Ellen Hendriksen — How to Be Enough: Self-Criticism and Perfectionism Unpacked

[00:00:00] Ellen Hendriksen: The other lever I can pull is acceptance. And there we can change our relationship to self-criticism. So those of us with some perfectionism are highly conscientious people. That is the healthy heart of perfectionism. And so that means we take things seriously, but it also means that we take our self-critical thoughts and feelings like really seriously and sometimes literally. And so, there’s a technique called Cognitive Defusion where we can play with our self-critical thoughts and make them like a little bit ridiculous or a little bit irreverent in order to emphasize that they are just thoughts. They’re not reality or truth, they’re thoughts. And so I have learned to take the stance to my self-critical thoughts, I don’t have to take that content seriously and literally I can change my relationship to the self-criticism.

[00:00:51] Intro: Do you think money takes up more life space than it should? On this show, [00:01:00] we discuss with and share stories from artists, authors, entrepreneurs, and advisors about how they mindfully minimize the time and energies. Spent thinking about money. Join your host, Jonathan DeYoe, and learn how to put money in its place and get more out of life.

[00:01:24] Jonathan DeYoe: Hey, welcome back. On this episode of The Mindful Money Podcast

[00:01:27] Jonathan DeYoe: I’m chatting with Dr. Ellen Hendriksen. Dr. Hendriksen is a clinical psychologist who will help you calm your anxiety and be your authentic self. She serves on the faculty at Boston University Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, CARD, and her scientifically based zero judgment approach has been featured across the media spectrum.

[00:01:47] Jonathan DeYoe: Her previous book, How to Be Yourself, it was one of the reasons where I first ran across her work. And the most recent book she wrote called How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists it’s kind of why I [00:02:00] wanted to have her on the podcast. This certainly applies to me and much of the Mindful Money audience.

[00:02:05] Jonathan DeYoe: So I’m really looking forward to your insight Dr. Hendriksen. So welcome to the Mindful Money Podcast.

[00:02:10] Ellen Hendriksen: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

[00:02:12] Jonathan DeYoe: First, where do you call home and where are you connecting from?

[00:02:15] Ellen Hendriksen: Sure. So my adopted hometown is where I am right now, which is Cambridge, Massachusetts. But I grew up in suburban Houston.

[00:02:24] Jonathan DeYoe: That’s a change.

[00:02:25] Ellen Hendriksen: So it’s a really different world. So the reason we were in suburban Houston is that, uh, my father worked as a chemist for an oil company. So all roads lead to Texas when you work in oil.

[00:02:37] Ellen Hendriksen: and, you know, they were also my parents. I think were just reacting to the times. My dad is probably one of the, you know, last of a generation where you worked at one company for your entire career. He’s, I think, one of the last, you know, professionals to have a pension. , But in addition, I think it also speaks to my parents’, , values as to.

[00:02:55] Ellen Hendriksen: Why we went there and why, you know, over the course of his career, they moved, I think, three [00:03:00] times to stay with that company. So my mother grew up poor in Hawaii. My father’s father was an accounting professor. So they were both attuned to financial stability, , in really different ways. But, you know, for each of them, it really was a guiding value.

[00:03:14] Ellen Hendriksen: And so I think for them, like job security stand with the same company, you know, meant financial stability. So they were willing to uproot themselves and, you know. Go to suburban Texas, which is an even longer way from Hawaii, , to stay with the same company and to, , have that stability.

[00:03:30] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, stability was important like three generations ago. Now it’s like, how do we, how do we make ends meet? So

[00:03:35] Ellen Hendriksen: Right,

[00:03:35] Jonathan DeYoe: What sort of lessons did you learn about money growing up?

[00:03:38] Ellen Hendriksen: it’s, so it’s been really interesting watching my parents evolve because, I had two professional parents. My mom was a teacher again, dad was a chemist, so we were, you know, comfortable middle class, maybe upper middle class. But, , I grew up definitely watching them sort of over save and maybe.

[00:03:57] Ellen Hendriksen: Under live a little bit. I don’t wanna put [00:04:00] any moral judgment on that. they were absolutely reacting to their own upbringings and the situations they were in. so I, I also wanna preface and say like, we, you know, we did have vacations. We, could go out to eat, but when we went on vacation, it was only to visit family.

[00:04:15] Ellen Hendriksen: that was the purpose of vacation. Or when we went out to eat, we only ordered an entree. Like I didn’t realize until I was an adult that you could get a drink or an appetizer. And so I think I, I, again, we were comfortable, but I saw them, err on the side of saving and frugality and it’s really been nice to see them evolve.

[00:04:34] Ellen Hendriksen: and finally now in their seventies, they are traveling. And just last weekend.

[00:04:40] Ellen Hendriksen: Came home from London where they had visited. So I’m seeing them enjoy their life and my partner and I, we try to sort of strike the balance. He comes from a family that spent and so we are, trying to find a middle path, a third way, as it were.

[00:04:56] Ellen Hendriksen: That works for both of us.

[00:04:58] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. I’m [00:05:00] wondering, do, do you have any like really specific. as a child of maybe discussions between parents around money, or was it always just frugal or,

[00:05:08] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah. No, it was, it was always implicit. It was never really explicit. I think, I don’t remember ever having a conversation about money. Like there was no, like, this is what we do, or this is how you live. It was just by example and, and me watching them, I don’t think I knew either of their salaries until life.

[00:05:27] Ellen Hendriksen: You know, filled out college applications on a typewriter, and applied for financial aid and had to, had to know those numbers. But yeah, nothing was ever really talked about. It was just by example.

[00:05:37] Jonathan DeYoe: Just really quick, paint us the picture of the career arc. Like , how do you get to be clinical psychologist and start worrying about anxiety and then thinking about what’s it like to be enough, how, what’s the arc to get

[00:05:47] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah, for sure. So, , weirdly I thought I was gonna be an architect, so I went through college, you know, took some architecture classes, built a portfolio, , took every. Architectural history [00:06:00] class my college offered. And then I was working at an urban design firm after graduation and realized this is not for me.

[00:06:07] Ellen Hendriksen: And so I reflected on, you know, my young life at that point and realized that I had, I. Double majored in Psychology for Fun, and I had participated in and then coordinated a peer counseling program in college again for fun. And so if I looked at my behavior, I could discern that I was interested in psychology, so I changed everything and.

[00:06:35] Ellen Hendriksen: Decided to move across the country and changed my career and ended up, , on the advice of a friend working at a community health center for a psychologist who was doing work at the intersection of mental and physical health. So he was working with folks who had HIV and also had depression, and he treated their depression.

[00:06:58] Ellen Hendriksen: With cognitive behavioral therapy, [00:07:00] and lo and behold, their biological numbers, their HIV stats got better. So viral load went down, CD fours went up and I was hooked. I thought this was the coolest thing I had ever seen. So I, you know, went through grad school and then, , kind of , pivoted my way from, , HIV and depression to other areas of the intersection of mental and physical health.

[00:07:21] Ellen Hendriksen: So, worked at, , on ADHD and. , Diabetes for a while and then moved on to a project about, cancer and anxiety. And when I got to anxiety, I said, oh, these are my people. This, I understand. I can relate here. And, and so, Am now in the anxiety world. You know, I work at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, and I can treat, you know, all anxiety disorders, but I super specialize in social anxiety and perfectionism, as you mentioned,

[00:07:55] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. as an anxiety specialist, so you’ve written things [00:08:00] like, Around isn’t about money, or isn’t just about money. So give us like a deeper understanding of what gets pulled into this anxiety we have about money.

[00:08:08] Ellen Hendriksen: Oh, for sure. Oh my goodness, so much. How much time do we have? So, , . As an anxiety therapist, I will often see that money is a standin for something else. That money might be a standin for. Respect from one’s parents or for financial stability or for earning love? Like I’ll just give you one story.

[00:08:32] Ellen Hendriksen: I worked with a client who we will call Sam. I’m gonna change everybody’s name, and he was a successful physician, but was convinced that. His family only valued him for the dollars that he brought in, there was a lot of evidence to the contrary, like it was clear that, you know, his, he did not this, this worry was really unfounded, but he felt that the [00:09:00] only value that he could bring his family was a paycheck, and so it caused him to double down on.

[00:09:08] Ellen Hendriksen: bringing in as much money as he can. And actually ended up sort of, it backfired because then he didn’t spend time with them, would forego vacations with them, , really sort of isolated himself within his own family, all because he thought that that’s all that he could offer, even though they were readily asking like, Hey, come hang out with us.

[00:09:27] Ellen Hendriksen: Like, the kids wanted to be with him, et cetera. So I think, money can often be a stand in for something else.

[00:09:35] Jonathan DeYoe: you could not have picked a better example. That is me, is this a cultural thing or , is this something that I got from my parents and the client got from his parents?

[00:09:43] Jonathan DeYoe: Or where does this come from?

[00:09:45] Ellen Hendriksen: So I think if you can picture sort of like a, a series of concentric circles, like, like, you know, bullseye, I think it can come from a lot of different layers. So Honestly, I think there’s probably some sort of genetic bent.

[00:09:58] Ellen Hendriksen: There is probably some sort of, and [00:10:00] we can talk about this later, that the healthy heart of perfectionism is conscientiousness, which is a tendency to do things well and thoroughly, a tendency to care, deeply to be diligent and responsible. So there’s probably some kind of just internal wiring that makes us sort of singularly focused or maybe a little bit over responsible in our role.

[00:10:22] Ellen Hendriksen: As a provider, if that is our role. So genetics absolutely can come from family of origin. So in my client’s example of the example I just gave, , he came from a family where. , Love was contingent upon performance. And so, for example, , growing up in school, , his mother would sit next to him as he practiced his penmanship and slap his hand , if she perceived that there was a mistake.

[00:10:49] Ellen Hendriksen: So he, , Grew up thinking that your. positive regard that love, , is really contingent on how well you perform. And as a, grown man in the, in the world, [00:11:00] his way of performing was, he thought to, bring in income, In addition, it can absolutely have roots in culture.

[00:11:08] Ellen Hendriksen: I have had clients who have attributed some of their tendencies to, you know, generations of like Hardy Scotsman’s or , just different, I think family. I. Cultures and, not getting into stereotyping, but, cultures can definitely, trickle down through the generations and, instill certain values that sometimes can calcify into rules.

[00:11:30] Jonathan DeYoe: There’s a joke in my family, that do men just work and when we run into a problem, whether it’s, a problem in the soccer league or a problem at the Boy Scout troop or a problem in the church. We always step in and we try to fix it, try to make sure everyone gets respected and everyone gets their, I watched my father do this my whole life and everything that he did, like he, he would wanna step in and run it.

[00:11:54] Jonathan DeYoe: Like, I, I’ll do this better, like always. . Later in life, he doesn’t feel successful. And he’s like [00:12:00] dealing with what I, not a diagnose, but I would look at him and say, he’s kind of depressed. Like he, he didn’t really put it all in. And I see that in myself. Like I, I wanna step in and fix, I wanna step in and make it better and produce, and produce and perform.

[00:12:13] Jonathan DeYoe: And perform and perform. I have been blaming this on culture, and I have been personally blaming this on frankly, social media and my feeds. Do you see this getting worse because of the social media, , construction of what we, you know, who we are in the world?

[00:12:31] Ellen Hendriksen: So, absolutely. Yeah. Social media, the cultural environment absolutely. , Is shaping our reactions so everybody reacts to the situations they’re put in and. There was a really interesting study that came out in 2019 by the researchers, doctors, Andrew Hill and Thomas Curran, and they looked at 27 years of data and found that perfectionism is increasing over time.

[00:12:58] Ellen Hendriksen: Again, perfectionism can come from [00:13:00] within like our genetics or you know, our immediate environment, like how we were raised, but it can definitely come from the culture all. Around us. And so when we are put into a culture that is ratings driven, optimization focused, when we see the highlight reel on social media and we compare our ups and downs to everyone else’s ups, of course we’re gonna come out of an environment like that.

[00:13:30] Ellen Hendriksen: Feeling not good enough.

[00:13:32] Jonathan DeYoe: And you talk about over evaluation and, and I think that, in this culture where, and, and we talk about perfectionism, but it’s also, I. I think we see more and more and more of us judge ourselves based on our financial ability. the stuff I see on their social media feed is more like the, private jet and the beautiful car and the vacation on the sunny beach and that kinda stuff.

[00:13:52] Jonathan DeYoe: I don’t see the, the couple of friends just sitting around talking about stuff. Like that’s where the real meaning comes from. So because of that, it’s like [00:14:00] money is the thing that we begin to judge ourselves on. How much are we seeing that in the data? does that make sense?

[00:14:06] Jonathan DeYoe: Does the question make sense?

[00:14:07] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah, like if, we are seeing again, the highlights or we’re seeing what. Money can buy. Like we see the performance as it were, so the, the performance of, you know, going on vacation or being able to buy a fancy car or whatnot. But we can’t see, nor is social media design to allow us to see the relationships or the connection or the service or, other, baskets, you know, besides.

[00:14:39] Ellen Hendriksen: besides performance that we can put eggs into, is that what you’re

[00:14:43] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah, exactly. the value is based on their promotion. The raise, if they have a certain amount of money saved or you know, versus their peers and it’s like they, they use the money as the marker for I am successful.

[00:14:54] Ellen Hendriksen: Yes, totally. Yeah. And that’s exactly what, you beat me to it. You used the term, over [00:15:00] evaluation, which I have found a lot of people are not familiar with. So I can just define it for our listeners. So over evaluation is when our. worth becomes contingent upon our performance.

[00:15:12] Ellen Hendriksen: It’s when we start to conflate our, you know, self-evaluation with the evaluation of our performance. And we think we can be good or worthy by doing things well. And this can certainly go beyond money. It could absolutely include money, like, you know. Hitting, you know, six figures or a salary or, or, whatnot.

[00:15:32] Ellen Hendriksen: But it could also be, you know, did I hit the dean’s list? Did I get my goal weight? Did I come off as socially confident? Or at least not, you know, weird and awkward at the party? you know, do I keep my house presentable enough so that people won’t criticize me? Do I follow the rules of good parenting?

[00:15:46] Ellen Hendriksen: There are so many ways that we can conflate our self-evaluation with our performance, but it really boils down to, forgive my grammar, but it’s when I do good. I am good and when I do bad, I am [00:16:00] bad.

[00:16:00] Jonathan DeYoe: Is there a way to avoid that conflation of Do am.

[00:16:04] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah, for sure. So, okay. I think we’re never gonna separate that, Venn diagram overlap completely. You know, there is absolutely going to be some overlap as there should be. We’re going to be proud of doing a good job. We’re going to be bummed when, you know, things don’t go as we wished. But I think that what is driving, Bit of a perfectionism epidemic is really that overlap of those two circles in that Venn diagram. So we can definitely try to separate them out, a little bit if we think that they are overlapping a little too much.

[00:16:44] Jonathan DeYoe: I think this ties in, like we hear this word values a lot, especially in money conversations, but it can get kind of vague. Can you help us kind of draw the line between values and rules? How can someone begin to shift from following the rigid rules, the shoulds [00:17:00] towards making more values, personal values, choices?

[00:17:03] Ellen Hendriksen: Definitely. Okay. So yeah, ’cause your original question was like, how do we separate that over evaluation? So one of the ways can absolutely be shifting from rules to values and I. Rules are particularly important in perfectionism because those of us who you know, are familiar with some perfectionism, we wanna know the rules so we can follow them. And then some listeners might resonate with this.

[00:17:27] Ellen Hendriksen: I know I certainly do. If there are no rules, we make up our own personally demanding rules and then follow those. So like, think about, you know, making up rules for how to eat healthy or you know, like a how to train for A 5K and those rules are not necessarily bad. You know, structure is very helpful.

[00:17:46] Ellen Hendriksen: Uh, you know, rules can take away anxiety by increasing certainty. It’s when three things happen that they start to get in our way. And one is that, uh, imper perfectionism, we tend to get a little bit rigid with our rules. We try to apply them [00:18:00] no matter the situation. So we try to follow our rules for healthy eating, even on Thanksgiving.

[00:18:05] Ellen Hendriksen: Two is that we let the rules go, sort of all or nothing. If we follow the rules acceptably, you know, we are acceptable If we slip or mess up in the slightest like that, takes us from all to nothing. So like, I ate a cookie, so I’m bad. And then third. Is where rules get in the way is when we impose our rules on other people and that can get in the way of our relationships.

[00:18:28] Ellen Hendriksen: So, for instance, you know, in our house there’s a, I know the right way to load the dishwasher, but my husband, you know, seems to think that he knows the right way to load the dishwasher. So, so it’s when we impose our rules on other people that that can get a little messy. Okay, so, that was defining rules for you and so.

[00:18:47] Ellen Hendriksen: We can try to shift this over to values. And you’re right, this is a word that gets thrown around a lot, so we can dig into that. so values, are you a person’s principles, a sense [00:19:00] of what’s important or meaningful? I get the following definition from doctors Michael to Higg and Clarissa Ong. , And they defined.

[00:19:10] Ellen Hendriksen: Values as being continuous, so you’re never done living a value. So value, value’s different than a goal. So like, you know, ger to our conversation, making a million dollars is, is a goal. But you know, wealth or financial security might be a value. That’s something that we’re never done. Pursuing or practicing. Second values are intrinsically meaningful, meaning you would care about them even if no one else ever knew. So like getting famous, you know, is not a value, but like putting the work, doing excellent work is. Third is values are under your control, so they’re not contingent upon anyone else. So like being loved is not necessarily a value, but being loving.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Ellen Hendriksen: Is, and then finally, and I think this is the most important part, is that values are freely chosen, is that values are never coercive or obligatory. So like we freely choose to follow them and we might even be willing to tolerate, you know, some discomfort. Or some inconvenience in order to, you know, follow our value.

[00:20:19] Ellen Hendriksen: So this is a example I use, but I think it, it works well. Um, for instance, like the value of giving back might be why you’re willing to give up your Saturday morning to go volunteer to pick up trash on the beach. Rather than say you’re spending the day relaxing on the beach, but the sense of values being freely chosen is, is what differentiates that them from rules.

[00:20:42] Ellen Hendriksen: If you feel obligated or coerced or forced into doing something, I have to a should. It’s functioning as a rule. And the story I like to give to illustrate this is I had a client who said through a combination of God and my mother, I was taught to be [00:21:00] generous. She said that the way that that was functioning in her child at home is that if a neighbor asked her to babysit, if, um, somebody on the street asked her for a dollar, she had to do it.

[00:21:14] Ellen Hendriksen: It was functioning as a rule. And so that was really different than the, you know, the actual spirit of Okay. I’ve said a lot, so I’m gonna, I’ll, I’ll stop there and then we can go into other ways to separate out that those two overlapping circles of over evaluation.

[00:21:30] Jonathan DeYoe: I’m wondering, so that, , do we all start with this idea of what our values are, whether that’s culture or family of origin or genetic, we have this idea of values and it becomes our rules. how do we, once we have all these rules established.

[00:21:44] Jonathan DeYoe: Once we know, ’cause there are now rules like I, I know I’m doing wrong now or right now. , , how do I unwind that and say, Hey, let’s get back to my values. How do I discover, how do I do a, a, a new self-discovery of values?

[00:21:55] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah, for sure. So I think it, it really hinges on that [00:22:00] idea of being chosen because interestingly, when we shift from rules to values, our overt behavior might not change at all. It might just be driven by sort of a deeper current underneath it. So, , an example might be that if I am trying to be a good friend.

[00:22:16] Ellen Hendriksen: But I am following rules about being a good friend. I might think that I have to remember my friend’s birthday to add value to the conversations that we have to bring her, maybe to surprise her with her favorite coffee order. You know, when we go for a walk. But if I am switching to a value of being attentive to my friend or being supportive of my friend, again, something, being a good friend, that that’s something that that never really ends.

[00:22:48] Ellen Hendriksen: I might still remember her birthday, listen mindfully, talk about interest, things that are interesting to her, I might do all the same things, but if it’s not, if it’s driven by, [00:23:00] I want to do this, I choose to do this, as opposed to I have to do this, I must do this, then I know that I am, , living by values as opposed to rules.

[00:23:10] Jonathan DeYoe: Are there outward markers of , it’s interesting because I, I think I, I’m not sure now that we’re talking about this, I’m not sure I, I have values, I. And I’m certain they’ve become rules. And, and I think oftentimes, right? Oftentimes I think I’m, I’m behaving out of rules. Have you ever read the book?

[00:23:26] Jonathan DeYoe: This is like 25 years ago. I just saw a photo of this book, who Moved My Cheese?

[00:23:29] Jonathan DeYoe: Right? If there’s a way, that it was supposed to be done in the past or I did it in the past, that’s the way I’m supposed to do it

[00:23:34] Jonathan DeYoe: now. And so I, I, and then if I have to change it, it, it kind of disturbs my equilibrium, right?

[00:23:38] Jonathan DeYoe: So I’m the rules. Take fewer cycles for me to think about. , We’re not gonna apply rules. It simplifies. I don’t have to, oh, what are my values? Right? So, how do I know I’m living from rules or living from values?

[00:23:51] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah, I think it shifts from, with rules, I think it shifts from did I achieve the thing to under values, am I living the life I choose to live? [00:24:00] Am I being the person I want to be? So , I think it switches from, I have to.

[00:24:05] Ellen Hendriksen: Two. I choose two.

[00:24:06] Jonathan DeYoe: you, you’re aware of that internally. There isn’t an external viewpoint of that.

[00:24:11] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah. No, the, experience starts to shift when you are living by the rules of, you know, must, should versus choose

[00:24:22] Ellen Hendriksen: something that often will muddy the waters here is that there’s often an expectation of, if I. Live by my values, I’ll feel great. And that’s not necessarily the case.

[00:24:33] Ellen Hendriksen: So I’ll give you an example of a client who we will call Steven. So he was trying to follow the rule of I need to prove myself a work. You know, I’m gonna, show that I belong there. I’m gonna, you know, prove myself. so he found himself, Working after dinner. You know, he would miss out on Kid Bathtime and bedtime to go check his email.

[00:24:56] Ellen Hendriksen: He would be on the phone, uh, with, you [00:25:00] know, colleagues when he was standing on the sidelines of his son’s soccer game. And he really wanted to follow the value of being attentive to his son to being a good father. And so he decided to choose to. Focus on his son, like to, to do bathtime, do bedtime, like focus on the soccer game.

[00:25:23] Ellen Hendriksen: But that meant that when he was standing on the sidelines and he felt his phone buzz in his pocket or he was still working when it was time to go do kid bathtime, like he was gonna feel uncomfortable. Like It came packaged with some anxiety, some guilt, and. What we settled on was if you are going to feel uncomfortable either way, you might as well feel uncomfortable following your values.

[00:25:50] Ellen Hendriksen: So I think, yeah, there’s often an expectation of, you know, if I’m true to myself, if I live my values, I’ll feel amazing. But values are often in conflict , living our values often costs, you [00:26:00] know, yeah, something else. They come bundled with negative emotion. But yeah, again, if we’re gonna feel uncomfortable, we might as well.

[00:26:07] Ellen Hendriksen: Do it while being the person we wanna be living, the life we wanna live.

[00:26:10] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. I like that. So, so you described, perfectionism and sort of relational patterns. You know, something that. Shows up in how we present ourselves, in the financial space. I see this a lot. Like people feel like they have to look a certain way to show that they’re thriving, even if they’re struggling.

[00:26:27] Jonathan DeYoe: So how does perfectionism and this self presentation isolate us and how do we bridge this so that we’re like, oh, I’m okay. You’re okay. Kind of a thing.

[00:26:36] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah. So, uh, there is a phenomenon called perfectionistic self presentation. And that is, you know, exactly what it sounds like where we, show what’s going well and we hide what’s going poorly. And what we’re doing there is we’re trying to keep ourselves socially safe by putting our best foot forward by hiding the mess.

[00:26:55] Ellen Hendriksen: But then we might come across as. Sometimes unrelatable, [00:27:00] intimidating, maybe superhuman rather than human, or, you know, kind of phony, kind of fake. And that is what keeps us isolated and

[00:27:08] Jonathan DeYoe: Hmm.

[00:27:09] Ellen Hendriksen: So in the book, I say, perfectionism might look like a personal problem, but really it’s an interpersonal problem because we’re all trying to, you know, rise to the top of the heat.

[00:27:18] Ellen Hendriksen: But then when we are on that pedestal to mix my metaphors, you know, we’re kind of on an island like we might be singular. But we’re separate I had a client who we will call. Discuss and he came in to try to optimize his performance at work, which it was immediately sort of a flag, , that he had some perfectionism going on, and we determined that he was so focused on performance, , that , he was, yeah, feeling really disconnected from his team and his.

[00:27:49] Ellen Hendriksen: Colleagues. So his perfectionist self presentation really manifested as like over preparing an over practicing presentation to the point where like they came off almost as wooden. [00:28:00] And another behavior he would do before meetings where he would present, he would like stand at the podium silently rehearsing his slides, and just to kind of ignore the people who filed in.

[00:28:10] Ellen Hendriksen: And then the third thing he did is when he gave his presentation, he would sort of perform his slides. Like didn’t really matter who was in the room there was no connection between him and the audience. So we tried to. Add on, not only competence, which is one of the ways where, you know, humans evaluate each other, but we tried to add on the other dimension of how humans evaluate each other, which is warmth.

[00:28:33] Ellen Hendriksen: So there’s competence and warmth. Everybody with perfectionism thinks that others are judging us on competence. But they’re actually looking for us to be warm, to be

[00:28:45] Ellen Hendriksen: friendly,

[00:28:46] Ellen Hendriksen: to be kind. And so he, , instead of, you know, silently rehearsing his slides as people filed in, he greeted them by name. He rolled back the over preparing and the over practicing to, you know, not a [00:29:00] 180, not winging it, , just trying to.

[00:29:02] Ellen Hendriksen: Figure it out on the fly. But he rolled back the over preparation and over practice to just preparation and practice. And then most importantly, I think when he presented, he really focused on sharing his knowledge, sharing the story with the energy of like, look at this cool rock. I found like rather than trying to perform his slides with no mistakes, as like Gus the impressive expert.

[00:29:24] Ellen Hendriksen: So to wrap it up, when he was using perfectionistic self presentation, yeah, he avoided. Mistakes. But he also missed out on the connection and trust, with his colleagues.

[00:29:38] Jonathan DeYoe: I think there’s a Maya Angelou quote that goes right in here perfectly. people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. I think

[00:29:44] Jonathan DeYoe: that’s Maya Angelou.

[00:29:45] Ellen Hendriksen: Yes, yes, yes, yes. There’s one, I don’t know if this is her, but it’s essentially, , people, I’m gonna butcher this, but if paraphrased it’s people will only remember how you made them feel.

[00:29:56] Jonathan DeYoe: Yeah. Yeah,

[00:29:56] Ellen Hendriksen: yeah, everybody wants to be competent, for sure. And [00:30:00] yes, please do be competent.

[00:30:02] Ellen Hendriksen: And I think sometimes imper perfectionism, we forget about the warmth aspect,

[00:30:07] Jonathan DeYoe: as things have become. I don’t wanna say that things are so terrible today, and they’re so great in the past, but as things have become more corporatized and we have more metrics around our performance and what gets measured gets done and we’re measuring growth metrics and we’re measuring all of these things every single day and all of our employments.

[00:30:24] Jonathan DeYoe: So we just, we start to. You know, pile on. Like we measure, we measure, we measure, we measure, and it’s all about our performance. It’s all about bottom line, it’s all about, and we start losing connection with warmth and relation and,, happiness and wellbeing. And we start going all in on profitability, right?

[00:30:42] Jonathan DeYoe: , Maybe that’s just my, maybe that’s just my industry, but I’m wondering if that’s like a universal feeling.

[00:30:47] Ellen Hendriksen: Oh, for sure. Oh my gosh. Yeah. No, this is so common. It has a name. So, , the researcher, Andrew Hill, , has coined the term perfectionistic climate, which is a climate in which people perceive that performances must be [00:31:00] perfect and that less than perfect performances are unacceptable. And so when he originally was researching this idea, he was thinking more about, say, like the highest level of women’s gymnastics or like.

[00:31:11] Ellen Hendriksen: Symphony orchestra auditions or like the operating room, but it’s absolutely been creeping outward and, I think has taken over. Yeah, corporate life for sure. I would argue also that social media is a perfectionistic climate, and it makes sense, you know, in a hyper capitalistic culture.

[00:31:28] Ellen Hendriksen: , Where we are expected to perform and achieve and consume to ever higher levels to be sufficient as a person. Yeah. No wonder we’re responding by. Feeling like we’re not good enough. But I really wanna emphasize that this is a systems issue. I don’t think it’s realistic to expect individuals to feel safe and confident in a climate where mistakes are not allowed.

[00:31:49] Ellen Hendriksen: And you are harshly and personally criticized, you know, when they happen. So like perfectionists at climates are missing what is called psychological safety. And so now we’re getting into the [00:32:00] work of Dr. Amy Edmondson. .

[00:32:01] Ellen Hendriksen: Psychological safety is a team approach where everyone, like from the intern to the person in charge, , feels empowered to speak up and believes that they will not be punished or humiliated for doing so.

[00:32:14] Ellen Hendriksen: And she’s done some really nice work, , amongst, oh, I think this is her work, but I know there has been some work in psychological safety done among, , doctors. And if everybody in the operating room, if everybody in the ed, , is allowed to speak up, . , Better work gets done. And in climates where mistakes are not allowed, it’s not that they don’t happen, they just get pushed underground.

[00:32:35] Ellen Hendriksen: And so the best teams don’t actually make fewer mistakes. They just don’t push them underground. They’re willing to talk about them.

[00:32:42] Jonathan DeYoe: You talk about these circles before, concentric circles. I’m thinking Culturally, we’re all moving towards more perfectionism. so within that culture you have multiple different companies or organizations, whether it’s nonprofits or companies or whatever governments that are also moving towards more perfection.

[00:32:57] Jonathan DeYoe: ’cause that’s what the metrics do. We all, we all measure, [00:33:00] you know, outcomes. , , so within each of those organizations, companies, nonprofits, governments, individuals, , and individual departments are moving towards the perfectionism. So it’s almost impossible for, for me to break out of this perfectionism and say, no, no, I’m gonna do it this way.

[00:33:16] Jonathan DeYoe: I’m gonna look for enoughness. So how do I manage my own expectations of myself in the context of the organization? The, the, the department, the organization, the, the culture that I’m part of?

[00:33:28] Ellen Hendriksen: Yeah, sure. I think this is a really nice circle back to your, one of your first questions about to deal with the over evaluation. I’m glad we’re back to that. I think it’s really important not to lower our standards.

[00:33:40] Ellen Hendriksen: because the conventional advice for people with perfectionism has always been, well, you know, you have to lower your standards or like you have to stop when things are good enough. But When we are measured by our performance, we are absolutely not going to do that because then, accepting a subpar or mediocre performance means that we are subpar or [00:34:00] mediocre, right?

[00:34:00] Ellen Hendriksen: So we’re not, we are not gonna do that. But I think we can try to, Take our mistakes less personally. And by that I mean rather than thinking, oh, I did that terrible thing, we can take our emphasis off the I and put it on the thing.

[00:34:16] Ellen Hendriksen: I did that terrible thing. It’s, I messed that up. Versus I messed that up. We have to make room for inevitable mistakes. Not because we are incompetent or incapable, but simply because we are human. And I can tell you a story about, , a client I was working with. So she’s a pediatrician of 25 years and a, you know, very good one by, , all measures.

[00:34:41] Ellen Hendriksen: But she came in one week just kicking herself because she had misdiagnosed A little girl who came in with abdominal pain had sent her home saying it was constipation. Turned out to be appendicitis. Little girl had to go to the emergency room, had surgery was fine. But my client was just [00:35:00] lam basing herself over this mistake, and she was saying things like, I should get my head examined.

[00:35:05] Ellen Hendriksen: Maybe I should retire early. I’m a terrible doctor. Like really personal. And a harsh criticism of herself. And so we talked about, okay, over a 25 year career, what percentage of mistakes would you expect a colleague to make? And honestly, whatever number she came up with matters less than the fact that it is non-zero.

[00:35:30] Ellen Hendriksen: That please keep our high standards , , for listeners , in any field, you know, keep the high standards. Of course, you know, for my client. Her goal is to diagnose correctly, is to give the best care possible, but there is going to be inevitable room for mistakes. And so what we can do is we can create some wiggle room for that while keeping our high standards and to depersonalize it by taking the emphasis off the, the, you know, we made the mistake as opposed to we made the mistake.

[00:35:59] Ellen Hendriksen: One last thing we [00:36:00] can do to try to, , deal with that over evaluation is to. Affirm our truths about ourselves, even if it has nothing to do with the situation at hand. So this is the work of doctors Jeffrey Cohen and David Sherman. And an example might be like, say we give a presentation that goes.

[00:36:22] Ellen Hendriksen: Poorly, we might be tempted to reassure ourselves,, like, oh, well, you know, I’m actually smart, or like, I’m actually talented. Or to like, think about all the presentations in our past that have gone well. But like that type of reassurance often doesn’t, doesn’t work. , It feels hollow or, you know, insufficient.

[00:36:39] Ellen Hendriksen: So what we can do instead is focus on the things we know to be unquestionably true about ourselves, even if it has nothing to do with the task at hand. So. Like I was put on earth to help the less fortunate reading books makes my world go round. Dance is my passion. I’m an awesome dad. Or like anything else that we genuinely hold [00:37:00] dear can really shore up the story about ourselves and thicken our skin, which buffers against threat., The goal is not to like flatter ourselves, but is to maintain the overarching narrative of the adequacy of the self, and then that creates a buffer against again. The inevitable struggles and setbacks of life.

[00:37:21] Jonathan DeYoe: This is gonna be a weird question ’cause , my audience knows me, but I’m wondering in the world that seems to get more and more perfectionist, Is something like mindfulness meditation where you can sit and note the feelings and not necessarily react to them, but enable a response that seems more intelligent.

[00:37:41] Jonathan DeYoe: You know, use your frontal cortex instead of your amygdala. , , is that enough or not is enough, but is it helpful? is that a fundamental scientific basis for meditation?

[00:37:50] Ellen Hendriksen: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. So as a, you know, anxiety therapist, , I have essentially two levers I can pull, I can pull change. So like, let’s take [00:38:00] self-criticism so we can try to challenge the content. Of the self-criticism, we can try to change , how we think itself or, and I think this is what you’re referring to is, the other lever I can pull is acceptance.

[00:38:14] Ellen Hendriksen: And there we can change our relationship. To self-criticism. So for example, like those of us with some perfectionism are highly conscientious people. That is the healthy heart of perfectionism. And so that means we take things seriously, but it also means that we take our self-critical thoughts and feelings like really seriously and sometimes literally.

[00:38:37] Ellen Hendriksen: And like that, you know, can make us perseverate or spiral or like get all tangled up in the content of our self-criticism. And so, there’s a technique called Cognitive Defusion where we can sort of. Play with our self-critical thoughts and make them like a little bit ridiculous or a little bit irreverent in order to emphasize that they are just thoughts.

[00:38:58] Ellen Hendriksen: They’re not reality or truth, [00:39:00] they’re thoughts. And so, for example, I have a client who, , likes to picture animal from the Muppets, , beating his drum set and yelling his thought, which is everyone will judge you. Or he has a, I have another client whose thought is you are gonna let everyone down. And she has put it to a little tune and she sings it to herself whenever it pops into her head.

[00:39:23] Ellen Hendriksen: She also pictures it written on a coffee mug and pictures herself like taking a sip from it. So you know, we can kind of play with our self-critical or over evaluative. Thoughts. , That’s one. And then second is, and this, this is what I tend to do, , is I try to live by the book’s subtitle, , you know, self-acceptance for self Critics.

[00:39:44] Ellen Hendriksen: And for me, self-acceptance means I know that my. Brain just tends to be a little bit more self-critical, like some brains are wired to be optimistic or pessimistic. Some brains are wired to be introverted or extroverted. Some brains are just wired to be a little more [00:40:00] self-critical. And so my brain is that way.

[00:40:01] Ellen Hendriksen: And so I have learned to take the stance to my self-critical thoughts, kind of like the, I listen to the music in a coffee shop, you know, or like music at a grocery store. Like I can hear it like it’s still there. But like, I don’t have to like dance along or like, you know, take the lyrics to heart. I don’t have to listen to it, even if it’s still present around me.

[00:40:22] Ellen Hendriksen: I don’t have to take that content seriously and literally I can change my relationship to the self-criticism

[00:40:29] Jonathan DeYoe: So there’s a ton of noise out there. And I think we touched on sort of a nugget here. And so , if you’re talking to somebody that is like you, I think like me, a little bit more self-critical, what’s something that they can do? What’s like a practice they can do today to, begin to unwind that perfectionism, you know, leading towards self-criticism.

[00:40:46] Ellen Hendriksen: So yeah, for a self-critical mind, like self-compassion is a word that we often hear thrown around. and I think that it is particularly powerful because self-compassion is three things.

[00:40:58] Ellen Hendriksen: So this is according to Dr. Kristen [00:41:00] Neff, it’s self-kindness. Non-judgmental mindfulness and connection to the larger human experience. But I really wanna, say that the perfectionistic brain is reverse threaded for all three of those things. You know, instead of self-kindness, we are wired to be self-critical instead of non-judgmental mindfulness, you know, we can definitely be judgmental.

[00:41:19] Ellen Hendriksen: We zero in on flaws and details and mistakes, and instead of connecting to the larger human experience, we see our struggles and mistakes as shortcomings. That set us apart and make us inadequate rather than as common experiences that, you know, everybody struggles. Everybody, is having a hard time.

[00:41:37] Ellen Hendriksen: Everybody has got their thing. , , and that connects us to others. So for me, , self-compassion was hard because I also to put on top of all those three reverse threaded things, I. Was taught that self-compassion was talking to yourself as if you were talking to a good friend. But then my perfectionistic brain thought that I [00:42:00] had to hype myself up with like steady, complete paragraphs of like self-compassionate hype and like that was way too high a bar.

[00:42:08] Ellen Hendriksen: So, uh, I think something that we can do today is know that self-compassion. Doesn’t have to be thinking at all. Self-compassion can be actions, and it could be as small as like just taking a moment to literally breathe. When we’re stressed, it can be asking for help. It can be taking a break. But I think more important, self-compassion can be permission not to do everything we expect of ourselves.

[00:42:37] Ellen Hendriksen: So like for example, some days self-compassion. You know, turning towards our pain and suffering. Ask what do I need right now? Some days it might be taking ourselves to the gym because we know from experience we’ll feel better afterwards, but it can also be permission not to go to the gym because what we really need is an extra hour of sleep.

[00:42:59] Ellen Hendriksen: So [00:43:00] again, all in all self-compassion can be actions, doesn’t have to be words at all. It’s just turning towards our pain and asking what do I need? With care and understanding and providing that to ourselves.

[00:43:11] Jonathan DeYoe: many of the conversations I have in this podcast end with this idea, or not end with, but come up with this idea that you have to have some self-awareness. if you come to the place where you ask yourself the question, what do I need in this circumstance? You have to be able to sense into yourself to know what the answer might be, and then you have to be able to answer, okay, I can provide this.

[00:43:31] Jonathan DeYoe: Like I can, I can give myself an extra hour of sleep. I can, whatever the thing might be. , I think there’s this onslaught of information and there’s social media and there’s so much other media and there’s people around us and everyone’s depending on us. It’s very difficult, I think, to practice this regular self-awareness.

[00:43:47] Jonathan DeYoe: , So I just would hope people would use this as kind of an inspiration to, yeah. Sit down for five or 10 or 15 minutes a day and just take that time and just be, you know, go inside and, and, and take a minute and meditate or mindfulness or pray or whatever your thing [00:44:00] is. No judgment on the thing. Just do the thing.

[00:44:03] Ellen Hendriksen: Absolutely. Yeah., I would add to that, that, you know, self-acceptance is also recognizing who you are. You know, your personality traits, your physical body, your emotional tendencies, personal history that made you who you are today, and it’s really understanding and honoring your strengths and weaknesses without.

[00:44:22] Ellen Hendriksen: Turning it into self-judgment or self-criticism. ’cause I mean, we all have tendencies wired in us that make our lives harder. But when we are willing to have them, it reduces our suffering. And that, you know, more than one thing can be true. We can ourselves and want to change or improve. So that we’ve got, we’ve always got those two levers.

[00:44:40] Jonathan DeYoe: Of course, of course. one last thing before we, get close to the wrap here, and I’d like to go back to this, some personal stuff. If you could get the truth about any single question of your life or future, , and all you had to do is ask, what would you ask? I’m not gonna know the answer, but what would you ask?

[00:44:55] Jonathan DeYoe: What are you curious about?

[00:44:57] Ellen Hendriksen: Oh, you dunno the answer. Oh no. That’s a [00:45:00] great question. I think I would ask, have I left the world better than I found it? you know, whether that’s literal, you know, that’s something my parents taught me, like in a, when going over to like a. Friend’s house for a sleepover or something like, you know, did you, did you leave it better than you found it?

[00:45:16] Ellen Hendriksen: , And so I think, , that can certainly be expanded to a more existential, , sense. And so I would want to know through, you know, through my work or through my presence or, through, you know, hopefully I’ve got two kids, hopefully putting two good people into the world. Yeah. Have I left the world better than I found it?

[00:45:34] Jonathan DeYoe: it’s a great question. love it. tell people how to connect with you. Where do they find you?

[00:45:37] Ellen Hendriksen: For sure. Yeah, I think , the place I’m most active online is substack and the newsletter is called How to Be Good to Yourself When You’re Hard On Yourself. , And then you can always find my books. So the first one on social anxiety, how to be yourself, quiet, your Inner Critic, and Rise Above Social Anxiety.

[00:45:55] Ellen Hendriksen: And then the second most recent on self-acceptance for self critics [00:46:00] and perfectionists I just gave you the subtitle, is called How to Be Enough, and you can find those wherever books, audio books, or eBooks are sold.

[00:46:08] Jonathan DeYoe: Dr. Hendriksen, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate that’ll all be in the notes. I really appreciate the conversation we’ll get all the tech stuff figured out. Don’t worry about it.

[00:46:16] Ellen Hendriksen: Sounds good. Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

[00:46:18] Jonathan DeYoe: Thank you.

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