Thinking Shifts to Overcome Unhelpful Types of Perfectionism 转变思想,克服无用的完美主义
第六章
Anxiety-related thinking patterns can contribute to problems like prioritizing the wrong types of tasks, feeling burned out, and getting intensely frustrated when results aren‘t coming as quickly or consistently as you‘d like. I‘ll explain how below.
与焦虑相关的思考模式可能会导致一些问题,比如给错误的任务更高优先级,感觉精疲力尽,以及当结果没有如你期望的快速到来或与你想要的不一致时,你会变得沮丧。下面我会解释下。
Catch Either/Or Thinking 抓住“非此即彼”想法
Anxious perfectionists will typically think “I need to perform flawlessly at all times,” with their underlying assumption being “or else it will result in disaster.” This is a common type of thinking trap termed either/or thinking. In this case, the either/or is this: Either there is flawless performance or complete and utter failure, and nothing in between.
焦虑的完美主义者典型地会这么想:“我需要任何时候都要表现得完美”。他们的隐含假设是“否则结果是一场灾难”。这是一个典型的思维陷阱,叫做"非此即彼"。这个案例里,这个“非此即彼”是:要么表现完美无瑕,要么彻底失败,没有其他中间选项。
Not only can this style of thinking make you feel crushed when you don‘t meet your own ideal standards, but it also often leads to perfectionism paralysis. Take, for example, an artist who sees his future career prospects as becoming either the next Picasso or a penniless flop; this person doesn‘t see other possible outcomes in between. You can see how this would give the artist a creative block.
这种想法不仅在你没有达到自己理想标准时让你感到挫折,还经常导致完美主义瘫痪。举个例子来说,一个艺术家预期他未来的职业前景要么成为下一个毕加索,要么是一个一文不名的失败者。这个人没有看到其他的可能的中间结果。你可以看出这是如何阻碍了艺术家的创新的。
For other folks, their hidden assumption may be slightly different: “Either I need to perform flawlessly at all times, or other people will reject me.” When I look back at my clinical psychology training, I realize I had this belief at that time. At a semiconscious level, I thought that the only way to prevent getting booted out of the program was to score at the top of the class for every test or assignment.
对于其他人来说,他们的潜在的假设可能有点不一样:“我任何时刻必须表现完美无暇,否则其他人会拒绝我”。当我往回看我的临床心理学训练时,我意识到我当时也曾有这样的信念。半有意识地,我认为防止从程序中被踢出来的唯一方法就是在班级中的每次测试或作业里都要名列前茅。
Ultra-high standards often arise because a person is trying to hide imagined catastrophic flaws. In this scenario, people often think that if their flaws get revealed they‘ll be shunned, and so the only way to conceal their defects is by always excelling. When people who have this belief do excel, their brain jumps to the conclusion that excelling was the only reason they managed to avoid catastrophe. This then perpetuates their belief that excelling is necessary for preventing future disasters.
超高标准经常出现的原因是这个人尝试避免想象的灾难性的缺陷。这个场景里,人们常常认为如果他们的缺陷被人发现他们就会被别人冷落,因此唯一的方法是通过一直做得完美来隐藏他们的缺陷。持有这种信念的人要做得完美时,他们的大脑跳到一个结论是做得完美是他们尝试避免灾难的唯一理由。这种做的完美是避免将来灾难的必要条件的想法就一直出现在他们的信念里。
Researchers have used the term clinical perfectionism to describe the most problematic kind of perfectionism. When clinical perfectionists manage to meet their ultra-high standards, they often conclude that those standards must not have been high enough and revise them upward, meaning they can never feel any sense of peace.
研究者使用了术语“临床型完美主义”来形容那种最有问题类型的完美主义。当临床型的完美主义者尝试符合他们超高标准时,他们经常得出结论这些标准之前一定不够高,然后把它们改得更高,意味着他们没有任何时刻的安宁。
All this being said, I‘m not suggesting you shoot for “acceptable” performance standards if you‘re capable of excellence. Most of the anxious perfectionists I‘ve worked with would hate that. It‘s not in their nature to feel comfortable with mediocre performance. What I‘m going to recommend in this chapter are some subtle tweaks to the types of standards you set for yourself. These tweaks will help you set standards that are equally ambitious (if not more so), but will prevent some of the problems caused by perfectionism.
尽管说了这些,如果你已经能够做到精通了,我不建议你争取实现”可接受的“表现标准。大多我合作过的焦虑的完美主义者会讨厌那样的。他们本能不习惯于中流表现。我在本章建议的是对你为自己的标准的一些微调。这些微调将帮助你设定一些足够野心勃勃的标准,但是会避免一些由完美主义带来的问题。
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Switch from a Performance Focus to a Mastery Focus 从聚焦表现切换到聚焦掌握
There’s a way to keep your standards high but avoid the problems that come from perfectionism. If you can shift your thinking from a performance focus to a mastery focus, you’ll become less fearful, more resilient, and more open to good, new ideas. Performance focus is when your highest priority is to show you can do something well now. Mastery focus is when you’re mostly concerned with advancing your skills. Someone with a mastery focus will think, “My goal is to master this skill set” rather than “I need to perform well to prove myself.”
有一个保持你的高标准但是避免完美主义带来的问题方法。如果你可以将你的想法从聚焦表现切换到聚焦掌握,你将变得更无所畏惧,更强韧,以及对优秀和好的主意更开放。聚焦表现是指你的最高优先级的事项展现你可以做好某些事。聚焦掌握是指你最关心的是精进你的技能。有着聚焦掌握的想法的人会这么想:“我的目标是掌握这个技能点”,而不是“我需要表现得好来证明我自己”。
A mastery focus can help you persist after setbacks. To illustrate this, imagine the following scenario: Adam is trying to master the art of public speaking. Due to his mastery goal, he’s likely to take as many opportunities as he can to practice giving speeches. When he has setbacks, he’ll be motivated to try to understand these and get back on track. His mastery focus will make him more likely to work steadily toward his goal. Compare this with performance-focused Rob, who is concerned just with proving his competence each time he gives a talk. Rob will probably take fewer risks in his style of presentation and be less willing to step outside his comfort zone. If he has an incident in which a talk doesn’t go as well as he’d hoped, he’s likely to start avoiding public speaking opportunities.
聚焦精通可以帮助你在挫折后继续坚持。如何解释呢?想象下面的场景:亚当正在尝试掌握公共演讲的技能。由于他的掌握技能目标,他可能要抓住很多机会,这样他可以练习演讲。当他遇到挫折时,他将受到激励并尝试理解这些,然后回到正轨。他的聚焦掌握技能会让他更稳健地朝向目标前进。拿这个和聚焦表现的罗伯进行比较。罗伯可能在他的演讲中冒更少的风险,也更不愿意踏出他的舒适区。如果一个演讲没有按照他的预期发生,他可能会开始避免公共演讲的机会。
Mastery goals will help you become less upset about individual instances of failure. They’ll increase your willingness to identify where you’ve made errors, and they’ll help you avoid becoming so excessively critical of yourself that you lose confidence in your ability to rectify your mistakes.
以掌握为目标将会帮助你在个别失败的情况下不太失落。这些失败会增加你识别你犯错的地方的意愿,并帮助你避免对自己过于严苛以至于失去对矫正错误的能力的信心。
A mastery focus can also help you prioritize—you can say yes to things that move you toward your mastery goal and no to things that don’t. This is great if you’re intolerant of uncertainty, because it gives you a clear direction and rule of thumb for making decisions about which opportunities to pursue.
聚焦于掌握技能可以帮助你排优先顺序——你可以对帮你向精通目标的方向的事物说好,对无助于前行的事物说不。如果你对与不确定性无法容忍的话,这样做是非常好的。因为它给你一个清晰的方向,以及对追求哪些机会作决策的经验法则。
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