Vim & Vigor - Spring 2018 - University of Virginia - 31

PERFECT TRAP:

Parenting

Perfectionism is a problem most new moms know all too
well. You want to be the perfect mom, do it all without
any help-and maybe even capture the perfection in your
social media posts. Biali Haas recommends trying to reduce
your exposure to the latter. "Social media is such a source
of pressure. Even if you logically know that everyone on
Facebook is curating their lives and you're not seeing their
messy reality, just scrolling through it can still have negative effects," she says.
So, why are moms so prone to perfectionism in the
first place?
"Because perfectionism is based
on the notion of your self-worth,
and that's also why it's so hard
to shake," Lombardo says. It
takes making a conscious shift
toward unconditional acceptance, where you believe in
yourself not because your
child behaved perfectly
or got into an elite university, but because
of your own values
and strengths.
"When you start
doing that and
changing how you
perceive yourself,"
Lombardo says,
"then everything shifts." ■

7 SIGNS YOUR
PERFECTION IS IN
OVERDRIVE
Are your high standards harming your health? Here
are a few red flags to watch for:
1. You're always stressed out. Elevated stress
can adversely affect your health on multiple levels,
from gaining weight to losing your hair to gastrointestinal issues, so it's critical to address it, says
Elizabeth Lombardo, PhD, author of Better Than
Perfect: 7 Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and
Create a Life You Love.
2. You have trouble sleeping. "Sometimes
you're simply not able to turn your mind off, or
perhaps you're trying so hard to do everything
perfectly that you're not making time for sleep,"
says Susan Biali Haas, MD, author of Live a Life
You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More
Passionate You.
3. You frequently get sick. "This is often a sign
that you're overdoing things and that your immune
system is faltering," Biali Haas says.
4. You tend to quit when you fail. "I tell my
clients: It's not failure, it's data," Lombardo says.
"When you get an outcome you don't want, ask
yourself why so that you can improve for next time
to achieve the outcome, not to beat yourself up."
5. You're exhausted. Feeling tired, irritable and
emotionally distant from your loved ones can be a
sign you're setting unattainable standards for yourself-and likely headed for burnout, Biali Haas says.
6. You force yourself to relive negative
events or actions. "It's like pressing on a bruise
and the outcome is the same: It just makes it
worse," Lombardo says.
7. You're constantly "shoulding" yourself or
others. "I often encourage clients to remove the
word 'should' from their vocabulary and replace it
with 'I want to' instead. It can be very powerful,"
Lombardo says.

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