How to be a perfect non perfectionist

How to be a perfect non-perfectionist by Dr. Albert Ellis was recorded live at the Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy in New York City on October 14th, 1992. Dr. Albert Ellis, president and founder of the Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy, has been a psychotherapist in New York City for over 40 years. 1992 marked 37 years since he first developed rational emotive therapy. Rational mode of therapy is the original cognitive behavior therapy, a short-term problem-solving approach to mental health. Dr. Ellis is perhaps the most well-known of modern psychologists, both because of his prolific production of books and articles and his iconoclastic approach to the challenges posed by modern life.

The following lecture is based on techniques described in Dr. Ellis's formidable repertoire of writings, including How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything, Yes, Anything, and the classic, A New Guide to Rational Living. Dr. Ellis's approach to perfectionism will help you open your eyes and become aware of your own demandingness. You can learn to be more gentle with yourself while striving to attain your personal best. a perfect non-perfectionist how to be imperfectly perfect. So since I shall set the stage and not giving a perfect talk then you will have the leeway to be imperfect yourself.

But perfectionism, as I said way back in 1957 in How to Live with a Neurotic and in 1961 in the original edition of A Guide to Rational Living, perfectionism is one of the most stupid and inefficient things that you can do because there's no way whatsoever that you can be perfect since obviously if I'm not you have zero chance of being. So you better give up on that.

Now how do you see first if you are a perfectionist because lots of people are and don't acknowledge it or see it. So you look for various signs none of which is conclusive. You could have several of these signs and not be a perfect perfectionist, but they are indicative. And the main ones are anxiety and panic. That when you're a perfectionist and you don't do perfectly well, which you goddamn well won't, then you feel anxious and panic because you say to yourself, "Will I do perfectly well? Will I do perfectly well?" And the answer normally is not. So you get panicked. But then after you do imperfectly well, you make yourself depressed. I did not do as perfect as I should have done. And then you depress yourself. Then about other people, you get hostile because what do you know? Those lousy bastards aren't as perfect to you as they should be. So you make yourself hostile. And you have about the world and conditions, the ecology around you and the environment and the goddamn political scene that it is imperfect as it absolutely must not be. So you have low frustration tolerance.

Perfectionists very frequently, not always, procrastinate because the two reasons for procrastination is it's too goddamn hard to do this thing that I'm about to do. It shouldn't be that hard. But also, I have to do it perfectly, perfectly well, and I might not do as well as I have to. And therefore, screw it. I won't do it. I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Indecision is one of the main forms of perfectionism because you're really indecisive because you know goddamn well that the decision you'll make will have disadvantages as well as advantages. But it must not absolutely must not have any disadvantages because that would prove that you're a turd for picking the wrong decision and therefore you fart around fart around fart around. Shame and embarrassment really mean if you're honest that I have to do quite well, perfectly well in front of others and if I make a gaff or mistake then it's awful. So you feel the shame and embarrassment before and after. And shyness again is a high class name for scared shitless of what other people think of you. I must have their approval. I must perfectly it doesn't work. And OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, is a biological phenomenon. Actually, you get it because you have a biological tendency. Your serotonin, your neurotransmitters off. But if you're perfectionistic, you're more so because then you have to do everything perfectly well and you go through all kinds of crazy rituals and you wash your hands 20 times instead of once cuz they have to be perfectly clean, etc. Phobias normally mean I have to be perfectly safe. I must not go in the elevator or the train or anything because I got to be perfectly safe, perfectly safe, perfectly safe. and therefore I stay out of it. And h many humans have a need for control which is okay. You like the control but you have a need for perfect control and then you're off and you always have to watch yourself and spy on yourself and not get it and put yourself down. And of course the need for certainty. Certainty is perfect. There is no such thing. There's only as far as we know probability in the world. But if you have to have absolute certainty, then you're a perfectionist because you really doesn't exist. You never get up to 100%. You could do it temporarily. Get 100 in an arithmetic exam, but you won't get 100 in all the exams, no matter how you are.

Now, where does perfectionism come from? And the nutty psychoanalysts who have perfect problems of their own think that you get it from your goddamn mother and father. Especially, of course, we always blame your mother. They tell you you have to get 100 when you only got 99. But of course, that's false because who was crazy enough to listen to these cooks? And the answer is that you were. And as I always say, if you were lucky enough to be an orphan, you'd be just as perfectionistic in all probability because you inherit their nonsense, their tendency to create it, and you could create it yourself. So it comes basically from a you're taking on the perfectionism of others, your parents, the school teachers, your clergy people, etc. Or you're talentedly making it up. You don't need help from them. You're a talented screwball in your own right. So you don't need any help that.

And it always practically always I better not say always cuz that's perfect. It practically always stems from the need, the must, the demand. Not I'd like to do well because the end but if I don't I don't tough so I'll do less than well. But I've got to do well. I absolutely must. I must do adequately. I must do well. I must do outstandingly better than practically anybody else. And then the real one, I must do absolutely perfectly well. Now again, if you say, "I'd really like to do everything perfectly well, but but I never have to." You wouldn't get in trouble. But as soon as you take any desire, preference, goal, value and make it into an absolute necessity, then no matter how good the value is, because you really might want to do very well at relating to others, at sports, at business, at profession, etc. That's okay. But as soon as you put in that therefore I have to, you're in trouble. And uh if you're really a perfectionist, you go on to really crazy things like I must do all important things adequately well, perfectly well, and I must be loved by other people absolutely perfectly at all times under all conditions. And I must be loved by an outstanding personally. Well, that's all you have to do. Go find the goddamn outstanding person first, which you're going to have a little difficulty with, and then you have to be perfectly loved at all times under all conditions by that outstanding person. Then the other aspect again of the anger, the rage at others is you absolutely must trust me adequately, love me adequately, treat me fairly, considerately, justly under all conditions at all times. And I know what hell you should roast in for eternity if you don't. You see, now this is really thoroughly asinine. And I always say, and I still say, cuz it's true, that if the Martians ever get down here and they're sane, they'll die laughing because it's bad enough to say that I must do perfectly well cuz you could push your ass and maybe do pretty well. But that others must do the right thing, capital R, capital T, and they must treat me well is totally asinine because what control do you really have over others? And the answer is about zero. That's the amount they control. And yet out of the five billion people in the world, every single one of those screwballs, and I don't mean any exceptions, at times is demanding, demanding, demanding that others do well or outstandingly well or perfectly well. And then the third one, low frustration, tolerance, the conditions around me, including the goddamn politicians must do well. That's the most asinine thing ever invented because we know that politicians don't give a for humans. They're interested in their own naval. They lie. They steal. They do everything practically wrongly. And we demand not wish and want that they do right. Not to mention again the ecology and every other condition under the sun.

Now, to make things much worse, as I found out by doing rational emotive therapy years ago after doing it just a short while, that once you disturb yourself as a perfectionist or a near perfectionist and say, "I must do well. I must do outstandingly well, I must do perfectly well." Then you feel very uncomfortable, as I said before, anxious, depressed, off the goddamn wall. you really feel upset because there's no way that you're going to do it. And even if you temporarily do it, you worry, will I do perfectly well tomorrow? Tomorrow, tomorrow. So, there's no way you're going to be unupset. But then you notice, you feel your upsetness, your anxiety, your self-downing, your horror, your terror, your panic. And then you say, "I must not be panicked. I must not be panicked. I must be perfectly unanxious, perfectly unprinced, and perfectly unpanked. And then you're really off the goddamn wall because not only does that make things worse that you must not have the crazy feelings that you have, but it interferes with you going back and giving up the original demands, commands, must. Because now on the second level, you're so upset about being upset that that's all you ever think of. How what a nut you are. And you say, "I must not be disturbed. I must get better. I must be perfectly undisturbed." Well, lots of luck again on that one. Not much chance.

So, what do you do about all this crap? And it is crap because obviously, as I said before, if you think about it, you're never practically going to do perfectly well except for a very brief length of time. Even if you write the great American novel, somebody will write a better one. And the only thing you can really do perfectly well in temporarily is something like an arithmetic test or something like that because you could really get 100%. But how long? So it's utterly nonsense. And yet all humans, not all of the time, are really nutty because they get back to that. And some of them are only semi nutty. They say I must do well. I must do well all the time. But I must do perfectly well is perfectly ridiculous. So the thing to do what to do about it. And of course in RE we say that you think that way very very strongly much of the time. And therefore you feel just because you think it that it is. So if I feel upset when I don't do perfectly well, then it must be true that I have to do perfectly well. Utterly circular thinking. You wouldn't think any bright people such as question mark you would think that way, but you do that. So you may upset yourself worse about that. And uh so first you better rethink it. your statements, your masturbatory statements that you're making to yourself, you better rethink them. Then you better work on your feelings because again, as soon as you don't do as marvelously, perfectly, absolutely, completely well as you must, then you're going to feel very upset. And you really believe it devoutly. And because you believe it devoutly, you feel it and then you think your feeling just came from nowhere, but it really came with and along with and almost a subheading under the devout belief. So you have to work on the feeling. And then finally, because you've got to do well, you got to do well, you got to do well, you got to do perfectly well, you either underdo, you procrastinate, avoid, become phobic, and don't do things or you overdo the compulsive rituals where again you wash your hands 20 times because there may be a spot of dirt still on it as there must not be because it must be perfectly clean. those hands. So therefore you have to first or not necessarily first but along with each other think against that nonsense and feel work on your feelings and behave against your nonsense actually contradict it in action and that is why is practically the pioneer of what today is called integrative therapy. Integrative means that you don't just take one theory or one set of techniques like psychoanalysis or crystal therapy and stick to them. You broaden your theory. So you still have a theory of disturbance but you use quite a number of techniques. And RE has always said that since you think poorly with demands, commands, musts, shoulds, absolute oughts, and you feel along with that very upset, very depressed, very anxious, very panicked, and you act badly. Don't do what you'd like to do or overdo what you really wouldn't like to do. act compulsively that you better work on all three. So it integrates a variety of techniques such as those that we have originated ourselves. Some of them as I'll show you are our original techniques. But we also use other techniques that work with the theory. But the theory is the same ABC theory which I got from philosophers who said it originally 2,000 and more years ago and that is that largely mainly you upset yourself as I said right at the beginning you don't become a perfectionist because somebody tells you to be your crazy parents or president of the United States who is equally crazy or anybody else. You do it because you agree with them and would do it probably quite possibly without their help by just demanding that because I like very much to do well I have to I have to I have to which doesn't follow at all and also because I'd like to do very well and perfectly well which would be nice at times I have to I have to I have to so first you better look at whenever you think and feel and behave perfectionistically. What am I saying to myself? At G, your goals and values are to succeed, to do well, to be loved, to get along with others, to survive, etc. That's okay. But at a activating event, something happens against that such as you do very imperfectly. be a fail get rejected and then at B belief system you mainly tell yourself sainely I don't like this I wish the hell it weren't so what a pain in the ass and you feel appropriately sorry and regretful at c consequence which is okay because we don't want you to feel happy when your goals and interests aren't exceeded to or you don't make them work out but then at Back to B again your belief system. You stupidly, foolishly, selfdefeatingly, irrationally tell yourself because I want to, I have to, I've got to. Other people have got to act the way I want them, perfectly the way I want them. The world has to be in perfect order for a doll like me. And then it's C. You feel again anxious, desparing, really disturbed, panic, phobic, offthe-wall. and you act against your own interest.

So the main thing is to go to D disputing cognitively, thinkingly and question not your goals and values that you'd like to do well, you'd like to do outstandingly well, you'd like to do perfectly well. That's okay. If you'd like to, you'd like to. But that need, that must, that absolute demand. So you say to yourself, why must I do perfectly well? And of course, the answer is always the same. There's no damn reason. If you had to, you would. That would be the way. And as far as you can see, if you think that he can't do perfectly well, except as I said a few minutes ago, for a very short while. So you question, why must I do well? The answer is I don't have to. Why must I do outstandingly nicely? You never have to. Why must I do perfectly well? Because I think I must. There is no other reason. There's no necessity for you doing it. Because if there were, you would do it. And then you go to what we call the derivatives of the must. That because I'm not doing as perfectly as I absolutely must do, it's awful. terrible, horrible, and you go to deis disputing and rip them up. Prove it. Show me. Why is it awful? The answer is it's not awful. It's only a pain in the ass. The only thing there is in life when you don't get what you want is an inconvenience. Now, if somebody's about to kid you, that's a great inconvenience. Though there are degrees of inconvenience, but it's still not awful or horrible that it exists because awful means it's totally bad. Almost so if you get killed, but you wouldn't know it after you die anyway. And that it's more than bad, 110% bad, which can't be. And it really means better than it must be. So you rip up the awfulizing. It's really a really really no good a pain in the ass, but it's not awful. And then you're saying, "And I can't stand not succeeding outstandingly perfectly or I can't stand you, you worm, not treating me perfectly." So you say, "Prove it. Show me. Where is the evidence that I can't stand it?" The answer is there is no evidence. you don't like it, but you can stand what you don't like until you drop dead and then you won't be around to stand it anyway. But the main one is the worst of the lot. That because I didn't do outstandingly, perfectly, greatly, completely, wholly well and be loved purely, completely for the rest of my life by this one individual out of five billion that I say absolutely has to love me forever. That I a total human. I'm a worm, a louse, a no good nick, a Now, what percentage of humans believe that in the world out of the five billion? 100% believe it. Not every minute, but they believe it at various times that when they really do poorly and don't get what they want and I'm unloved, they as humans are no good. So, you dispute that. Prove it. Show me why I am a turd for acting turty as I must. The answer is I'm not. I acted badly sometimes or some people helped me act badly. But even if I did it completely under my own power, I am a human, fallible, up person who acted badly this time. But that never proves I'm a bad, rotten, lousy person. I'm a person who did that. So you dispute not why is it bad that I failed and even did things imperfectly. It's bad because I don't like that because I'd rather do it perfectly. But why am I a bad person? And the answer is I am I who acted badly, foolishly, stupidly this time maybe. But that's all I am. I am not ratable. I'm too complex. I do too many things. And if I have worth at all as a human, especially worth to myself being alive, then it exists because I think it exists. I am good. I am valuable. I'm worthy because I think I am. So I could always think that way that I'm okay because I think I'm okay. And I could also think I'm a because I think I'm a But which will work? And the answer is I'm okay will work but I'm a won't work. I won't say at all because lots of people think they should still do a few things well but it will sabotage you're doing well and definitely sabotage your feelings and your whole life. So you decide I am okay because I think I am because I say I am because I decide to or the more elegant solution which we teach at RE and have difficulty teaching to the screw balls of the world and that is I'm not bad, I'm not good, I'm not okay, I'm not [Music] unexist, stupid, foolish. Not when they're imperfect, but when they really do me in and do other humans in. But I am not ratable. I'm too complex. So I'm never going to rate myself, my being, my essence. I'm just going to rate what I do. So if you ever get to that, it's very difficult to get to it. then you're really in and you obviously are no longer a perfectionist. Because if you fully accept you just because you're alive and kicking just because you decide to do so and you only rate your acts, your deeds, your per your the performances and not yourself, then you won't be a perfectionist because a perfectionist says one, I don't like failing and being rejected. That's okay. and I must not fail and I must do outstandingly well and I must do perfectly well or else I am no damn good as a person. Now if you give up that crap then you say still say it is not good because I'd rather be perfect than not and I'd certainly rather do well than not but I am I who did poorly this time and many times because I'm fallible too bad tough I can still live and enjoy myself and only rate what I do. So that's the elegant solution which we advise people to work on because it's hard to do because every human all over the world, even those lucky enough to be orphans again, rate themselves. Why do they do it? Because they're all out of their minds. They're all crazy, obviously. And you can see that that's true of your friends and relatives. That's very obvious. But it's also true of you. All humans are nutty at times. Not always naughty, not completely naughty because they rate what they do which is good and themselves their being their essence which is utterly stupid and self-defeating unless you're perfect again which you're not and then they get into trouble.

Now another cognitive technique because after you say why must I be perfect and answer I don't have to be and where is it written that I am no good for being imperfect and the answer is it's written in my crazy head but I can get it out of my head then you get to e effective new philosophies which you then can write down what you arrived at and call we call them rational coping self-statements and go over them and over them until you really believe them. Such as I will always be fallible because that's my human nature. Too bad. Perfection is really impossible except for a very brief length of time. But to be always perfect, I won't make it. No human is superhuman. I can be happy in an imperfect world where people alas don't kiss my ass all the time and do my great great great great bidding. And if I had certainty, which is what perfectionism demands, that would be boring as So I better not go for certainty because then I would know everything that's going to happen already happened or will happen and that would be boring. So I better give it up. So you write down these coping statements and think about them and go through them. You also do that about your secondary disturbance, your disturbance about being disturbed when you demand that you're perfect and you write down I don't need perfect emotional health. That would be lovely, but I don't need it. I don't have to be perfectly rational as Albert Ellis, of course, is I'd like to be, but I don't have to be. And if I am sometimes imperfect, disturbed, and neurotic, again, too damn bad. I can live and still be a happy human with that. So, you dispute your nutty ideas. You come to those coping statements and you write them down or put them on a cassette and go over them. Also, you do another cognitive technique often which is called refraraming. And you see your imperfections in a not great light, but at least a livable light. And you show yourself, for example, that making errors and screwing up makes life more interesting and is a challenge to me to make fewer, not none. and that not being as perfectly lovable as I theoretically could be and having difficulties and problems actually makes me normal, makes me human. If I were perfect in all my deeds and perfectly lovable, I'd be the only human of the its kind and I'd be very lonely in this imperfect world.

Now, another technique is to learn these things we're talking about and teach them to others. Take your unsuspecting friends and relatives, all of whom think they have to be perfect at one time or another, and show them over and over that they don't have to be, but don't say you don't have to be because I'm the only perfect one in the world. That won't work. You show them that none of them have to be, including you. And then by talking them out of their you help yourself talk yourself out of your own. And you write down a whole list. You do what we call referenting. And you like write down a whole list and spend a week or two doing it of the disadvantages of having perfectionism because it has a few advantages because you do try harder. It pushes you. you get motivation but it has too many disadvantages such as the one I said before you'll always be tense and anxious because even when you right now did something perfectly how do you know you'll do it next time and next time and next time with perfectionism you do try hard but you try too hard and you hardly enjoy what you're doing you can't really win because again you're not going to be consistently perfect. It'll lead to many physical disabilities. More and more we see today that when you upset yourself, when you're enraged against you or other people, your whole internal physiological system gets going too much and you create a tendency to have ulcers, high blood pressure, all kinds of things. And your whole immune system might possibly get affected, especially if you already have a disease. You fight the disease less when you're a perfectionistic and upset about not being perfect. And when you're a perfectionist, instead of being loved by others, you usually get hated by others because if you do perfectly well, they really loathe you. Let's face it. And even when they see you have to do well, you have to do well, they don't like that thing cuz they think they have to do well, but not you. And again, you usually don't enjoy any of your projects.

Now, for cognitive homework, you can back at the desk there, we give to our clients our RE self-help form, and it has the ABCDE E right on it. So you take some time when you really feel anxious and upset because you've behaved imperfectly and you fill out the ABCDE e and it shows you how to dispute it right on the sheet and in general you monitor your perfectionism. You try to see honestly whether you really are. You monitor your indecision which usually is because of perfectionism. You monitor your anxiety and depression which stems from it and especially your self-doubting. Look for your own must. That's what you do it with. Not with preferences, goals, and desires which are okay, but by Jehovian commands. Because I like to be perfect, I have to be. And because I wish you would treat me well, you bastard. You have to. and dispute the must not the desires and goals and go over it many times. Then one way to give up perfectionism but though incidentally you can get perfectionism into anything you do unfortunately is to get a vital absorbing interest in something big and ongoing that you really like and would like to do. building a business, building a family, being political, working for a cause. But you better watch it. Don't think that in that interest you have to be perfect. That you must have a perfect family or a perfect business or a perfect body. It's nice to be interested in building your body, but you don't have to have a perfect body or be perfectly good at some sport. It would be nice if you are and you better get devoted to it because you enjoy it and it will preoccupy yourself instead of preoccupying yourself with your worry. But you better watch it.

Then psychoeducationally we recommend naturally as you see in our catalog back at the desk there all kinds of pamphlets books cassettes lectures like this one workshops which we give our intensive our 9-hour intensive which we're going to give again I think scheduled for next April where you really look at your perfectionism and work against it and hear some good ideas against it like those I'm giving you right now of course and use all kinds of psychoeducational methods also one cognitive thinking method is modeling we find that little children model rightly and wrongly after their teachers after their parents after their peers etc but you can use modeling by finding some people who are imperfect but happy and successful in modeling yourself after them and especially find a few if you can find them in this society happy humans and see that they are imperfect the famous fable about the king who wanted to be happy. So he said to his wise men, "Scouram kingdom and find me a happy man." Because they told him that if he found a happy man and wore his shirt, he would then be happy. So they were they worked and they sought and they searched and they finally found one happy man in the whole goddamn kingdom. So he said, "Oh boy, we're happy to get you because the king is going to cut us our balls off if we don't get your shirt. Give us your shirt at any price." And he said, "I haven't the shirt to my back." So look for somebody who's imperfect, who doesn't do remarkably well and is still happy, and model yourself after her or him.

Now emotively there are a number of emotive evocative techniques as I found out in doing re many years ago after I was just doing it a few years that people definitely had nutty ideas that instead of I'd like to perform adequately and well and successfully I absolutely have to and I must do well and you must treat me well and the world must be easy. But then I found out that when I showed them those ideas, they said, you know, that's right. I am saying that I must do well and others must treat me beautifully and maybe I better stop that. But they didn't because they hung on to that horseshit very very strongly, powerfully, intensely, forcefully. Why? Because they're crazy. And also why? Because they had started doing that usually when they were young. Not necessarily. Some were happy children and then later created nam. But usually they did it for a number of years and they tend whenever they want something desire something very strongly like performing adequately then they stupidly say I must I must I must and they keep saying it very strongly. So we have a number of emotive evocative techniques which you can use against your perfectionism. And the one I'll go over it again because it's very important is called strongly accepting yourself unconditionally. Because when you strongly accept yourself conditionally, as practically everybody in the whole goddamn world does, you're really saying, "I'm okay because I perform well, I do sports well or writing well or public speaking well or business well, and therefore I'm okay." But that's called self-esteem and is a great sickness. It's the worst sickness humans ever invented because obviously if you're only good when you do well then what are you when you do poorly and the answer is a and what's more when you're doing well you worry about doing poorly tomorrow. So we recommend unconditional selfacceptance very strongly which I said before I am I who does poorly and well but I am okay just because I think I am I say I am instead of I say I'm a worm that isn't going to help me and also preferably as I also said before I'm neither good nor bad as a person my personhood My inness, my being, my essence just exists in itself. Now, how do I do better? Not to make me a better person, but in order to make me perform better and enjoy more. That's the goal in life. So, I only rate what I do and don't do like if I cop out and procrastinate, that is bad. But I cannot be rated. So I unconditionally accept me with whatever my imperfections are.

And the other emotive techniques, we have many of them, but those that we use more strongly and more often are rational emotive imagery, where instead of just imagining that you do well, which is called positive visualization and will help you do better. Sometimes if you imagine yourself for example going for a good job interview or playing tennis well then you actually practice it in your head and that will help you. But this philosophy behind it still is I have to do well. I have to do well. So it may make you sicker. A lot of that visualization which you read in the books and here and therapy is really misguided because it really implies that you have to do well. So in rational emotive imagery invented by Maxi Molsby Jr. a rational psychiatrist years ago you try to imagine the worst thing that can happen. You're really acting very very imperfectly and people are laughing at you and telling you what a worm you are. Let yourself feel very very upset as you make mistake after mistake in your imagination. So you're imagining the worst and let yourself feel very down, very depressed, very anxious, very panicked and then work on changing that feeling to the appropriate one because R distinguishes clearly between appropriate negative feelings, self-helping ones, sorrow, regret, frustration, annoyance because they help you change and inappropriate ones such as the horror, the terror, the panic. back the severe depression. Now, how do you do that? And the answer is by changing your thinking. You feel terribly upset and then you say to yourself, "Now, I'm going to feel only sorry and disappointed." And you're going to only get there if you change your idea. You keep the same image that you're failing, failing, failing or making mistake after mistake. And then you change the way you think about it. Too bad tough That's the way it is. Yes, I failed again, but I'm not a rotten fed. You're I'm a fallible, screwed up human. Period. And then you really do feel better. So you do that once a day for 20 or 30 days until you practice feeling appropriately sad, sorry, regretful.

And then another one is my famous shame attacking exercise which I invented in 1968 a long time ago where you go out in public and do something really foolish, shameful, ridiculous and make yourself feel nonashamed. You go out in public, for example, and do something really nutty or that other people would feel nutty that you are a screw ball for doing. And you know in advance even that they're going to dislike you or disapprove of you, but you make yourself do these things. Now, as I always say, don't act foolishly. Don't walk naked and get arrested or tell your boss that he or she is a cuz that isn't going to work. But you do something that won't get a big penalty like you get up in public at a meeting like this and deliberately ask a foolish question, you see, and not feel ashamed. Or our usual one, you go to the in the subway, you yell out the stops at the top of your lungs, 40 seconds street, and not feel ashamed and work on that. But our best one which you've used for years now and hundreds and hundreds of people have done it and some felt ashamed and some didn't has now been improved because you go to a drug store in that one at a crowded hour and you say a very loud voice so everybody in the store can hear. I'd like a gross of condoms and since I use so many of them I should get a special discount. But now one of our therapists cuz we give it to our therapists to do so they can inflict it on others better. So one of our therapists now goes to his local drugstore in Seattle and says it in a loud voice so everybody in the store can hear, "I'd like a gross of small condiments." And then you can do our technique of recorded disputing. You take a tape recorder and you put on it again one of your crazy ideas. Whenever I do X, whatever it is, especially in public, like suppose you're playing a sport in public or you're at a cocktail party and you're in public. Whenever I do X, I have to do it well and have to do it perfectly well. And then you dispute right on the tape. You put that nutty idea on a tape recorder and you dispute it very vigorously. And then you listen and have your friends and relatives listen to how vigorously you did it. Because we find that at the beginning people do it very namby pamperly and they're saying well no I really don't have to do well at that speech or that tennis game and if I don't do well too bad but underneath they're really saying much stronger but I do then it doesn't work you see. So we want you to very vigorously look at your and very powerfully go against it. Then you can use again those coping statements that I told you about before. You write them down but you say them in a very very strong manner. Perfectionism is really really stupid. It will get me nowhere. I won't be a stupid person, but I will be acting idiotically if I keep this up. And I will learn much more by failing than by succeeding because when you fail, you'll learn what not to do the next time. Uh making poor decisions is the human condition. I'm still a human. I still have not yet reached godhood and it's going to take me a few more days to do it. So I accept myself as human. So I'll always be imperfect and will often screw up. So you do that. Then you can use paradox and humor because when you're a perfectionist, you lose your sense of humor almost completely and just go off. So you can deliberately do things poorly and I usually quote Oscar Wild in this respect that anything is worth doing is worth doing badly just because it's worth doing. So you do things poorly deliberately and show yourself that you can not just act poorly that you're talented at and easily can but that you can accept yourself with that poor behavior. You can say negative things about yourself to others that you wouldn't normally do. And you can do foolish things like talking too much deliberately with some people and show yourself that yes, some of them will run away screaming and some of them won't run away screaming, but you never have to scream at yourself. And you look at what you do in a humorous manner and even use, as I'll show you a little later, some of our rational humorous songs. So these are some of the main emotive, evocative, dramatic things you can do.

But how about behaviorally? Because again, whenever you feel terribly badly, usually selfdowning off the wall, it's because you're thinking stupid, usually musting thoughts, and because you're behaving. They're the all three. You think and feel and behave interactionally. You don't do any one of them purely. So we always have a host of behavioral methods where you act against your perfectionism either emotively as I just showed you or just act against it consistently and powerfully and you let yourself make mistakes deliberately. Do some things very rapidly that normally you would take a long long time doing knowing that you will make mistakes doing them. Take risks. Don't jump off a cliff. Not that kind of risk, but really risk screwing up with friends or new acquaintances and show yourself that whatever they think of you, they're probably exaggerating. If they put you down because your performance again may be really exempable, but you are never your performance. You are a human who performed badly that time. And if they really hate you or lose all respect for you, then they're thinking crookedly and that's their problem. and stay in often in rotten situations where you're really having a hard job getting through a course for example or learning a new job or something like that. Don't cop out. Don't run away because then you take your fear or your horror or your anger with you. So you stay often in rotten situations where you're not doing well until you get over your disturbance about it. then maybe you do better or maybe you decide it's not for you. If you really are very poor at some job then you don't have to stay. But for a while don't cop out because then as I said you take your horror with you. You can use as we use reinforcement whenever you act imperfectly. take a risk and act imperfectly instead of waiting for the perfect time to make a decision or ask somebody for a date or go for a job whenever you act imperfectly. You can actually give yourself a reward, a reinforcement for acting imperfectly because you're going to resist doing so and therefore you reward yourself. And when you act don't act that way when you don't take risks at all then you actually can give yourself a penalty something that you abhore you make yourself do that abhorren thing when you're non risktaking when you're sticking to the perfectionism when you're copying out or when you're compulsively doing a paper over and over or preparing a speech for days and days and days or working on a chapter of a book perfectly, you penalize yourself. You give yourself a limited length of time and whenever you go over that, you actually penalize yourself.

But mainly you go back again to your belief system and you think more philosophically and you think about you just don't parent various philosophies such as that many things are bad. I do them or people do them to me that nothing is terrible and awful. They're only as I said before a royal pain in the ass. No one is perfect as far as I know, including including including me. If I really were perfect, then I would often antagonize people. And as I said before, that would be boring. Perfectionism does lead again to disapproval very often, probably more often than not because people are not going to take you as perfect, which you're not going to be, or even demanding that perfectionism is inefficient. Most people stupidly think that if I'm a perfectionist, I'm going to do things better. But they won't. They'll do it more inefficiently. Perfectionism satis sabotages happiness and very very frequently leads to real panic and depression and if I demand perfectionism of others as I'd better not that will ruin relationships is one of the most easy ways easier way to do it and it leads to hatred feuds wars etc. And again what I said before, the more that I damn myself for my imperfect behavior, the more imperfectly and even badly I'll act. But even when if it did prod me on, I'm no good for failing and then that prodded me on which it sometimes will to succeed more. I'll be really anxious and unenjoying while I'm doing the thing and most of the time actually I will do it worse not better because I'll be again worried so much I got to do it perfectly well I got to do it without errors etc that I'll be focused on my imperfections and then sometimes compulsively do them over and over and beat myself and beat myself and Then get back to what I said earlier in this session, this talk. Get back to the damning myself for damning myself, damning myself for making myself anxious and horrified and terrified and depressed and then getting nowhere. Thank you.