A valuable, much-needed perspective that gives you permission to be more in a world that’s telling you to be less.” as a parisian messy/procrastinator perfectionist, this book was extremely helpful to me. i have often thought myself a "perfectionist" in some parts of my life, but not always in the classic sense. (i believe i'm a procrastinator toward jobs in general, messy in most other things, and parisian when it comes to the most important things) You don’t heal yourself by hurting yourself. To sustain any kind of personal growth, you need to uncover the lessons of your past mistakes. Understand what the healthier alternatives are, and believe that you’re capable of change in the first place. Punishment doesn’t seek to do any of that. Punishment is lazy; it just lays pain on top of whatever’s there.

There may be days when self-compassion isn’t happening. You just can’t do it. That’s okay. When those days arrive, you can connect with other people as a substitute. Are you - gasp - an ambitious perfectionist? Have you tried and failed to find that elusive sense of "balance" we're all meant to seek? If you answered yes to these questions, this is the book you must read. Morgan Schafler has written the definitive guide for anyone who's ready to walk a crucial pathway: from the appearance of control, to the possession of a quiet power." I was the oldest child and loved to force my younger brothers into driveway summer school sessions, complete with my lessons and requiring them to finish whatever homework I gave them. As you can imagine, they “adored” these opportunities (insert their collective eye rolls here), and it was some of the first of many times I was called bossy. That phenomenon has continued throughout my career, social service, and relationships. The reason we don’t recognize the dysfunctional nature of punishment is because we live in a culture that broadcasts and actively promotes punishment as the go-to response for unwanted behavior. In this retributive rather than restorative culture, it makes sense that you’ve internalized punishment as your first line of defense against the qualities you don’t like seeing in yourself. What doesn’t make sense is for you to continue using punishment as an agent for positive change.

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I would offer a way to reframe this as well: Yes, this is a chaotic moment in history—but chaos isn’t the same as dysfunction. We’re also in an exciting time, where we can decide how to take this moment and turn it into a self-defined life where we mark the metrics of our success, and live life according to those needs rather than some external descriptor of what we’re supposed to need. Some books will advise you to murder your perfectionism. You will be told it’s an illness that needs to be cured. You will be advised to purposely miss deadlines, run late, and color outside the lines.

I'm in a different mental space now than I was when I read this the first time, but my overall rating remains the same. I also realized that if I could be a perfectionist, me, the woman who could never find her phone and who extolled the work of social scientist extraordinaire Dr. Brené Brown to people behind her in line at the grocery store, then anybody could be a perfectionist and not even know it. What exactly was happening here? When you live in a whole way, you listen to your internal compass. You ask, “where do I want to be?” not “What will fit my brokenness?” You get to lead a self-defined life, rather than figuring out where your jagged little piece of shard will fit without hurting anyone else. Morgan Schafler's book identifies five distinct types of perfectionist - Classic, Parisian, Messy, Intense, and Procrastinating. As you identify your unique perfectionist profile, you'll learn how to manage each form of perfectionism to work for you, not against you. Beyond managing it, you'll learn how to embrace and even enjoy your perfectionism. Yes, enjoy!From an emerging thought leader, an irresistible invitation to reclaim your natural state of wholeness, your joy and your life.” Instead, you will be told perfectionism is power. You will learn about the different shapes that power takes, and how to harness it. You will be advised to adapt to your perfectionism so it doesn’t mutate into a monster. You will exchange seeking the superficial control that comes with misunderstood and mistreated perfectionism for the life-changing force that is adaptive perfectionism. We do this in our careers, too: As long as you don’t feel whole or like you’re enough, you’re always going to make an unconscious trade. You won’t feel like you can ask for the whole shebang—the job, the relationship, the kind of day-to-day joy you really desire—because you’re damaged in some way.

The obvious question is, how do you adapt to perfectionism? We’ll get to that answer– but first, let’s meet the 5 Types of Perfectionists – classic, Parisian, procrastinator, messy, and intense. The Five Types One moment I was riding the rapids, then the next it was as if something yanked me by the stomach into the still, quiet, and unseen place behind the waterfall. I was looking at what I'd always been looking at (perfectionism) but from a different vantage point. Why was I in a different position? Because in a misguided effort to be more balanced and healthy, I was resisting my own perfectionism. Only because Claire chose to let me in did I have any inkling that there was turmoil under the surface. Highly self-disciplined, classic perfectionists are adept at presenting in a uniform way, making it difficult to take their emotional temperature. Are they thrilled? Enraged? Having the best orgasm of their life? Who knows. They're either stoic or smiling as if they're about to have their picture taken. While it's easy to interpret this engagement style as inauthentic or closed off, it's anything but.Claire repeated the water-bead sweep with the cup she had brought me before setting it down on my desk and saying, "I know we talked about it." Switching her tone to a perky whisper and with a half wink, she added, "But I also know you'll drink it after I leave." Then she sat in the exact same place on the couch that she sat in every week, but that's not a classic perfectionist thing; everyone does that. Psychology, Personal Development, Nonfiction, Self Help, Mental Health, Adult, Counselling, Education, Womens Table of Contents To escape this negative mindset, perfectionists have to practice self-compassion. They have to remember that everyone makes mistakes and nothing is flawless. They have to shift their focus from what’s wrong to everything that’s right, and all the future possibilities that will make things feel even more right.

The energy my perfectionist clients brought into the room presented in stark contrast to what I had started to feel in my private life. Their energy was charged, magnetic, brimming with infinite potentialities, destructive and constructive all at once. In noticing the burgeoning differences between myself and my clients, I simultaneously recognized the similarities that had been there the whole time. Author Katherine Morgan Schafler is a self-described perfectionist who specializes in working with perfectionists as a New York City psychotherapist. In The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control, Schafler delves into layers of mental health issues that help support her theories on perfectionism. This summary won’t go that deep. It will focus on Schafler’s five types of perfectionists, the number-one problem for all perfectionists, and how to adapt to your perfectionism successfully. From psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schafler, an invitation to every “recovering perfectionist” to challenge the way they look at perfectionism, and the way they look at themselves. In a world of commercial wellness, we continue to talk about perfectionism as if it’s an unnatural, exclusively bad thing, but it’s not. Perfectionism can be expressed in healthy ways, hence the decades old concept of “adaptive perfectionism” or using your perfectionism to your advantage. However, this concept has yet to break through the seal of academia and into mainstream dialogue. This means that everything you’ve heard about perfectionism isn’t actually about perfectionism itself, but about “maladaptive perfectionism.” “Maladaptive perfectionism” is the harmful and dangerous iteration of perfectionism and it’s stunning that we still don’t differentiate between these two aspects of perfectionism. You write that investing in this pathologized version of who we are is actually an excuse to avoid healing. Why is this, and how can we shift the focus?This book is a good starting point for a discussion about perfectionism and some societal issues surrounding women's mental health. Plus, the beginning half of the book is excellent. I recommend a read-through for anyone who has ever been called a perfectionist (because, let's be honest, a lot of perfectionists don't consider themselves to be). There are so many quotes that I wish I had the audacity to highlight (me? Mark up a book? Unheard of.). A Parisian perfectionist pretends not to notice she wrote a first sentence, affecting an air of, "Oh yeah, I guess I did. Huh." Then she secretly, desperately hopes everyone loves it and, as a result, loves her. Who wrote that first sentence? I must be friends with her immediately! Also, the systematic way of operating that classic perfectionists default to doesn't encourage a spirit of collaboration, flexibility, or openness to external influence-qualities that help us build connections. The risk of this interpersonal style is that it can unintentionally generate relationships that veer towards the superficial and transactional. In turn, classic perfectionists can be left feeling excluded, misunderstood, and underappreciated for all that they do. According to Dr. Kristen Neff, a pioneer in self-compassion research, self-compassion is a three-step resiliency-building skill. Responding to stress with self-compassion is one of the most effective and powerful coping mechanisms available to us. Self-compassion bolsters well-being across the board: it improves your physical, mental, and relational health.