Tips from an ADHD Coach: Impossible expectations for perfect outcomes

Do you find yourself planning to go above and beyond often? What do you do when a voice you’ve made has gone the wrong way? Perfectionism can come up a lot with ADHD, especially in women. 

ADHD coach Jaye Lin reacts to a quote on pressuring ourselves to be perfect. Listen for why this anxiety might come up, and how to get real with yourself.

Have a challenge you’d like Jaye to talk about in an episode? Email or send a voice memo to us at adhdcoachtips@understood.org.

Related resources

• Anxiety, imposter syndrome, and ADHD (Mallory’s story)

• ADHD and perfectionism

• ADHD and anxiety

Timestamps

(00:47) Mallory’s quote

(02:03) Jaye’s reaction

(02:40) ADHD, anxiety, and perfectionism

(05:22) Over-the-top expectations of doing it all

(06:41) Does the idea of “perfect” align with why we want to do something?

(10:17) Stuck in decision paralysis because we want to make the perfect choice

(15:07) Takeaways

Episode transcript

Jaye:  Do you find yourself always planning to do too much? What do you do when a choice you've made goes the wrong way? Are you determined to never let that happen again? Do you find yourself anxiously overthinking and over-researching every decision you have to make? 

This is "Tips from an ADHD Coach," and I'm your coach, Jaye Lin. Today we're talking about the impossible pressure we can put on ourselves to get perfect outcomes, and how that can affect our future decisions. We're going to hear from Mallory, who was on another Understood.org podcast, "ADHD Aha!," about the thought process she had from her ADHD, anxiety, and perfectionism. 

(00:47) Mallory's quote

Mallory: It is really challenging because I think we've got the anxiety piece where the rumination is going on and thinking about all of these things that were in the past and thinking about, "I should have done this differently, I should have done that differently." But then also sort of having those fear thoughts, thinking about the future of "What am I going to do about this? What am I going to do about that?" and sort of coming up with all of these sort of false scenarios, you know, that might never even come true. 

And I think part of that with having some of the emotional regulation on the ADHD side and the impulse control, where I know this isn't helpful, but I can't stop myself. Let me keep going and see what...let me just try to solve this problem. And not having the foresight to understand that this is actually only getting worse if I allow myself to keep going instead of pumping the brakes. 

Making any type of mistake that just like wasn't an option ever. Not because that's what my parents said — I was actually putting these expectations on for myself. You had to be perfect, and if you weren't, well, bad things were going to happen. 

(02:03) Jaye's reaction

Jaye: As a recovering perfectionist, I'm very familiar with this swirling of I should haves that Mallory went through. Mallory said that if she wasn't perfect, she felt like bad things would happen. In the past, when I wasn't perfect, bad things did happen, actually. I felt deep shame and disappointment in myself. I didn't want to go after things ever again, and I felt frozen whenever making decisions. So, I really resonate with Mallory's experience. 

(02:40) ADHD, anxiety, and perfectionism

It's extremely common for ADHD women to also have anxiety. In fact, about three out of four ADHD women report also having an anxiety disorder. Mallory is one of them, and so am I. For many of the women I know with ADHD and anxiety, there's a strong pressure for us to not only be perfect but also get perfect results. When a lot of my clients start coming to me, it's because they aren't able to move forward with something important that they're working on, whether it's their resume so they can apply for jobs, a major project at work, cleaning their house, etc. 

There's a common thread that runs through all of these scenarios, and it's perfectionism. It's saying, "I don't want to do it unless it comes out perfectly." This is usually said very proudly because perfectionism is often seen as a virtue for people, and especially women, to have. Usually, they will have an idea of what result they're picturing, and it's always over the top. 

If they're having a hard time cleaning their room, the only result they will accept is one where the entire room is spotless. There's no clutter or dust and no unnecessary items. The clothes they no longer wear are taken out and donated. Their books are completely organized, the carpets are vacuumed and possibly even shampooed. Every surface is dusted and wiped. 

When I ask what makes cleaning their room something they feel they need to do, a really common response is something like, "Well, I can't just have my stuff all over the ground. It's hard to walk through the room and my clothes are always dirty." And yeah, that's true. If there's no easy way to walk through and all their clothes are dirty on the ground, it probably does make sense to tidy up a bit. 

Ironically, a really common response I get when I ask them what they've done so far is that they've taken all the clothes out of their closet and thrown it into the middle of the room, Marie Kondo style. After that, the mess felt overwhelming and like there were hours and hours of cleaning ahead of them. They couldn't get themselves to keep going after that, so the clothes and messy room just stayed that way. 

I'll summarize what's happening here. Even though the purpose is to not have clutter on the ground that would make walking through the room harder to do, the drive for an ideal outcome from cleaning their room has made even more clutter on the ground. So, these goals to only have perfect results can take us further away from what we want than if we never got started. Instead of shooting for a perfectly organized and spotless room, they would be much more successful in their goal if they took five minutes to pick up their clothes and clear the ground of clutter. 

(05:22) Over-the-top expectations of doing it all

A lot of my ADHD friends share with me that they always try to host holiday dinners for their extended families. They want to make these over-the-top, showstopping meals all by themselves, and they won't let anyone help them. But they have ADHD. So mishaps would happen. They'd forget to turn on their oven. They didn't throw the turkey in time. They were focused on the cranberry sauce and their green beans burned. Or they were supposed to have dinner on the table at 6 p.m., but they're not done yet, and it's almost 8:30. 

At this point, emotional dysregulation and anxiety tends to reach a boiling point. They'll yell at their family about how much they're doing while everyone else is having fun. They'll crumple into a crying pile on the ground and someone else will have to finish the cooking. They will announce to everyone that dinner is ruined, and be in a terrible mood for the rest of the night. When I ask them what makes them want to host Thanksgiving dinner for their extended family, the answer is usually something like "I want to show my love for my family through food."

So, the purpose of them hosting a holiday dinner was to make their family members feel cared for. But because they could only accept perfect results, their family members were caught in an extremely tense situation, quite the opposite of what was intended when they volunteered to host the dinner.

(06:41) Does the idea of "perfect" align with why we want to do something?

You'll notice that the initial idea of perfect for these scenarios tends to be doing a lot. Doing so much. But when the ideal results are compared to the reasons why they're doing it, it's obvious that those aren't the perfect results after all. 

What does a spotless room with organized books on the shelf have to do with having clean clothes and a path to walk through? What does making an over-the-top dinner by yourself have to do with showing your family members you care about them? As women, we are often pressured to do more. Do it all. And sometimes we can fall into the trap of trying to do too much, even when it's counterproductive to our overall goals. 

If you find yourself caught in a scenario like I just described. Here's what I suggest: ask yourself why you considered this task or project important, and make sure the most important purposes are your highest priorities. Does slaving away in the kitchen alone make your family members feel cared for? Consider all the results that come out of this choice. Not just the perfect result you're picturing. 

A huge, elaborate meal also means more cleanup, sustained focus and energy, and tons of pre-planning in the days leading up to the dinner. Dedicating all of your time and energy to cooking this big dinner probably means time away from your family members. It could mean you aren't in a good mood when you interact with them. It could lead to resentment you feel towards your family members. Does that achieve your goal of showing care towards your loved ones? 

They might feel more cared for if they were able to spend time with you, and you were in a good mood for it. So, maybe your goal isn't best achieved by making an entire dinner on your own. Maybe it means making the main course and allowing others to bring the side dishes and desserts. Maybe it's allowing other people into the kitchen to cook alongside you. Maybe it's letting someone else host dinner and showing up early to help them cook. Think about what would be the actual ideal way to get the result you want, not just the way for you to do the most. 

You might have to be extra honest with yourself about this. Remember when I said my friends say they offered to host holiday dinners to make their families feel cared for? Well, it's also really common for them to admit later on in the conversation that they want people to give them compliments about their cooking, that they want praise. That is usually said very quietly because we've been told that seeking praise is not a good quality to have. To that, I say: Whatever. 

If you want people to tell you affirming things, it's much more important to be honest with yourself about it than to deny that it's what you want. Feeling OK about wanting praise makes it much easier to think about how to actually get that praise. A lot of these friends hosting holiday dinners don't even cook on a regular basis, with all of the executive function and experience needed to pull off a multiple-item dinner, they're really putting themselves in a bad position to get praise. 

And praise comes in many forms. Making one favorite dish is just as likely to get me praise as when I cook everything. So, if you're caught in this perfectionist trap, ask yourself why it's important to do this task and try to address that purpose instead of just trying to do everything. 

(10:17) Stuck in decision paralysis because we want to make the perfect choice

Another signal that you're pressuring yourself to have perfect outcomes is when decision-making feels impossible. It's common for those of us with ADHD and anxiety to overthink over research, and overpredict every decision we have to make. I've also noticed this showing up more intensely in younger generations, and it makes sense why. 

Up until just a few decades ago, there weren't as many resources and expectations for us to have. It was possible for someone to live their lives and not get much feedback that what they were doing was wrong. Then came parenting books that stated what made someone a good or bad parent. Televisions became more common, which allowed us to model who we are after someone on the screen, and also feel like we're falling short of being good enough. 

The internet became widespread, leading to lots of opinions, people to watch, and criticism about the choices other people make. The rise of social media exposed us to unrealistic, perfect images of mothers and women that we know isn't an accurate view of their real lives, but can still make us feel inferior in comparison. 

These days, it's so easy to be called a bad parent, a bad friend, a bad employee, a bad anything really. It's so easy for someone to say or think that we made a bad decision, that we're selfish or another undesirable quality, that we are unattractive, that we should have done something else instead. But that's the thing. Perfect outcomes for these scenarios don't exist. 

For every parenting blog or book that says "This is what a perfect parent looks like," there's another that says the opposite. For every vegan that says their diet is the most ideal, there's someone who says their keto diet is the most ideal. For every quality that someone likes about us, there will be someone who dislikes that quality in us. 

There's almost never a clear answer of who to ideally be or what to ideally do. It took me a while to realize that I was anxious about all of my decisions because I was worried that if it didn't work out, someone would say that I should have known better. I should have done more research. I should have known this could happen. And with the internet, that's basically everything. There is so much information available to us at all times that we don't get off the hook for making a mistake because we were uninformed. It becomes a moral failing to be uninformed. 

But the internet is vast, and I don't want to spend my entire days looking up information in order to make every decision in my life. I don't want to overdo and overperform on everything if it means I'm not able to do as much with my time. That is not the ideal way to live my life. Even if it's my best chance of avoiding criticism. So, if you find yourself frozen in your decision-making, overthinking, and over-researching everything, ask yourself if this is the best use of your time. 

Maybe some research to get an air fryer is a good idea, but maybe not six days of research. What is a reasonable amount of time you want to sacrifice from your day to prepare for a good result? Go with that. And if things turn out less than ideal, allow yourself to look at what happened with a compassionate view. Like Mallory said, the drive for anxious perfection sometimes makes our thoughts center around how we can avoid this happening again, and we can skip over what I consider to be more important questions we can ask ourselves first. 

Like, what were the consequences of having less-than-ideal results? You know, other than us feeling crappy about it? Does it actually have any effect on our life? With what information we had available to us at the time, would we consider that a bad choice? Sometimes bad outcomes happen even after making thoughtful, informed decisions because of factors we couldn't predict. The answer to that isn't to expect to know absolutely everything in the world before making all decisions. Then we'd never be able to make any decision. 

Sometimes it's OK to say that there was no way we could predict that this was how it would turn out. This can be done while we're stuck in decision paralysis, too. We can ask ourselves what the consequences would be if we decided without having absolutely every piece of information possible. Sometimes those are low to none. And what could we benefit from not over-researching or over-analyzing? Probably more time, more energy, and more peace. That sounds nice, doesn't it? 

(15:07) Takeaways

The pressure to have perfect results can have pretty disastrous results for us. We can view perfect results as doing so much, doing too much really, and then feel shame or disappointment when we fall short of those perfect results. But those perfect results often don't even serve the actual purpose of why we're doing it. So, if you're stuck in those scenarios, ask yourself why it's important for you to do this task and what would be the ideal way to fulfill that purpose, which is often doing less. 

And if having to have perfect outcomes is making you have decision paralysis, overthink, and over-research everything because you don't want to make a mistake, know that this is a trap, because every good decision could still result in a bad outcome, and everyone has a different idea of what makes a decision a good or bad one. Instead, have a clear view of your decision-making, regardless of how things turn out. 

Think about what amount of time spent preparing for decisions would actually be beneficial for you, and go with that so you can give yourself back more time, energy, and brainpower. 

Thanks for listening. You've been listening to "Tips from an ADHD Coach" on the Understood Podcast Network. If you have a challenge that you'd like me to talk about, or would just like to say hi, you can email us at ADHDcoachtips@understood.org. You can also check out the show notes to find links to anything mentioned in the show and more resources. 

This show was brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at Understood.org/give. 

"Tips from an ADHD Coach" is produced and edited by Jessamine Molli and Margie DeSantis. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ilana Millner is our supervising producer, Briana Berry is our production director, and Neil Drumming is our editorial director. For Understood.org, our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott, Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Jaye Lin.