Ep. 61 Dr Patricia Zurita Ona: Overcoming the Perfection Trap

It’s got to be perfect, sang Eddi Reader, the lead singer of Fairground Attraction. And, in today’s material world of social media and personal brand building, it’s easy to assume that if you’re not perfect in all areas of your life, then you’re somehow falling short. As we digest yet another personal development craze, try to keep up with the latest diet craze, fitness craze, fashion craze, or technology craze, this push for perfection can even send us the other way.  Throwing our hands up in defeat before we’ve even begun to try, instead finding solace in all the things we’re supposed to be avoiding. So how do we know when the striving to become better, slimmer, wealthier, happier, is actually becoming an obstacle to our progress, forcing us, not to thrive, but to become stuck?  Perfectionism, the constant seeking to be better, to achieve more, to fulfil our potential, can actually prevent us from doing exactly that. It can lead to a fear of failure, a fear of not achieving what we set out to achieve and, rather than excelling, crashing and burning instead. And this fear can leave us paralysed, unable to move at all.  In this episode of the podcast we speak with Dr Patricia Zurita Ona – affectionately known as DrZ. She specialises in acceptance and commitment therapy for high achievers and over thinkers, helping them become unstuck from worries, fears, anxieties, obsessions, perfectionism, procrastination, and ineffective playing-it-safe strategies.  We talk about how success can easily lead to shame, how high performance can lead to emotional paralysis, and how fear of failure can lead us to take the easier option, even when we are capable of much much more.  Useful links:  www.thisisdoctorz.com www.eastbaybehaviortherapycenter.com