Encontrei hoje essa matéria interessante no NY Times:
Unhappy? Self-Critical? Maybe You’re Just a Perfectionist
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: December 4, 2007
Just about any sports movie, airport paperback or motivational tape delivers a few boilerplate rules for success. Believe in yourself. Don’t take no for an answer. Never quit. Don’t accept second best.
Above all, be true to yourself.
It’s hard to argue with those maxims. They seem self-evident — if not written into the Constitution, then at least part of the cultural water supply that irrigates everything from halftime speeches to corporate lectures to SAT coaching classes.
Yet several recent studies stand as a warning against taking the platitudes of achievement too seriously. The new research focuses on a familiar type, perfectionists, who panic or blow a fuse when things don’t turn out just so. The findings not only confirm that such purists are often at risk for mental distress — as Freud, Alfred Adler and countless exasperated parents have long predicted — but also suggest that perfectionism is a valuable lens through which to understand a variety of seemingly unrelated mental difficulties, from depression to compulsive behavior to addiction.
Some researchers divide perfectionists into three types, based on answers to standardized questionnaires: Self-oriented strivers who struggle to live up to their high standards and appear to be at risk of self-critical depression; outwardly focused zealots who expect perfection from others, often ruining relationships; and those desperate to live up to an ideal they’re convinced others expect of them, a risk factor for suicidal thinking and eating disorders.
“It’s natural for people to want to be perfect in a few things, say in their job — being a good editor or surgeon depends on not making mistakes,” said Gordon L. Flett, a psychology professor at York University and an author of many of the studies. “It’s when it generalizes to other areas of life, home life, appearance, hobbies, that you begin to see real problems.”
Unlike people given psychiatric labels, however, perfectionists neither battle stigma nor consider themselves to be somehow dysfunctional. On the contrary, said Alice Provost, an employee assistance counselor at the University of California, Davis, who recently ran group therapy for staff members struggling with perfectionist impulses. “They’re very proud of it,” she said. “And the culture highly values and reinforces their attitudes.”
Consider a recent study by psychologists at Curtin University of Technology in Australia, who found that the level of “all or nothing” thinking predicted how well perfectionists navigated their lives. The researchers had 252 participants fill out questionnaires rating their level of agreement with 16 statements like “I think of myself as either in control or out of control” and “I either get on very well with people or not at all.”
The more strongly participants in the study thought in this either-or fashion, the more likely they were to display the kind of extreme perfectionism that can lead to mental health problems.
In short, these are people who not only swallow many of the maxims for success but take them as absolutes. At some level they know that it’s possible to succeed after falling short (build on your mistakes: another boilerplate rule). The trouble is that falling short still reeks of mediocrity; for them, to say otherwise is to spin the result.
Never accept second best. Always be true to yourself.
The burden of perfectionist expectations is all too familiar to anyone who has struggled to kick a bad habit. Break down just once — have one smoke, one single drink — and at best it’s a “slip.” At worst it’s a relapse, and more often it’s a fall off the wagon: failure. And if you’ve already fallen, well, may as well pour yourself two or three more.
This is why experts have long debated the wisdom of insisting on abstinence as necessary in treating substance abuse. Most rehab clinics are based on this principle: Either you’re clean or you’re not; there’s no safe level of use. This approach has unquestionably worked for millions of addicts, but if the studies of perfectionists are any guide it has undermined the efforts of many others.
Ms. Provost said those in her program at U.C. Davis often displayed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder — another risk for perfectionists. They couldn’t bear a messy desk.. They found it nearly impossible to leave a job half-done, to do the next day. Some put in ludicrously long hours redoing tasks, chasing an ideal only they could see.
As an experiment, Ms. Provost had members of the group slack off on purpose, against their every instinct. “This was mostly in the context of work,” she said, “and they seem like small things, because what some of them considered failure was what most people would consider no big deal.”
Leave work on time. Don’t arrive early. Take all the breaks allowed. Leave the desk a mess. Allow yourself a set number of tries to finish a job; then turn in what you have.
“And then ask: Did you get punished? Did the university continue to function? Are you happier?” Ms. Provost said. “They were surprised that yes, everything continued to function, and the things they were so worried about weren’t that crucial.”
The British have a saying that encourages people to show their skills while mocking the universal fear of failure: Do your worst.
If you can’t tolerate your worst, at least once in a while, how true to yourself can you be?
fonte
terça-feira, dezembro 04, 2007
"when to take my name off the door"
On December 1, 1967, in Chicago's Prudential Building Auditorium, 75-year old founder/chairman Leo Burnett addressed the entire company at its annual Leo Burnett employees' "Breakfast at Burnett's."
His remarks, entitled "When to Take My Name Off the Door" were and still are a call to action to those that attended and all in the advertising industry. His vision and pursuit of excellence were standards not to be overlooked and his words remind us of these standards.
The following is the speech verbatim as found on top-biography.com/9129-Leo%20Burnett/valedictionaddress.htm.
"Somewhere along the line, after I'm finally off the premises, you – or your successors – may want to take my name off the premises, too.
You may want to call yourselves 'Twain, Rogers, Sawyer and Finn, Inc.' …or 'Ajax Advertising' or something. That will certainly be okay with me – if it's good for you…
But, let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door.
That will be the day when you spend more time trying to make money and less time making advertising – our kind of advertising. When you forget that the sheer fun of ad-making and the lift you get out of it – the creative climate of the place – should be as important as the money to the very special breed of writers and artists and business professionals who compose this company of ours and make it tick.
When you lose that restless feeling that nothing you do is ever quite good enough. When you lose your itch to do the job well for its own sake, regardless of the client, or the money, or the effort it takes. When you lose your passion for thoroughness…your hatred for loose ends.
When you stop reaching for the manner, the overtone, the marriage of words and pictures that produces the fresh, the memorable and the believable effect. When you stop rededicating yourselves every day to the idea that better advertising is what the Leo Burnett Company is all about.
When you are no longer what Thoreau called a 'corporation with a conscience', which means to me, a corporation of conscientious men and women. When you begin to compromise your integrity, which has always been the hearts blood, the very guts of this agency.
When you stoop to convenient expedience and rationalize yourselves into acts of opportunism, for the sake of a fast buck. When you show the slightest sign of crudeness, inappropriateness or smart-aleckness, and you lose that subtle sense of the fitness of things.
When your main interest becomes a matter of size just to be big, rather than good, hard and wonderful work. When your outlook narrows down to the number of window, from zero to five, in the walls of your office. When you lose your humility and become big-shot weisenheimers…a little too big for your boots.
When the apples come down to being just apples for eating, or for polishing, no longer a part of our tone, our personality. When you disapprove of something and start tearing the hell out of the man who did it rather than the work itself. When you stop building on strong and vital ideas, and start a routine production line.
When you start believing that, in the interest of efficiency, a creative spirit and the urge to create can be delegated and administered, and forget that they can only be nurtured, stimulated and inspired. When you start giving lip service to this being a 'creative agency' and stop really being one.
Finally, when you lose your respect for the lonely man, the man at his typewriter or his drawing board or behind his camera or just scribbling notes with one or four big black pencils, or working all night on a media plan. When you forget that the lonely man, and that God for him, has made the agency we now have possible. When you forget he's the man who, because he is reaching harder, sometimes actually get hold of, for a moment, one of those hot, unreachable stars.
That, boys and girls, is when I shall insist you take my name off the door. And by golly, it will be taken off the door.
Even if I have to materialize long enough some night to rub it out myself, on every one of your floors.
And before I dematerialize again, I will paint out that star-reaching symbol, too. And burn all the stationery. And tear up a few ads in passing. AND THROW EVERY GOD DAMNED APPLE DOWN THE ELEVATOR SHAFTS.
You just won't know the place the next morning. You'll HAVE to find a new name."
encontrado aqui.
His remarks, entitled "When to Take My Name Off the Door" were and still are a call to action to those that attended and all in the advertising industry. His vision and pursuit of excellence were standards not to be overlooked and his words remind us of these standards.
The following is the speech verbatim as found on top-biography.com/9129-Leo%20Burnett/valedictionaddress.htm.
"Somewhere along the line, after I'm finally off the premises, you – or your successors – may want to take my name off the premises, too.
You may want to call yourselves 'Twain, Rogers, Sawyer and Finn, Inc.' …or 'Ajax Advertising' or something. That will certainly be okay with me – if it's good for you…
But, let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door.
That will be the day when you spend more time trying to make money and less time making advertising – our kind of advertising. When you forget that the sheer fun of ad-making and the lift you get out of it – the creative climate of the place – should be as important as the money to the very special breed of writers and artists and business professionals who compose this company of ours and make it tick.
When you lose that restless feeling that nothing you do is ever quite good enough. When you lose your itch to do the job well for its own sake, regardless of the client, or the money, or the effort it takes. When you lose your passion for thoroughness…your hatred for loose ends.
When you stop reaching for the manner, the overtone, the marriage of words and pictures that produces the fresh, the memorable and the believable effect. When you stop rededicating yourselves every day to the idea that better advertising is what the Leo Burnett Company is all about.
When you are no longer what Thoreau called a 'corporation with a conscience', which means to me, a corporation of conscientious men and women. When you begin to compromise your integrity, which has always been the hearts blood, the very guts of this agency.
When you stoop to convenient expedience and rationalize yourselves into acts of opportunism, for the sake of a fast buck. When you show the slightest sign of crudeness, inappropriateness or smart-aleckness, and you lose that subtle sense of the fitness of things.
When your main interest becomes a matter of size just to be big, rather than good, hard and wonderful work. When your outlook narrows down to the number of window, from zero to five, in the walls of your office. When you lose your humility and become big-shot weisenheimers…a little too big for your boots.
When the apples come down to being just apples for eating, or for polishing, no longer a part of our tone, our personality. When you disapprove of something and start tearing the hell out of the man who did it rather than the work itself. When you stop building on strong and vital ideas, and start a routine production line.
When you start believing that, in the interest of efficiency, a creative spirit and the urge to create can be delegated and administered, and forget that they can only be nurtured, stimulated and inspired. When you start giving lip service to this being a 'creative agency' and stop really being one.
Finally, when you lose your respect for the lonely man, the man at his typewriter or his drawing board or behind his camera or just scribbling notes with one or four big black pencils, or working all night on a media plan. When you forget that the lonely man, and that God for him, has made the agency we now have possible. When you forget he's the man who, because he is reaching harder, sometimes actually get hold of, for a moment, one of those hot, unreachable stars.
That, boys and girls, is when I shall insist you take my name off the door. And by golly, it will be taken off the door.
Even if I have to materialize long enough some night to rub it out myself, on every one of your floors.
And before I dematerialize again, I will paint out that star-reaching symbol, too. And burn all the stationery. And tear up a few ads in passing. AND THROW EVERY GOD DAMNED APPLE DOWN THE ELEVATOR SHAFTS.
You just won't know the place the next morning. You'll HAVE to find a new name."
encontrado aqui.
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