The Perfectionism of Shame

Perfectionism stems from shame. The educational philosophy of our modern society is to scold and shame children when they make a mistake. Because most of us adults have gone through the school system, this philosophy carries into business as well. If you make a mistake, you get in trouble. You are shamed so many times for making a mistake that you develop intense anxiety about “getting it wrong” which leads to perfectionism.

Perfectionism says, “If I get it wrong, bad things happen.” If you’re not a know-it-all, what do you really know? What is your value if you aren’t correct all the time?

Shame is a self-perpetuating curse that we learn from our families first, and then our teachers. What we need to realize is that when we speak shame into people, they live down to that expectation, rather than living up to an aspiration that comes from speaking blessings into them instead.

Recently, I witnessed a friend making this mistake with his son who has ADHD. They were visiting someone, and before they went in, he pulled his son aside and said, “I know you’re going to do something stupid or careless, and I want you to focus on not doing that.” For the first several hours, his son was a model of good behavior.

They left to have lunch at a restaurant and came back to the house. At this point, his son was left to his own devices and got bored. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with what happens when kids get bored, but that’s a recipe for disaster. His son ended up making a big mistake, living down to his dad’s expectation. Following that mistake was, of course, the reinforcement of shame through scolding.

I challenged my friend that day, reminding him that even when they’re grown, our kids still remember the things we said to them. Heaping shame upon them creates a life where they’re always trying to prove that we were wrong by taking on the burden of perfectionism.

They think, “If I get it right all the time, I can prove to myself that Mom and Dad were wrong and I won’t have to feel this shame anymore.”

When my wife, Lora, was growing up, there was a seed planted in her mind that if she didn’t go to college she’d never be a success. Thankfully for her, she was able to use that negative belief as fuel to become highly successful despite not going to college, but there is still pain from the shame her family planted in her mind about success being tied to going to college.

The Bible says in Exodus that the sins of the father will be “[visited] …upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” That’s how shame works. Shame is an anchor to our past. When we are so tied to our past that we can only look back, we can’t enjoy the present, and it robs joy from our future.

I encouraged my friend to practice repentance rather than shame with his son, since repentance focuses on turning toward doing the right thing, rather than dwelling on the shame of doing the wrong thing. Repentance has to be modeled, so he’ll need to speak blessings and positive aspirations into his son. If he speaks from a place of believing his son will live up to positive aspirations, rather than living down to negative expectations, he will likely see a radical change in his son’s behavior.

There are two sides to this situation though, he will also need to give his son permission to call him out when he communicates negative expectations. I challenged him to practice repentance modeling for one year, to see if it makes a difference.

During my entire time in elementary school, grades one through six, my “behavior” score was always unsatisfactory. Every. Single. Year. I got in trouble all the time because I was bored, which was why I understood his son’s point of view. Our minds want to be occupied. If we’re bored, and someone has spoken high expectations into us, our minds will work on trying to achieve that expectation rather than thinking of ways to live down to shame.

It’s like if you ask someone not to think about pink elephants, because blue giraffes are the only thing they should be thinking about, and then leave them alone in a room with nothing to do. What do you think their mind is going to focus on? They’ll try to just think about blue giraffes, but they’ll also be focusing on those pink elephants they were told not to think about.

But, if you only tell them to think about blue giraffes and leave them in that same room, they’ll be thinking about giraffes, because no one planted pink elephants in their minds before they walked in.

I volunteer with the PARC organization, a center to help people experiencing homelessness here in Amarillo. When I’m there, I get to have a lot of very interesting conversations with people, and I’ve learned that there is a great deal of shame involved with homelessness. There is real hurt that comes from not having a home. Their situations are almost always tied to bad decisions, mental health issues, alcohol, drugs, or physical and emotional abuse, which all contribute to a heavy burden of shame.

Unfortunately, society as a whole is really good at reinforcing that shame. What we need to remember, though, is that when Jesus was on the cross, He not only removed our sins, but also our shame. That’s important to note, because the very first thing that we took upon ourselves as humans (Adam and Eve) was recognizing nakedness and feeling shame because of it.

The first consequence of living outside God’s will was the placement of shame. That’s why it’s important to practice not only forgiving others, but also forgiving ourselves. The redemption Jesus brings is the removal of both shame and sin. We’re not living in that life of shame and condemnation, we’re reborn into a life of no shame and no condemnation.

Shame has been a tool of both organized religion and parenting. In my conversation with my friend, I shared with him that my mom’s discipline tool was controlling through shame and volatility. I don’t know the real hurts in her life that planted those seeds in her, but my dad was the opposite of that. Even when he disciplined me, he always confirmed his love for me and explained that the discipline was based on the expectation that I was better than my behavior. I always wanted to live up to his expectations and I felt defeated when I didn’t. His encouragement and grace always wanted me to be more.

As I’ve gotten older and learned more, I’ve realized that instead of saying “shame on you” we should say “shame off you” because placing shame is a curse, and it is something that truly has its beginnings in original sin and the deception of the evil one.

To fall short is the human experience, and shame is the consequence. But it is also the foundation of why we need a Savior.  

My journey of being refined by failure was removing the shame I felt from being fired, and pivoting that into learning from my past to change my future. Shame said I needed to be perfect to be loved, and perfect people don’t get fired. The truth is that if I’d failed to recognize the blessing God intended by removing me from that situation, and focused on what I lost rather than gained, I wouldn’t be writing these blogs, or books. Shame would have stolen all of that from me if I had let it.

Lora is the one who planted positive expectations in me. She told me that I needed to go get help to stop my cycle of poor decision-making. She wasn’t shaming me, she was saying I was better than that, and that she expected more out of me. I joke about it, but it really was one of those pivotal moments.

In 10x is Easier Than 2x, they talk about documenting moments of acceleration. Being fired from Smart, and the “get over yourself” conversation my wife had with me were 10x moments in my life. One was intended to place shame upon me, and the other was intended to remove shame and place strong encouragement on living up to the possibilities of what God had intended for me.