The Trap of Perfectionist Fantasies
Do you ever find yourself lost in daydreams about a perfect future—your ideal house, the perfect body, or a flawless routine? These visions can feel exciting but can keep us stuck.
Perfectionist fantasies thrive on the idea that someday everything will be perfect and we’ll finally be happy. But this type of thinking often holds us back, leading to a cycle of big plans and no action.
Here are some common perfectionist fantasies:
“Once I lose 50 pounds, I’ll have the perfect body.”
“I want to be a perfect parent, so I won’t ever yell at my kids again.
“I am going to start my own company and become rich and famous.”
Sound familiar? While it’s great to aim high, perfectionist fantasies aren’t the same as setting and working towards achievable goals. These fantasies create a sense of false accomplishment and can paralyze us with the fear of never measuring up to our ideal.
Perfectionist fantasies keep us waiting for an idealized future that never comes. Let’s explore why these fantasies are so alluring – and how to break free from this cycle.
The Allure of the Perfectionist Fantasy
Perfectionist fantasies paint a picture of a future state where you are the best, idealized version of yourself. In this fantasy, you’ve finally arrived: you are effortlessly organized, crushing every goal, and free from the obstacles and shortcomings that hold you back now.
If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is!
Perfectionist fantasies involve elaborate plans and routines that must be executed perfectly to achieve our goals. For example, you will work out every single day at 4:00AM for two hours. A plan like this is is so overly ambitious and unrealistic that it almost guarantees failure. Either you never get started, or quit at the first hiccup or setback.
Worst of all, perfectionist fantasies keep us stuck in a vicious cycle, as we start to prefer the quick hit of dopamine we get from engaging in a new fantasy.
4 Ways Perfectionist Fantasies Keep You Stuck
1. Creating a False Sense of AchiEvement
When we fantasize, we trick our brain into thinking we’ve achieved a goal even if we’ve made no progress whatsoever. This gives us an incredible high, and makes engaging in fantasy easier and more preferable to slow, steady effort.
2. EQUATING HAPPINESS WITH PERFECTION
Perfectionist fantasies convince us that we’ll feel worthy and happy later – after we’ve “fixed” ourselves. This illusion keeps us from embracing our lives and accepting ourselves as the lovable, flawed beings that we are.
3. Paralyzing us with Fear of Failure
Perfectionist fantasies create a paralyzing fear of failure. We don’t want to risk failing at our elaborate plans, so we can’t bring ourselves to take the first step. Or we consider ourselves a failure when we encounter the first hiccup or setback and completely give up.
4. ENCOURAGING a Vicious Cycle
Perfectionist fantasies keep us stuck by creating a vicious mental cycle of an “all-or-nothing” mindset. When we fail to execute our elaborate plan perfectly, we feel shame and disappointment or we just give up. To feel better, we create yet another elaborate scheme and get another hit of dopamine, fueling an addictive cycle that gets harder and harder to quit.
To break free from this cycle, we need to let go of the fantasy, release the shame, and start embracing our lives – and ourselves – as we are today.
How to Break Free From the Fantasy
1. Acknowledge the fantasy
Breaking free from the fantasy starts with acknowledging that you are in fact engaging in a fantasy, rather than your real life. Start to catch yourself when you notice that you’re engaging in perfectionist fantasies and call it out for what it is.
2. Return to the present moment
Stop waiting for that “perfect” future to arrive – life is happening right now! The present is the only place where real change happens, and it’s also the only place where you can fully experience life. Practice gratitude for what you have and who you are right now, instead of deferring your happiness to some future ideal.
3. Commit to one tiny step
Making progress towards your goals starts with one tiny step. Every action, no matter how insignificant it may seem, counts as progress towards your goals. Can you commit to one minute of exercising every day, or one paragraph of writing every day? It’s harder than it looks!
4. Celebrate imperfect action
After taking action – even imperfect action – it’s important that we acknowledge and celebrate it. Over time, we can rewire our brains so that we can cultivate positive feelings from the progress itself, and accept messy or rough progress as good enough.
Ready to break free of the fantasy and create real change? Check out our blog post “Practicing Self Leadership”
