Understanding the fear behind our need to get everything right, and how EFT can help you pave your way forward without the pressure to be perfect
Why does perfectionism feel so hard to switch off, even when you know it’s holding you back? The need to get things exactly right is often driven by the fear of criticism, judgement or not being good enough. Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), or tapping, offer a simple way to uncover the fear beneath perfectionism and help you feel safer being seen, even when things aren’t perfect.
The Need to Get It Right
When I was a student, I would take notes in class and then sort them out afterwards, rewriting them neatly each time. I thought it would help me remember what was said better. I also felt having a tidy, perfect folder was of the utmost importance. But if I made a mistake, perhaps swapping two letters around, missing a word, or having to cross something out, I felt utterly dejected.
I felt overwhelmed by the compulsion to start all over again. Most of the time, I gave in, took a blank piece of paper and started to copy the whole page all over again. Usually, I would make a new mistake almost right away, like missing a word or, worse, making exactly the same mistake that got me to rewrite the whole thing in the first place. Rather than just shrug and keep going, I would take another sheet of paper and start again. Sometimes, it could take several attempts to complete a sheet of clean notes.
Perfection Is Time-Consuming
Looking back, it seems disproportionate to trash a whole piece of work I had just spent time editing just for a small mistake like a letter in the wrong order, a missing word or a crossed-out line. It would still have been possible to understand what I had written. But at the time, it felt like making mistakes just writing meant I was really lacking, and I envied those around me who kept striking out words or applying Tippex and would carry on as if this was of little importance.
I now realise how time-consuming the whole process actually was. It was such a waste of time, since after I graduated, all those colourful sheets with cleanly highlighted sentences, the notebooks and folders all went in the bin, and I felt a lot of glee about it.
A Realisation
At the time, though, starting again didn’t feel like a choice. It felt necessary. The page had to be right before I could move on.
I never thought of this as fear. I believed it was all me, part of who I was. I alternated between thinking that I had high standards and seeing it as the inability to do things right in the first place. It took me a long time to understand what was behind my so-called ‘high standards’. They were another disguise for a fear that had been part of my life since childhood. In reality, I was afraid of not being good enough as a student. Keeping the tidiest notebooks and devoting time to them made me look like I was.
See, this is the thing with perfectionism: it can be difficult to recognise. Perfectionism can look like caring or being conscientious. It may seem that we simply have high standards or want to do a good job. But underneath, there can be a deeper fear: getting something wrong means we are not good enough. The mistake becomes more than just a mistake. It feels like evidence that something is lacking in us. And when a small mistake carries that much emotional weight, starting again can feel like the only way to put things right.
Behind the Perfectionism
It is difficult to let go of something if you don’t realise what is behind it. On the surface, perfectionism appears to be a quality, the desire to push for better. But the issue is that we are actually stopping ourselves from moving forward.
We may tell ourselves that we are being careful, thorough or responsible. However, looking a little deeper, we may find that we are trying to protect ourselves from something we don’t want to feel, such as a sense of failure.
It isn’t only about the fear of making a mistake. It can also be worries about being criticised, disappointing someone or being seen as not good enough. Getting everything right can make us feel safe from those feelings. But we may spend far more time and energy on a task than it actually requires.
And sometimes, we don’t even realise that fear is driving us. We simply know that we can’t seem to leave things alone until they feel right.
How EFT Can Help
Rather than forcing ourselves to stop being perfectionists, we can use EFT, or ‘tapping’, to explore our need to get everything right. We can look at the feelings underneath that need.
Tapping can help us acknowledge the fear and make connections with past events and emotions that may still be influencing how we react today. By bringing these feelings into our awareness, we give ourselves a chance to release some of them. We can then find more helpful responses to new situations, work pressure and the challenges we face.
A starting point is to notice what happens inside us when we make a mistake. Do we feel anxious, frustrated, disappointed or ashamed? And how do we respond to those feelings? Do we immediately want to correct the mistake, start again or hide it?
These reactions can give us clues about what the perfectionism is trying to protect us from. They can help us understand that what feels like a need to get something right may actually be a response to something we are afraid of feeling.
With EFT, we can acknowledge those feelings rather than trying to push them away. We can consider the possibility that we don’t have to be perfect to be good enough. We can make a mistake without it meaning that we have failed.
We will always make mistakes. Perhaps this is part of the beauty of life. We don’t have to get everything right. But we can learn to decide whether a mistake really needs correcting or whether we can simply move on.
Daphne
BEYOND PERFECTIONISM
EFT tapping can help you explore the fears behind your need to get everything right, work through difficult emotions, and approach mistakes with greater self-compassion and less pressure.
If perfectionism is holding you back, individual EFT sessions can offer a supportive space to understand what is underneath these patterns and find a better way forward.
If you’d like to explore whether EFT could support you, get in touch with me or arrange a conversation to discuss what’s troubling you.
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