Anita Shimmins
speaker
415 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 10 Jul
Anita Shimmins’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Yeah, it's a good point. There are. Hewitt and Flett, two researchers that kind of came up with distinguishing between three types. The one that we talk about most often is kind of the internalized perfectionism or the self-directed perfectionism. So that I really feel that my worth is very strongly linked to my performance. And there's a deep underlying fear of failure and a deep underlying fear of not being good enough. And so I have to try and strive and strive to
you know, sort of fix that perceived flaw. So that's what we often talk about when we think about perfectionism. But there are also two other kind of types. One is more directed at others. So it might be a really kind of critical parent, for instance, who expects their child to be perfect.
Or it might be someone in a relationship who doesn't leave a lot of room for mistakes from their partners and kind of expect to nail it in every area at all times. And you can see how those might create different types of issues. And then a third type would be where it's what we call socially biased.
prescribed perfectionism. So when working with teenagers, how they're so aware, they might not even have that internal pressure as much, but they feel like it's really put on them from outside. So you have to get perfect, you know, perfect score on your HSC so that you can get into your desired university program. And also the parents are expecting this. And then also if you fail this one thing, then your whole life trajectory is
you know, off. So yeah, it's that kind of external pressure that's being placed on you. Sometimes these all come together. So you might have all three of them, or there might be some that are a little bit more prevalent than others. So also with the socially prescribed, it might be that I just feel like I need to keep up appearances so that I appear perfect. So social media again comes into play there.
where maybe otherwise I'm OK to, you know, to sort of be in my track pants and, you know, my house looks a mess. But then I'm going to because I feel like I'm going to be judged. I don't have that internal pressure, but I have that external pressure to make things look perfect.
you know, it's hard because you can't tell, right? It's so invisible. Exactly, exactly. And then that kind of invites the very criticism that keeps the perfectionism going. So why can't you just get started? Why can't you just do this thing? Internally and externally, those sorts of pressures kind of layer on top. And somebody says, I'm a procrastinator. We kind of think about that as being lazy and they can't really get their stuff together. But actually, they probably are experiencing a lot of inner turmoil. And that's where the stuckness comes from. So
Why do we want to be perfect? Like, where does it all come from? With perfectionism, I would say the nature element is that somebody might be born with a bit more, a higher level of conscientiousness and attention to detail and sensitivity. But with perfectionism, there is a huge nurture element. So a huge element of how we're brought up, how we're parented, what environment we're born into that can either make us more likely or less likely to be perfectionistic.
You raise a really good point that it's not just, you know, an internal process or even within family, it's the whole society set up to really kind of reward very, very high standards and linking performance to worth. So, I mean, what's my second question to you? First question is, what's your name? And second question will be, what do you do? So
Right. So it's so closely linked to performance. And then in kind of high achieving areas or affluent areas, whether it's private schools and so on, literally everything is geared to perfection, really. So like you said, uniforms, performance, every metric kind of is having to be a certain way. I was listening to a podcast recently and it
setting really high expectations on her or expectations for her not to make any mistakes. But these patterns are so entrenched now that she approaches life from this perspective of, I have to be a very particular way. There's not a lot of wriggles.
room and outside of that, I lose acceptance or, or even I lose worth. And so if, you know, parents who, who have a quite a rigid expectation of how a child has to be, um, that is really internalized and then perpetuated throughout life. So it's, it is difficult to kind of relinquish and separate worth from, um, from achievement. Yeah, definitely.
And I think you also touch on maybe like a gendered element. There is a little bit of that as well. Research shows that women are a little bit more likely to develop perfectionism than men. I think it is evening out a little bit because there are lots of pressures put on men these days as well. There's more body dysmorphia and so on in men as well. But traditionally, women were expected to be a very particular way. And if you make certain mistakes,
you lose your worth and your place in society. And so it created a lot of internal pressure. And now as well, we have to be perfect at our careers. We also have to be perfect. We have to have kids. And then when we do have kids, it has to be perfect. So there's a lot of pressure and there's a lot of visibility as well of comparison in all these areas.
you know, perfectly seeming life of others 24 seven or as often as we're scrolling on Instagram. And so perfectionism might have, you know, historically been more in the realm of academia or work, but it's now infiltrated all these other areas of life as well. Like, for instance, yeah,
looks or what my home is supposed to look like or what relationships are supposed to be um so yeah it's now there's there's nothing that's safe from having that kind of um perfectionism pressure on it now with social media yeah definitely it's i feel like social media has just amplified all the problems that we already we already have yeah which is so annoying such a good idea but no yeah yeah literally it's like amplifying the wrong things yeah yeah agreed
We almost have to unpack with the different types because it can look really different. So let's start with the kind of internal perfectionism, how that shows up in relationships. So if I can't show you any of my flaws because I feel like if I show you any of my imperfections, you will immediately cast me as unworthy, then I'm going to be quite guarded and I'm not going to really show you a lot of what I feel like are flaws. Are you going to feel particularly connected to me when you see only a sliver of who I am?
No, definitely not. Yeah. I'd be on guard being like, I'm not sure about this woman. Not very authentic. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's a real barrier to connection because vulnerability is about flaws, is about being honest about things that, you know, I'm scared about and so on. And when I protect all of that because I'm so fearful of showing that side, yeah, it's going to be a barrier to us feeling connected.
Whereas, for instance, with the other directed perfectionism, if I'm like placing unrelenting standards on you at all times and kind of, you know, criticising you when you fall short, how are you going to feel towards me? I'll feel quite trapped. I'll be like, oh, wow, anything that I do, I'm getting it wrong. And I would feel quite disempowered.
Yeah, exactly. So in either case, it's a real barrier to connection. Socially prescribed is similar. So if I expect a lot of criticism from you, I'm going to be quite selective with what I show you. And again, that's not very authentic and therefore not so good for connection.
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