Perfectionism

Which type are you?

BY JOHN GOTWALS

If you listen to the sports media, the

Ultimate goal in sport—the thing we should all be striving for—is perfect perfor- mance. Just look at all the attention and acclaim that athletes or teams get when they actually achieve perfection. This past summer Chicago White Sox pitcher Marc Buerhle threw a perfect game (i.e., no hits and no walks) and Sports Illustrated hailed it as the “coolest moment” of the season. Nadia Comăneci’s “perfect 10” at the 1976 Summer Olympics is still hailed as one of the best Olympic moments ever. The New England Patriots had a perfect record in 2007 and were on their way to being deemed the best football team ever—until they had their one loss of the season in the Super Bowl. Ultimate is no different. Many consider the nearly perfect game between Furious George and Boston’s DOG — where there were only 3 turnovers in the whole game! — as one of the best Ultimate games played.

Definition: per·fec·tion·ism: 1. a propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards. 2. a personality trait manifested by the rejection of personal achievements falling short of perfection, often leading to distress and self-condemnation

Which are you?

Given the esteem reserved for perfect

performance in sport, it’s not surprising that many successful world-class athletes have proclaimed themselves to be perfec- tionists and that sport psychologists have identified perfectionism as a component of Olympic gold-medaling athletes’ per- sonality. This evidence makes it look like perfectionism is a good thing. Perhaps we’d all be better players if we were more perfectionistic in our approach to Ultimate? If you’re thinking this way—hold on a minute. Research has painted per-

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fectionism in a very different light. Within the clinical and sport psychology literature perfectionism has been linked to a wide array of maladaptive, dysfunctional, and debilitating characteristics including anxi- ety, anger, depression, eating disorders, and even suicide. Now trying to be more of a perfectionist in Ultimate doesn’t sound like such a good idea. How can we explain this contrast be-

tween the prolonged success of world- class perfectionist athletes and the dys- functional correlates of perfectionism produced in sport psychology research? Don Hamachek offered a controversial conceptualization of perfectionism that may provide some answers. Hamachek distinguished between two types of per- fectionists—since labeled maladaptive and adaptive perfectionists. Both maladaptive and adaptive perfectionists set perfect performance as their goal. To Ultimate players perfect performance often means having zero turnovers, catching every pass thrown their way, and shutting their mark down on defense. The difference between maladaptive and adaptive perfectionists is how they respond when perfect perfor- mance isn’t achieved.

Maladaptive perfectionists define

perfect performance literally—they equate a single personally-committed mistake

with complete failure to achieve their goal. This “all or nothing” style of thinking is often compounded by feelings that signifi- cant others (e.g., coaches, captains, team- mates) have unrealistic expectations and are overly critical in nature. Unfortunately for maladaptive perfectionists, flawless performance is rarely achieved. We all oc- casionally drop passes, make bad throws, and get schooled on D. As a result, mal- adaptive perfectionists continually experi- ence failure in both practice and competi- tion and develop a fear that such failures will occur time and time again. When it comes to gametime maladaptive perfec- tionists are so consumed by this fear of failure that they’re often anxious, emotion- ally drained, and ridden with self-doubt before the game even starts. Obviously, this state-of-mind makes it even tougher to make good catches and smart throws and, hence, maladaptive perfectionist Ultimate players confirm their own fear. Adaptive perfectionists, on the other hand, understand that it’s inevitable that they’ll make some mistakes as they strive to achieve their lofty performance stan- dards. Consequently, adaptive perfection- ists do not fear the possibility of mistakes to the same degree as maladaptive perfec- tionists. Additionally, adaptive perfection- ists’ standards are set from within and are free from other peoples’ expectations and criticisms. As a result, falling short of per- fection has less of a negative impact upon adaptive perfectionists’ self-worth (as compared to maladaptive perfection- ists). When gametime comes around adaptive perfectionists’ healthy approach towards performance allows them to be focused on relevant aspects of their per- formance and excited about what the up- coming game has to offer. In fact, adaptive perfectionists’ main source of excitement and satisfaction comes not from actu- ally achieving perfection, but from put- ting forth sincere effort towards that goal. Sounds like the “perfect” type of player I’d like to have on my team! »U

~John K. Gotwals, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the School of Kinesiology at Lakehead University.

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