Do you ever find yourself only focusing on the negative during the week? It’s common for us to have “a bad day” when things just don’t seem to go our way. Life happens. But when this becomes a consistent pattern, you should become a bit more concerned and might be experiencing a cognitive distortion called mental filtering.

There have been a multitude of studies done that have explored how perfectionism is related to burnout. This includes several meta-analyses which is a research method that synthesizes the findings of multiple research studies to determine an “overall effect” of a variable. Overall, the findings are not what people commonly think.

One question that we hear often is how different types of perfectionists cope with stress and anxiety in their lives. There has been a lot of research conducted on this already, so let us take a look at some of the different coping strategies utilized.

Do you have high standards for yourself and others? Do you get a sense of satisfaction in your work and relationships, when you are doing things perfectly? Do you find yourself getting frustrated at times with others and yourself when you are not able to be as exacting your work? If so, you might be a perfectionist.

I was interviewed for a Vice.com article about perfectionism. It details the differences between two types of perfectionists (plus non-perfectionists).

What are the differences between healthy and unhealthy perfectionism? How can you tell if someone is a perfectionist? And what do you do about that?