A student syndrome: how to allow yourself to be imperfect

Синдром отличницы: как разрешить себе быть неидеальной

Syndrome of an excellent student (excellent student) — it is the desire to do everything better than others. There is nothing wrong with just until as long as hyperresponsibility begins to poison life. Often «excellent students» — these are far from schoolgirls, but mature women who suffer painfully due to failures and mistakes. Moreover, they can consider quite tolerable performance of their duties as a failure. Their goal — always be head and shoulders ahead of others: achieve the heights of your career, become a supermother, an ideal wife and an impeccable housewife. Let's figure out how to get rid of the syndrome of an excellent student and stop suffering.

What is A student syndrome and how it manifests
Reasons for the painful pursuit of excellent results
How to get rid of A student syndrome and enjoy life
The main thing about hows to deal with A student syndrome

What is the A student syndrome and how it manifests

The name of the syndrome is associated with school and an excellent student with pigtails. All this corresponds to reality. Most often, the first signs of striving to be the best appear in elementary school and especially among girls. With age, the syndrome develops and concerns no longer apprenticeship, but work, personal life, motherhood. In fairness, it is worth mentioning that there are men with excellent student syndrome, but their much less than the fair sex.

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The Achievement Syndrome is similar to perfectionism, but still there are differences:

For a perfectionist, the result is important: if it conforms to expectations, everything is all right. "Excellent" students, on the other hand, need high marks from others, the work itself is secondary.
Perfectionist focused on work, and "excellent" — on victory, superiority over others.

The A student syndrome manifests itself as a desire to get only excellent results at any cost. And the problem here is precisely "at any cost". You have to pay with time, effort, nerves. A person spends unreasonably large resources on the ideal performance of each ordinary task. The most frustrating thing is that these efforts are extremely rarely appreciated. Hence the resentment towards & nbsp; others, nervous exhaustion, self-blame.

When a mature woman is an "excellent student" understands that others do not pay attention to how carefully she performs her duties, she concludes that she was not good enough, and tries even more. It turns out a vicious circle. Suffering «excellent student» affect — — children, husbands, relatives, friends. They are subject to increased requirements. This invariably leads to disappointment.

The reasons for the painful desire for excellent results

Among the causes of the syndrome of an excellent student, the following are most often distinguished:

Peculiarities of relationships with parents. Often parents show love when the child is "good". As soon as he brings a mediocre grade in diary, he receives less parental attention, and then and reproaches.
Fear of "not pleasing" family. It can be difficult for parents to hide how upset they are about a bad grade. The child sees this, understands and tries to learn as best as possible.
Individual features of worldview. Children often divide the world into white and black. With age, this may not change. Then only an excellent result is considered a result in general, and mediocre — complete failure.
Low self-esteem. proves to the world that she is worth something, because she herself weakly believes in it.
Painful perception of criticism. The logic is simple: if everything is perfect, there will be nothing to criticize for. But the it has a big flaw: so much effort has been invested in the work that any, even constructive, criticism will be perceived as nit-picking.

A student syndrome can cause neuroses, especially if life circumstances are such that a woman at some stage feels like a failure, but can cannot change anything. You have to allow yourself to be imperfect, and it still feels like a failure.

How to get rid of A student syndrome and enjoy life

As adults, people already have well-established habits, so it can be difficult to cope with the desire to do everything better than everyone else. But this is quite possible if a person realizes how much he poisons his life and undermines the nervous system. There are several ways:

Make a decision not to rework if it's not perfect.Start with everyday situations. Clean, but not shiny — this is normal. Don rush to wash it. It is not necessary to lay out the socks by colors, just fold them into the linen drawer. Evaluate how imperfect work results have affected your life. No way? So don't feel bad about their mediocrity.
Give yourself permission not to be responsible for the fate of the world. Don't try to redo everything yourself just because others will make things worse. Delegate things, check them out, but don't force other people to redo less than perfect work. Accept the fact that it's done and enjoy the fact that you have more free time.
Accept your to mistakes . If you did wrong, the world will not collapse. Think of a mistake as a lesson, not disaster.
Learn how to properly handle criticism. This is very important. You shouldn't feel like you're being attacked if you're being criticized. Try to curb your emotions and think about whether there is a sound grain in criticism. If yes, correct the mistakes, but do not sprinkle ashes on your head.
Control your time. Give yourself just enough time to do your work, but don't bring it up to ideal.
Set your priorities. You must have goals. Focus on them and allow yourself to do everything else imperfectly. You will free up time that you will be able to devote to achieving your goal. This way you will get what you want much faster. This is a great motivation.

Look around sides. Surely you will see that there are less diligent colleagues, to whom the authorities treat better. Some mothers do worse things, but their children are well-bred and study in school. Not all housewives wash the apartment clean, but they are comfortable. Isn't beautiful?

You, too, can spend less time and energy on those things that does not necessarily be perfect.

Better free up a few hours to spend with your family, go to an exhibition, or go to nbsp;nbsp;nature. There is so much beauty in the world! Allow yourself to see and feel it.

The main thing about hows to deal with A student syndrome

The A student syndrome, like perfectionism, can be a real punishment. If you notice that you are engaged in self-discipline because of your imperfection, do this:

Acknowledge that a job well done. There is no point in straining to bring it to ideal.
Please note that people who strive for perfection are not happier or more successful than others.
Allow yourself to make mistakes, be imperfect.
Learn to take criticism the right way. It's a useful skill.
Keep track of time. Do less important things faster, and devote the freed time to achieving the goal.

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You are able to achieve the ideal — it's a wonderful quality, but you don't need to get hung up on it. By allowing yourself to be an earthly person with weaknesses, you will become much happier.

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