is helpful for framing it as something I can work with, and even part of personality feature that has gifts, as well as challenges. Now I just need to read the book to figure out how to manage the beast of messy perfectionism. I will let you know what I think after I’ve read it!
