Perfectionism is often defined as the need to be or appear to be perfect with anything less than “perfect” deemed unacceptable. At the core of perfectionism is the need to set extremely high standards of performance. This therefore might be seen as either a necessary or desirable trait to have in aspiring athletes. However, there are two dimensions to perfectionism, one is adaptive and one maladaptive to performance.
Perfectionist strivings are associated with the drive towards achieving excellence and being motivated by striving towards living up to those standards accepting that mistakes are a necessary part of learning. This growth mindset may be considered to be a positive and healthy trait.
Perfectionist concerns are associated with feelings of inadequacy over mistakes, and fear of failure and these athletes are often highly self-critical. They often compare their performance to others in an unrealistic and unfavourable manner and define success in terms of anything short of a flawless performance, a failure. These athletes may limit the things they expose themselves to and play it safe to protect themselves from failing. The results become more important than the experience and they may miss many vital lessons learned by making mistakes and learning from those errors.
Signs of perfectionist tendencies in teens:
- Less willing to take risks
- Set unrealistic goals
- Focussed on the flaws or errors in a performance
- Being overly worried about results/outcomes versus enjoying the experience
- Being critical of themselves but also others who fall short of expectations
- Defensive with criticism
- Procrastinate or fail to complete work for fear of it not being good enough
- Struggle to make decisions for fear of it being wrong
- Spend excessive time on a project to make it “perfect”
- Compare themselves negatively to others
Perfectionism has been associated with increased injury risk. However, striving for perfection does not necessarily increase injury risk. It is the negative and maladaptive response to failure and associated stress reaction that put the athlete at greater risk of injury or burnout (Madigan et al., 2017).
The development of perfectionism may be generated by parents or schools setting unrealistic goals and leaving those involved feeling as if they can never please or succeed. Children who are frequently overly praised when they are younger may feel the need to keep performing to gain that continued praise, or in contrast, those who rarely get praised strive for perfection to get noticed.
In sports scored for a performance involving fewer objective measures such as gymnastics, athletes may continually feel “judged” and continually see their errors in their results. There are multiple pressures on youth athletes, from the pressure the athlete places upon themselves, and the external pressures such as high levels of academic or emotional stress (Ivarsson 2017) that cause stress which affects performance. Youth athletes may fear disapproval from parents and coaches, but also within a team environment, they may experience feelings of insecurity about letting their teammates down fuelling feelings of anxiety.
“Try your best”! Be careful what you wish for
In pursuit of flawless performances, those athletes with higher perfectionist strivings may dedicate more time to direct and indirect involvement if their sport (Larkin et al 2015) and this may lead to greater progression in the sport. During competition and during well-planned training programmes, it can be appropriate to work at very high intensity, “Go hard or go home”, but if the applied load greatly exceeds the capacity of the athlete to adapt and there is an imbalance between training and recovery, a continuum from acute fatigue through to overtraining, illness and injury can occur (Schwellnus 2016).
Many parents, teachers, and coaches inadvertently drive sustained high intensity efforts with the words “Do your best” which may influence a child to believe that they must always work at 10/10 effort. Not all sessions are equal and some sessions with the same duration do not equate to the work rate or energy demands of the session. Teaching an athlete about the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) enables communication about how hard you want the athlete to work during training and rehabilitation. Using a score of 1-10 enables the athlete to report back how hard they found the session on a specific day. It can be helpful to use RPE to understand an athlete’s beliefs about training intensity and whether they adapt their work rate according to their fluctuating fatigue and wellness. Understanding when to train at a lower intensity when fatigued or injured and the potential need to adjust energy intake and recovery time is key to maintaining performance. Clinicians might ask an athlete not to exceed a specific RPE when they are first returning to sport gradually increasing the RPE or intensity of the session as they develop greater resilience.
Taking time to understand the beliefs, self-talk, perfectionist tendencies, and multiple stressors on youth athletes, in conjunction with being aware of how well they are coping is critical to successful athlete development and rehabilitation following injury.
Follow this blog for Part 2 – Perfectionism – Learning to love mistakes to learn about how to help athletes embrace making mistakes and enjoying the journey to success.
References
Larkin, P., O’Connor, D., & Williams, A. M. (2016). Perfectionism and sport-specific engagement in elite youth soccer players. Journal of sports sciences, 34(14), 1305-1310.
Madigan, D. J., Stoeber, J., & Passfield, L. (2017). Perfectionism and training distress in junior athletes: a longitudinal investigation. Journal of sports sciences, 35(5), 470-475.
Schwellnus, M., Soligard, T., Alonso, J.-M., Bahr, R., Clarsen, B., Paul Dijkstra, H., et al. (2016). How much is too much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of injury. Br. J. Sports Med. 50, 1030–1041.
