notice typos, but he'll read the
4. "And why would that be
whole paper. There are some
a problem?"
fairly good sections.
3. He'll feel that I didn't care
3. Mind reading. I don't know
about it.
that he will think this. If he
4. "Suppose he does. What there',
did, it wouldn't be the end of
the world. A lot of students
don't care about their papers.
Besides I do care about it, so if he thought this he'd be
wrong.
4. I'll be letting him dOwn.
4, "It that were true and
4. All-or-nothing thinking; for-
he did feel that way, why
tune teller error. I can't please
would it be upsetting to
everyone all the time. He's
me?"
liked most of my work. If he
does feel disappointed in this
paper he can survive.
5. I'll get a D or an F on the paper.
4, "Suppose I did—what
5. Emotional reasoning; fortune
then?"
teller error. I feel this way be-
cause I'm upset. But I can't
predict the future. I might
get a B or a C, but a D or an F
6, That would ruin •my academic
isn't very likely.
record.
6. All-or-nothing thinking; fortune
♦ "And then what would
teller error. Other people goof
happen?"
up at times, and it doesn't seem
to ruin their lives. Why can't I
goof up at times?
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David D. Burns, M.D.
Figure 14-4. Continued.
Automatic Responses
Rational Responses
7. That would mean I wasn't the 7. Should statement. Who ever
kind of student I was supposed
laid down the rule I was "sup-
to be.
posed" to be a certain way at
4, "Why would that be up-
all times? Who said I was pre-
setting to me?"
destined and morally obliged to
live up to some particular
standard?
8. People will be angry with me.
8. The fortune teller error. If
rube a failure.
someone is angry with me, it's
♦ "And suppose they were
their problem. I can't be pleas-
angry and I was a fail-
ing people all the time—it's too
ure? Why would that be
exhausting. It makes my life a
so terrible?"
tens; constricted, rigid mess.
Maybe I'd do better to set my
own standards and risk some-
one's anger. If I fail at the
paper, it certainly doesn't make
me "A FAILURE."
9. Then I would be ostracized and
9. The fortune teller error. Every-
alone.
one won't ostracize me!
4. "And then what?"
10. If rm alone, I'm bound to be
10. Disqualifying positive data.
miserable.
Some of my happiest times have
been when I'm alone. My "
misery" has nothing to do with
being alone, but comes from
the fear of disapproval and
from persecuting myself for
not living up to perfectionistic
standards.
onion in this way until the deepest origin of his panic and perfectionism was uncovered. This required only a few minutes.
His silent assumption then became obvious: (1) One mistake and my career will be ruined. (2) Others demand perfection and success from me, and will ostracize me if I fall short.
Once he wrote down his upsetting automatic thoughts, he
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FEELING GOOD
was in a position to pinpoint his thinking errors. Three distortions appeared most often—all-or-nothing thinking, mind reading, and the fortune teller error. These distortions had trapped him in a rigid, coercive, perfectionistic, approval-seeking approach to life. Substituting rational responses helped him recognize how unrealistic his fears were and took the edge off his panic.
Fred was skeptical, however, because he wasn't entirely convinced a catastrophe was not about to strike. He needed some actual evidence to be convinced. Since he'd been keeping the elephants away by blowing the trumpet all his life, he couldn't be absolutely sure a stampede wouldn't occur once he decided to set the trumpet down.
Two days later Fred got the needed evidence: He picked up his paper, and there was an A— at the top. The typographical errors had been corrected by the professor, who wrote a thoughtful note at the end that contained substantial praise along with some helpful suggestions.
If you are going to let go of your perfectionism, then you may also have to expose yourself to a certain amount of initial unpleasantness just as Fred did. This can be your golden opportunity to learn about the origin of your fears, using the vertical-arrow technique. Rather than run from your fear, sit still and confront the bogeyman! Ask yourself, "What am I afraid of?" "What's the worst that could happen?" Then write down your automatic thoughts as Fred did, and call their bluff. It will be frightening, but if you tough it out and en-dure the discomfort, you will conquer your fears because they are ultimately based on illusions. The exhilaration you experience when you make this transformation from worrier to warrior can be the start of a more confident assertive approach to living.
The thought may have occurred to you—but suppose Fred did end up with a B, C, D, or an F? What then? In reality, this usually doesn't happen because in your perfectionism, you are in the habit of leaving yourself such an excessively wide margin of safety that you can usually relax your efforts considerably without a measurable reduction in the quality of the actual performance. However, failures can and do occur in life, and none of us is totally immune. It can be useful to prepare ahead of time for this possibility so that you can ben-321
David D. Burns, M.D.
efit from the experience. You can do this if you set things up in a "can't lose" fashion.
How can you benefit from an actual failure? It's simple!
You remind yourself that your life won't be destroyed. Getting a B, in fact, is one of the best things that can happen to you if you are a straight A student because it will force you to confront and accept your humanness. This will lead to personal growth. The real tragedy occurs when a student is so bright and compulsive that he or she successfully wards off any chance of failure through overwhelming personal effort, and ends up graduating with a perfect straight A average.
The paradox in this situation is that success has a dangerous effect of turning these students into cripples or slaves whose lives become obsessively rigid attempts to ward off the fear of being less than perfect. Their careers are rich in achievement but frequently impoverished in joy.
7. Another method for overcoming perfectionism involves developing a process orientation. This means you focus on processes rather than outcomes as a basis for evaluating things. When I first opened my practice, I had the feeling I had to do outstanding work with each patient every session. I thought my patients and peers expected this of me, and so I worked my tail off all day long. When a patient indicated he benefited from a session, I'd tell myself I was successful and I'd feel on top of the world. In contrast, when a patient gave me the runaround or responded negatively to that day's session, I'd feel miserable and tell myself I had failed.
I got tired of the roller-coaster effect and reviewed the problem with my colleague, Dr. Beck. His comments were extremely helpful, so I'll pass them on to you.
He suggested I imagine I had a job driving a car to City Hall each day.
Some days I'd hit mostly green lights and I'd make fast time.
Other days I'd hit a lot of red lights and traffic jams, and the trip would take much longer. My driving skill would be the same each day, so why not feel equally satisfied with the job I did?
He proposed I could facilitate this new way of looking at things by refusing to try to do an excellent job with any patient. Instead, I could aim for a good, consistent effort at 322
FEELING GOOD
each session regardless of how the patient responded, and in this way I could guarantee 100 percent success forever.
How could you set up process goals as a student? You could make it your aim to (1) attend lectures; (2) pay attention and take notes; (3) ask appropriate questions; (4) study each course between classes a certain amount each day; (5) review class study notes every two or three weeks. All these processes are within your control, so you can guarantee success. In contrast, your final grade is not under your control. It depends on how the professor feels that day, how well the other students did, where he sets the curve, etc.
How could you set up process goals if you were applying for a job? You could (1) dress in a confident, appealing manner; (2) have your résumé edited by a knowledgeable friend and typed professionally; (3) give the prospective employer one or more compliments during the interview; (4) express an interest in the company and encourage the interviewer to talk about himself; (5) when the prospective employer tells you about his work, say something positive, using an upbeat approach; (6) if the interviewer makes a critical or negative comment about you, immediately agree, using the disarming technique introduced in Chapter 6.
For example, in my negotiations with a prospective publisher about this book, I noticed the editor expressed a number of negative reactions in addition to a few positive ones. I found the use of the disarming technique worked extremely well in keeping the waters flowing nonturbulently during potentially difficult discussions. For example,
EDITOR x: One of my concerns, Dr. Burns, involves the emphasis on symptomatic improvement in the here and now. Aren't you overlooking the causes and origins of depression?
(In the first draft of this book, I had written several chapters on the silent assumptions that give rise to depression, but apparently the editor was not adequately impressed with this material or had not read it. I had the option of counterattacking in a defensive manner—which would have only polarized the editor and made her feel defensive. Instead, I chose to disarm her in the following way.)
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David D. Burns, M.D.
DAVID: That's an excellent suggestion, and you're absolutely right. I can see you've been doing your homework on the manuscript, and I appreciate hearing about your ideas. The readers obviously would want to learn more about why they get depressed. This might help them avoid future depressions. What would you think about expanding the section on silent assumptions and introducing it with a new chapter we could call "Getting Down to Root Causes"?
EDITOR: That sounds great!
DAVID: What other negative reactions do you have to the book? I'd like to learn as much as I can from you.
I then continued to find a way to agree with each criticism and to praise Editor X for each and every suggestion. This was not insincere because I was a greenhorn in popular writing, and Editor X was a very talented, well-established individual who was in a position to give me some much-needed guidance. My negotiating style made it clear to her that I respected her, and let her know that we would be able to have a productive working relationship.
Suppose instead that I had been fixed on the outcome rather than on the negotiating process when the editor interviewed me. I would have been tense and preoccupied with only one thing—would she or would she not make an offer for the book? Then I would have seen her every criticism as a danger, and the whole interpersonal process would have fallen into unpleasant focus.
Thus, when you are applying for work, do not make it your aim to get the job! Especially if you want the job! The outcome depends on numerous factors that are ultimately out of your control, including the number of applicants, their qualifications, who knows the boss's daughter, etc. In fact, you would do better to try to get as many rejections as possible for the following reason: Suppose on the average it takes about ten to fifteen interviews for each acceptable job offer you receive in your profession (a typical batting average for people I know who have been recently looking for work).
This means you've got to go out and get those nine to fourteen rejections over with in order to get the job you want! So each morning say, "I'll try to get as many rejections as pos-324
FEELING GOOD
sable today." And each time you do get rejected you can say,
"I was successfully rejected. This brings me one important step closer to my goal."
8. Another way to overcome perfectionism involves assuming responsibility for your life by setting strict time limits on all your activities for one week. This will help you change your perspective so you can focus on the flow of life and enjoy it.
If you are a perfectionist, you are probably a real procrastinator because you insist on doing things so thoroughly. The secret to happiness is to set modest goals to accomplish them.
If you want misery, then by all means cling to your perfectionism and procrastination. If you would like to change, then as you schedule your day in the morning, decide on the amount of time you will budget on each activity. Quit at the end of the time you have set aside whether or not you have completed it, and go onto the next project. If you play the pi-ano and tend to play for many hours or not at all, decide instead to play only an hour a day. I think you'll enhance your satisfaction and output substantially this way.
9. I'll bet you're afraid of making mistakes! What's so terrible about making mistakes? Will the world come to an end if you're wrong? Show me a man who can't stand to be wrong, and I'll show you a man who is afraid to take risks and has given up the capacity for growth. A particularly powerful method for defeating perfectionism involves learning to make mistakes.
Here's how you can do this. Write an essay in which you spell out why it is both irrational and self-defeating to try to be perfect or to fear making mistakes. The following was written by Jennifer, the student mentioned earlier: Why It's Great to Be Able to Make Mistakes
1. I fear making mistakes because I see everything in abso-lutist, perfectionistic terms—one mistake and the whole is ruined. This is erroneous. A small mistake certainly doesn't ruin an otherwise fine whole.
2. It's good to make mistakes because then we learn—in fact, we won't learn unless we make mistakes. No one can avoid making mistakes—and since it's going to hap-325
David D. Burns, M.D.
pen in any case, we may as well accept it and learn from it.
3. Recognizing our mistakes helps us to adjust our behavior so that we can get results we're more pleased with—so we might say that mistakes ultimately operate to make us happier and make things better.
4. If we fear making mistakes, we become paralyzed—
we're afraid to do or try anything, since we might (in fact, probably will) make some mistakes. If we restrict our activities so that we won't make mistakes, then we are really defeating ourselves. The more we try and the more mistakes we make, the faster we'll learn and the happier we'll be ultimately.
5. Most people aren't going to be mad at us or dislike us because we make mistakes—they all make mistakes, and most people feel uncomfortable around "perfect"
people.
6. We don't die if we make mistakes.
Although such an essay does not guarantee that you will change, it can help get you started in the right direction. Jennifer reported an enormous improvement the week after she wrote the essay. She found it useful in her studies to focus on learning rather than obsessing constantly about whether or not she was great. As a result, her anxiety decreased
and her ability to get things done increased. This relaxed, confident mood persisted through the final examination period at the end of the first semester—a time of extreme anxiety for the majority of her classmates. As she explained, "I realized I didn't have to be perfect. I'm going to make my share of mistakes. So what? I can learn from my mistakes, so there's nothing to worry about." And she was right!
Write a memo to yourself along these lines. Remind yourself that the world won't come to an end if you make a mistake, and point out the potential benefits. Then read the memo every morning for two weeks. I think this will go a long way toward helping you join the human race!
10. In your perfectionism you are undoubtedly great at focusing on all the ways you fall short. You have the bad habit of picking out the things you haven't done and ignoring those you have. You spend your life cataloging every mistake and 326
FEELING GOOD
shortcoming. No wonder you feel inadequate! Is somebody forcing you to do this? Do you like feeling that way?
Here's a simple method of reversing this absurd and painful tendency. Use your wrist counter to click off the things you do right each day. See how many points you can ac-cumulate. This may sound so unsophisticated that you are convinced it couldn't help you. If so, experiment with it for two weeks. I predict you'll discover that you will begin to focus more on the positives in your life and will consequently feel better about yourself. It sounds simplistic because it is But who cares, if it works?
11. Another helpful method involves exposing the absurdity in the all-or-nothing thinking that gives rise to your perfectionism. Look around you and ask yourself how many things in the world can be broken down into all-or-nothing categories. Are the walls around you totally clean? Or do they have at least some dirt? Am I totally effective with all of my writing? Or partially effective? Certainly every single paragraph of this book isn't polished to perfection and breathtak-ingly helpful. Do you know anyone who is totally calm and confident all the time? Is your favorite movie star perfectly beautiful?
Once you recognize that all-or-nothing thinking doesn't fit reality very often, then look out for your all-or-nothing thoughts throughout the day and when you notice one, talk back to it and shoot it down. You'll feel better. Some examples of how a number of different individuals combat all-or-nothing thoughts appear in Figure 14-5.
The Feeling Good Handbook Page 36