Maladaptive perfectionism is often marked by an excessive focus on achievement and the constant drive to meet unrealistic personal expectations. This section will guide you to identifying areas of your life where you may have placed unrelenting standards or attached too much of your self-worth to achievement. Recognising these patterns is the first step toward developing healthier values, a more balanced lifestyle, and a stable sense of self.
Over-Valuing Achievements
Above are two pie charts from Mason (a non-perfectionistic individual) and Drake (a maladaptive perfectionist) reflecting how they each judge their own self-worth. The size of each portion of the chart reflects how much value the individual places on that area of their life.
- Mason’s chart is well-balanced, with his self-worth distributed across relationships, health, future goals, and personal interests. For individuals without maladaptive perfectionism, this kind of distribution is typical and contributes to greater emotional resilience.
- Drake’s chart, however, shows a heavy over-reliance on academic performance as a measure of self-worth. Even though he values other areas (e.g., friendships or hobbies), these receive little attention or emotional investment. This intense focus on achievement results in neglecting other aspects of well-being, which can compromise overall mental and emotional health.
When individuals invest their entire self-worth in just one domain – such as work, grades, or appearance – any setback or perceived failure in that area can lead to significant distress, self-criticism, and feelings of worthlessness. Over time, this creates a cycle of anxiety, burnout and low self-esteem.
Creating a Self-Worth Pie Chart
Understanding what makes up your self-worth is a powerful step toward overcoming maladaptive perfectionism. This exercise will help you visualise which area of life you value most and whether those values are balanced.
Reflect on your chart and ask these questions:
- Is it balanced?
- Does one area – such as achievement or performance – dominate the chart?
- Are you neglecting other important aspects of your life, like relationships, leisure, or health?
If you notice an over-reliance on a single area, especially achievement, read on to learn how to create a healthier balance in your self-worth.
Tips for Creating a More Balanced Sense of Self-Worth
It is important to start planning how you will add more value to the areas in your life that you have neglected, due to your heightened focus on high achievement.
Firstly, choose one area that you feel you have neglected to develop and write a list of activities you could engage in for this specific area. After you have been able to tick all the activities off of your list it is recommended you make a new one so as to avoid falling back into harmful patterns. For example:
It is also beneficial to rate your level of enjoyment (0-10) and anxiety (0-10) before and after each event, as seeing an improvement in ratings may encourage you to continue to balance out your self-worth pie chart.
Continue to practise one activity regularly until you observe a decrease in anxiety rating before moving on to the next activity.
