Think about your personal definition of success. This one can seem like a no-brainer, but there’s merit to the notion of distracting yourself when you’re about to become angry, and it can be as simple as counting to ten or breathing deeply. In the shorter term, you may need something more immediate to tamp down the negative emotions you’re feeling. In other words, it’s more their problem than yours - a good thing to realize, but also something that can take a while to fully absorb. “If somebody’s behaving discourteously toward you, then that is not something that you necessarily need to take as a threat to your personal identity.” In the long run, you may need to work on changing your thought patterns “in a way that leads you to interpret potentially antagonizing situations in a more adaptive way,” he says. Collating their wisdom, here are five useful ways to manage the worst aspects of perfectionistic personality traits.Īccording to Schaubroeck, perfectionistic personality traits predispose people to hostile, impatient, and competitive behavior. So in order to shift toward a more positive self-conception - and, let’s be real, figure out what the hell I can do to feel more sane - I spoke to Katherine Schafler, a New York–based psychotherapist who specializes in issues surrounding perfectionism, and John Schaubroeck, a professor of psychology and management at Michigan State University. Which, in my mind, means it’s something that can be more easily changed, or at least managed. So it’s no wonder I don’t want to be associated with all things “type A.” But it’s soothing to know that type A isn’t even a clinical term it’s a socially constructed description for a cluster of traits, a phrase that gained popularity in the ’70s. I’m frustrated with myself just thinking about it. Take, for example, this article: It took me 20 minutes to type out a first draft of this paragraph that I know I will edit to make better, because I want even my first try to be the most perfect collection of words I’ve ever assembled. I can be impatient and competitive, but then feel frustrated for thinking of life as a zero-sum game (it’s not!) if I make a mistake, I can spend days, weeks, months mulling over it, as if it’s the end of the world (it’s not!).Īnd professionally, I’m so focused on being perfect that it is paralyzing. It was because I more often experience the dark underbelly of those very admirable traits, and definitely don’t want to be judged for being those things. The first time someone ever referred to me as “type A,” I gasped dramatically and glared: I am not that type of person, I thought, insulted - even though, deep down, I knew I was.įor the most part, the traits typically associated with a type-A personality never sounded negative to me: What’s wrong with being somebody who’s ambitious, driven, organized, in control of their lives and who, I’m willing to bet, carries around half a tote bag’s worth of to-do lists? But the reason I got mad wasn’t because there’s no truth to my type-A-ness.
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