The Counter-Intuitiveness of Goal-Setting: Undoing Perfectionist Stuckness

As parents and educators, we want children to challenge themselves, pursue excellence, find their dreams and desires, and work to make them come true. Without goals, kids don’t progress. 

That is, most kids. 

In general, kiddos five years and older have noticed our constant desire for them to do something different than they generally would prefer. To combat this we encourage and challenge in hopes of igniting desire to help them grow: “Do your best!” “Shoot for the top!” “Don’t stop trying!.” 

“Neurotypical” learners need to do their best in order to meet their potential. For many anxious learners, however, lofty goal setting is a recipe for stuckness. This is particularly true around completion goals.

Estimating the time required for an activity is an executive functioning skill that challenges many neurodiverse learning profiles, particularly our ADHDers. Perfectionists struggle similarly, but for a different reason. Their difficulty with estimating time relates to magically thinking they can achieve a great deal in a short amount of time because that is an indicator of high performance. “If I’m doing my best, I should be able to write a paper in two hours.” 

Skewed self “shoulding” about the amount of time needed for a task inevitably results in failure because the goals are unfeasible. Advising a perfectionist learner to set attainable goals flies in the face of their socialization to do their best. “If I were doing my best, I’d have that paper done in two hours. If it takes me longer, then I’m not doing my best, therefore I am a loser.” 

For a perfectionist learner, nothing they ever do is “good enough,” therefore challenging task completion goals are counterproductive. They overwhelm the learner before they can get started. If I stand at the base of a 10,000 foot mountain and tell myself I need to summit in a few hours or I’m a loser, I’ll never get started on my ascent because I will suffer the inescapable disappointment of my failure to reach my (unreachable) goal.

As perfectionists heal, they develop an awareness that they hold themselves to impossible standards. We can help them by reminding them of their tendency to manufacture inevitable failure by over-reaching. As they recognize that they set themselves up for failure, they can also understand that they create their own stuckness. Essentially, for perfectionists, ambitious goal setting is self-sabotage.

Attainable sub-goals motivate because of their greater chance of success. Even before I start, I know I will feel good about making my 4000’ base camp rather than feel like a failure for not reaching the 10,000 foot summit, which makes me want to take the first step. Success breeds success - even a little success springboards the next one.