Unraveling the Internal Discord of Perfectionism and People-Pleasing

College and high school were just the right environments for perfectionism to flourish in me. The strict routine, the short deadlines and multiple projects, and the need for organization to keep it all straight was exactly the outlet my perfectionism needed, for good or for ill. As a result, I made excellent grades. I was a great student, graduating college Summa Cum Laude—meaning with highest honors in Latin.

But I was also desperate for the people around me to like and approve of me, to accept me as one of their own. The short story is I was a grade-A people-pleaser, who also struggled with perfectionism. Those two character traits aren’t the best combination when you’re constantly dealing with rejection and failure, which felt like daily occurrences to me.

A Struggle of the Mind

Perfectionists and People-Pleasers are naturally at odds within themselves. They experience something called cognitive dissonance, which is the phenomenon where a person holds two conflicting beliefs or ideas and feel an internal discord.

For the perfectionist people-pleaser, the conflict lies within this trifold inner tension:

First, I must be and do things a specific way for them to be right.
Second, I must also please the people around me.
Third, I know that I am loved unconditionally by my friend, Jesus.

You may ask, where is the dissonance? The result of upholding one and two is earning the love and acceptance I seek, or vice versa if they are not upheld, i.e. if I am not perfect and I do not keep the people around me happy, I do not earn love.

The dissonance is between the first two and number three. If you are a follower of Christ, hearing that you are deeply loved and valued by Him is probably a familiar sentiment. We’re told our whole lives that we are loved by Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit. Intellectually, you know God loves you, but sometimes simply knowing something in our head doesn’t mean we know it in or connect it to our hearts.

The cognitive dissonance in this situation comes from having this head knowledge of God’s love for us, yet still believing we need to earn our love by being the best at everything and making everyone around us happy. I hope you can already see how problematic this logic is, but I’ll go ahead and point out a few reasons why.

Knowing and Believing are Two Different Things

First, we can’t be the best at everything. We just can’t. There. I said it. If perfection in all things is your goal, you are probably either going to experience a ton of disappointment throughout your life, or you’re going to run so hard and so fast into burnout you won’t know what hit you until the smoke clears. The good news is it’s okay to be simply average at some activities. We each have our zone of genius which is unique to us. I love to write, to read, to bake, and to knit and crochet. My husband loves math, engineering, playing computer games, and a good ghost story.

God made us all different for a reason. For some of you, this news is hard to accept in the face of the harsh criticism you speak over yourself, but find rest in knowing you are loved as your true self for the things at which you excel and the things where you’re just average. Keep learning new things, even if you aren’t the best at them. We only grow when we are stretched a little, and that rarely occurs tasting a little bit of failure.

Second, we also cannot make everyone around us happy. The longer you live, the longer your list of disappointed people becomes. I hate disappointing people or letting them down or confronting them about mostly anything, but the hard truth is it’s unavoidable. Trust me, for this Enneagram 9 that is hard pill to swallow, and you’re talking to a girl who didn’t learn to take pills until she was almost ten years old.

Does this mean I throw in the towel altogether and make it my life mission to anger or disappoint as many people as possible out of spite? No. Does this mean I go too far in the opposite direction and strive to only make others happy at any and all cost? Also, no. I have to strike a balance between the two poles, weighing my convictions against the possibility of disappointment. I still don’t like disappointing anyone. I still feel a heavy stone drop in my gut when, occasionally, it happens. But I do not let my fear of disappointing others push me prioritize the needs of others in lieu of my own without a darn good reason.

Third, both perfectionist and people-pleasing mindsets place an enormous amount of pressure on us to measure up to unrealistic standards we would never hold anyone else against. The truth is I am my harshest critic and my cruelest punisher, replaying my mistakes over and over in my mind. You probably already know this, but I’ll say it anyway. You are the only person dwelling on your mistakes.

This is another area where we have the head knowledge about something, but we can’t connect that knowledge to our heart. I struggle to know and fully understand that dwelling on the past keeps me stuck in the moment of those mistakes. It’s not healthy to stay stuck in a place where we can’t learn, grow, and change. Reflecting on mistakes from our past with the intention of learning and growing from them is different than being stuck so deep in the mud of the past that you can’t let go of or move past the choice you made or what happened to you.

Settling the discord in my mind and soul is hard work that I am still in the process of unraveling. These patterns of thought take root fast and early on in life. We use them over and over until they become like the matted carpet in the living room, worn down with use. I don’t have all the answers for how to unlearn the worn-out carpet thoughts in my mind, but I know the first step is toward my friend Jesus.

It’s a humbling process this unlearning, but it’s one Jesus is ready to walk through with us. If I can lift my eyes away from where I’m stuck, I’ll see a steady hand outstretched before me, ready to pull me free.

The last thing Jesus wants is for me to stay stuck in this cycle of perfectionism and people-pleasing, never realizing how much more I am worth in His eyes. I hope you will recognize your worth too.