Victory into Victim
“Great job!”
“Awesome!”
“You’re a hero!”
And similar cries echo all around a star scholar-athlete as he is hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates being carried off the field after hitting the game-winning, walk-off grand slam in the state championship game.
The scholar athlete wearing number 1 feels the surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins in the exuberance of the celebration from being carried off the field, through the celebratory antics in the locker room, and it even continues all the way back home from the state tournament where he finds himself alone in his room.
In silence.
Just as always.
He glances at all the trophies, plaques, and other accolades adoring his room from tee ball to his junior year of high school. He reads through the multiple offer letters scattered throughout his desk and floor to all the big-name schools.
But, he glares at the one letter pinned directly in the center of his corkboard littered with overdue assignments and long to-do lists. He furrows his brow reading the thrice underlined word, “Rejected,” in the first line of the first paragraph of the letter from his dream school, the school his parents went to, participated in athletics, met, and got married from. His shoulders slump. He throws the other letters off his desk and sulks to his bed where he curls into a ball with his comforter.
Tears stream from his face as guilt, fear, and anger ransack his mind. He eventually falls asleep, but that feeling of failure never leaves him even in his dreams. He wants that last letter of acceptance where he feels he will be complete.
Number 1 has just suffered another bout of perfectionism that millions of scholar athletes suffer every year. This is the dark side of perfectionism that is often hidden away, never shown to the world. A weakness that is consistently overlooked in a high-performing athlete.
Perfection At All Costs
Perfectionism can spawn from many variables throughout a scholar athletes life, but it is crucial to be able to recognize the signs that an athlete may be suffering from an imbalance of perfectionistic tendencies. Recognizing these signs will allow one to be able to tackle the underlying causes and break free from the potential devastating effects.
Perfectionists tend to exhibit any of the following behaviors: All-or-Nothing Beliefs, High Self-Criticism, Fear of Failure, Incredibly High Standards, Too Focused on Results and the Future, and Depressed Attitude and Procrastination.
All-or-Nothing Beliefs
Perfectionists tend to believe that they are a failure if they do not achieve all of their goals that they set out to achieve. Scholar athletes may demonstrate this tendency with a hyperfocus on making one mistake versus hundreds of successes or hyper-focusing on the one rejection letter versus dozens of acceptances.
High Self-Criticism
Many people tend to be overly critical of themselves, but the perfectionist scholar athlete will be at another level entirely. Instead of merely being hard on themselves with a desire to do better next time, the perfectionist scholar athlete will nearly eviscerate themselves inwardly and practice the same mistake again and again until they feel they can never get it wrong. Furthermore, because of their own high self-criticism, they do not often handle being given constructive criticism well. They often react defensively and acerbically to the criticism.
Fear of Failure
This high sense of self-criticism can lead to or be stemmed from a fear of failure. This fear is irrational but encompassing for the perfectionist scholar athlete. The athlete cannot merely accept failure as an option and often overcorrects to avoid this fear. This fear can be rooted in childhood trauma or developed over time with their developing talent and desire to want to achieve a scholarship.
Incredibly High Standards
Since the perfectionist scholar athlete is seeking a high-level reward of a collegiate scholarship, they often then have incredibly high standards. These standards are not just for themselves either, but also for all those around them that they interact with. These standards will become overwhelming for those around the athlete, and even add even more pressure on the already exerted athlete.
Too Focused on Results and the Future
The perfectionist scholar athlete always has their mind on the future outcome they are striving to achieve. They often will feel or show behaviors to be excited in the moment of some achievement, but the next day, they are already back to work or to practice. For these athletes, they do not see any excitement in the minor step towards their ultimate goal, merely that it is a step in the right direction. They do feel a sense of accomplishment, but it is nothing compared to what they feel will be the ultimate accomplishment in the future.
Depressed Attitude and Procrastination
A perfect scholar athlete may at times portray depressive attitudes and procrastination from their goals. This may seem counterintuitive to the ultimate goal, but the burnout that is spawning inside the athlete’s mind from the constant exertion can be overwhelming for the athlete. The athlete prioritizes what they feel is important, and they allow other tasks to drop without being completed until they absolutely need to be completed.
Issues that May Develop
A perfectionist scholar athlete may exhibit any number of the aforementioned behaviors singularly or in combination with one another. Any number of these behaviors could lead to more severe issues such as burnout, control issues, loss of self, and loss of presence. These issues could then develop further in a downward spiral to chronic mental illness, substance abuse, and, most devastatingly, suicide.
Burnout
A number of factors and variables could lead to burnout in a perfectionist scholar athlete from the athlete themselves, societal pressure, familial pressure, the constant drive to perform, the constant workload, or anything else that could add stress to the athlete’s mind.
Anxiety and depression may be the two primary behaviors that epitomize burnout. The scholar athlete may showcase an inability to sit still, the feeling of being overwhelmed, and even panic attacks that are staples of anxiety. Anxious behaviors have the athlete feeling as if they are always “on” and are never able to relax. The anxious athlete must always be going, moving, and working towards the ultimate goal, despite the detrimental behaviors they are inflicting on themselves.
The depressed athlete may show a sudden lack of motivation in activities they were more than likely excited for previously. They may have sleep issues in that they may sleep at random times throughout the day or sleep for extended periods of time. They may have difficulty concentrating. They may just feel “off” which is somewhat opposite to the anxious athlete.
Both anxiety and depression can live inside an athlete’s mind though, and the athlete may showcase behaviors arising from both issues.
Control Issues
The perfectionist scholar athlete desires not only for their life to be perfect and their plan to go according to plan, perfectly, but also for everyone around them to be perfect. They cannot understand why others cannot just do as they are supposed to and be perfect. This may be the most overt behavior of the perfectionist athlete as this spawns to attempting to control others to meet the athlete’s desires rather than allowing for a single variable, a single person, to act of their own free will.
The perfectionist athlete may project themselves into a situation they have no business being a part of just to ensure that the plan goes they way they wish. They may have trouble delegating or allowing others to help them in any way. They may have difficulty with even asking for help.
Loss of Self and Presence
Even after the perfectionist scholar athlete has caved to anxiety and depression to begin controlling every facet of their life, they still may not be able to control everything and their plan may fail at some point.
This “failure” may be an injury, a lost game or match, a lost teammate, a rejection letter, a low grade on an assignment or exam, or anything else the perfect athlete considers a failure or deviation from the “perfect” plan.
The plan may not have necessarily failed in the mind of a non-perfectionist, but to the perfect athlete, the plan might as well have been utterly obliterated before their eyes.
Even if a non-perfect athlete would see the “failure” as a minor step-back, the perfect athlete will hyperfocus on this failure and be unable to accept it. They may begin to spiral from this moment even further.
The perfect athlete desires everything to be perfect the way they planned and is unable to accept that something went awry. The plan just may need to be altered in some minor manner, but the perfect athlete has already lost sight of whom they were long ago. Their identity became the plan, become the ultimate goal. Without this one step, they feel they are losing the ultimate goal, losing their entire identity.
This “failure” may cause a loss of self and loss of presence as they do in fact feel the ultimate goal slipping away. They may double-down and cave to even more controlling tendencies as they reflect back over what else they could have done to prevent this “failure”.
To “make up” for their failure, the perfect athlete may feel they have been doing all that they could already and reach for something that may allow them even more performance.
The perfect athlete may turn to stimulating substances.
Substance Abuse
Any substance that the perfect athlete feels gives them the “edge” may be sought after so long as it does provide that “necessary” boost the perfect athlete desires.
The perfect athlete will seek this substance out over anything else and feel they cannot perform without their “magic pill” or “secret weapon” or any other euphemism they may utilize to hide the fact they are abusing a substance.
The perfect athlete may demonstrate even more erratic behaviors, sleep problems, eating disorders, or severe weight loss at this point as their mind cannot function without the substance numbing their senses.
No Other Plan
Even with the substance stimulating their mind, the perfect athlete may still be unable to rectify the “failure” in their mind. They may then have even more “failures” in the course of time and be unable to come to terms with their loss of self and presence. They, unfortunately, may feel there is only one option as they feel they are letting everyone around them down. They may feel they have become a burden to their family, friends, society, etc., as they were working so hard to please them rather than themselves. Only one option may seem reasonable to them.
To end it all.
There’s Not Just One Plan
Recognizing the signs and symptoms of perfectionism is crucial in helping the perfect athlete understand that plans succeed and fail, but that is not the end. Helping the perfect athlete express their thoughts and feelings to anyone whether that be a professional, mentor, parent, counselor, etc., will be one of the most beneficial strategies to deploy to helping the perfect athlete.
The perfect athlete will need to learn to cope with perfectionistic tendencies through a variety of methods such as talk therapy, journaling, fear confrontation, or any other safe and effective method to overcome the perfectionist tendencies and subsequent mental illnesses.
Encouraging the athlete to seek help, to allow a comforting presence to discuss what they are going through will be beneficial as well. If a perfect athlete should ever seek out help, instead of potentially stating or projecting the sentiment of, “Just be grateful! Look at all you’ve done already!” perhaps taking a moment to actually listen to the struggling perfect athlete and say or project, “I understand. It can be hard to maintain all of this. What can I help you with?”
The struggling perfect athlete needs to be heard for their own person, not for pleasing anyone else or for achieving/not achieving a goal. Their own person should be applauded, not what they did. The struggling perfect athlete is indeed perfect, but not because they did THE best, rather, because they did the ATHLETE’S best.
And, THAT, should be rewarded.
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Victory into Victim
“Great job!”
“Awesome!”
“You’re a hero!”
And similar cries echo all around a star scholar-athlete as he is hoisted on the shoulders of his teammates being carried off the field after hitting the game-winning, walk-off grand slam in the state championship game.
The scholar athlete wearing number 1 feels the surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins in the exuberance of the celebration from being carried off the field, through the celebratory antics in the locker room, and it even continues all the way back home from the state tournament where he finds himself alone in his room.
In silence.
Just as always.
He glances at all the trophies, plaques, and other accolades adoring his room from tee ball to his junior year of high school. He reads through the multiple offer letters scattered throughout his desk and floor to all the big-name schools.
But, he glares at the one letter pinned directly in the center of his corkboard littered with overdue assignments and long to-do lists. He furrows his brow reading the thrice underlined word, “Rejected,” in the first line of the first paragraph of the letter from his dream school, the school his parents went to, participated in athletics, met, and got married from. His shoulders slump. He throws the other letters off his desk and sulks to his bed where he curls into a ball with his comforter.
Tears stream from his face as guilt, fear, and anger ransack his mind. He eventually falls asleep, but that feeling of failure never leaves him even in his dreams. He wants that last letter of acceptance where he feels he will be complete.
Number 1 has just suffered another bout of perfectionism that millions of scholar athletes suffer every year. This is the dark side of perfectionism that is often hidden away, never shown to the world. A weakness that is consistently overlooked in a high-performing athlete.
Perfection At All Costs
Perfectionism can spawn from many variables throughout a scholar athletes life, but it is crucial to be able to recognize the signs that an athlete may be suffering from an imbalance of perfectionistic tendencies. Recognizing these signs will allow one to be able to tackle the underlying causes and break free from the potential devastating effects.
Perfectionists tend to exhibit any of the following behaviors: All-or-Nothing Beliefs, High Self-Criticism, Fear of Failure, Incredibly High Standards, Too Focused on Results and the Future, and Depressed Attitude and Procrastination.
All-or-Nothing Beliefs
Perfectionists tend to believe that they are a failure if they do not achieve all of their goals that they set out to achieve. Scholar athletes may demonstrate this tendency with a hyperfocus on making one mistake versus hundreds of successes or hyper-focusing on the one rejection letter versus dozens of acceptances.
High Self-Criticism
Many people tend to be overly critical of themselves, but the perfectionist scholar athlete will be at another level entirely. Instead of merely being hard on themselves with a desire to do better next time, the perfectionist scholar athlete will nearly eviscerate themselves inwardly and practice the same mistake again and again until they feel they can never get it wrong. Furthermore, because of their own high self-criticism, they do not often handle being given constructive criticism well. They often react defensively and acerbically to the criticism.
Fear of Failure
This high sense of self-criticism can lead to or be stemmed from a fear of failure. This fear is irrational but encompassing for the perfectionist scholar athlete. The athlete cannot merely accept failure as an option and often overcorrects to avoid this fear. This fear can be rooted in childhood trauma or developed over time with their developing talent and desire to want to achieve a scholarship.
Incredibly High Standards
Since the perfectionist scholar athlete is seeking a high-level reward of a collegiate scholarship, they often then have incredibly high standards. These standards are not just for themselves either, but also for all those around them that they interact with. These standards will become overwhelming for those around the athlete, and even add even more pressure on the already exerted athlete.
Too Focused on Results and the Future
The perfectionist scholar athlete always has their mind on the future outcome they are striving to achieve. They often will feel or show behaviors to be excited in the moment of some achievement, but the next day, they are already back to work or to practice. For these athletes, they do not see any excitement in the minor step towards their ultimate goal, merely that it is a step in the right direction. They do feel a sense of accomplishment, but it is nothing compared to what they feel will be the ultimate accomplishment in the future.
Depressed Attitude and Procrastination
A perfect scholar athlete may at times portray depressive attitudes and procrastination from their goals. This may seem counterintuitive to the ultimate goal, but the burnout that is spawning inside the athlete’s mind from the constant exertion can be overwhelming for the athlete. The athlete prioritizes what they feel is important, and they allow other tasks to drop without being completed until they absolutely need to be completed.
Issues that May Develop
A perfectionist scholar athlete may exhibit any number of the aforementioned behaviors singularly or in combination with one another. Any number of these behaviors could lead to more severe issues such as burnout, control issues, loss of self, and loss of presence. These issues could then develop further in a downward spiral to chronic mental illness, substance abuse, and, most devastatingly, suicide.
Burnout
A number of factors and variables could lead to burnout in a perfectionist scholar athlete from the athlete themselves, societal pressure, familial pressure, the constant drive to perform, the constant workload, or anything else that could add stress to the athlete’s mind.
Anxiety and depression may be the two primary behaviors that epitomize burnout. The scholar athlete may showcase an inability to sit still, the feeling of being overwhelmed, and even panic attacks that are staples of anxiety. Anxious behaviors have the athlete feeling as if they are always “on” and are never able to relax. The anxious athlete must always be going, moving, and working towards the ultimate goal, despite the detrimental behaviors they are inflicting on themselves.
The depressed athlete may show a sudden lack of motivation in activities they were more than likely excited for previously. They may have sleep issues in that they may sleep at random times throughout the day or sleep for extended periods of time. They may have difficulty concentrating. They may just feel “off” which is somewhat opposite to the anxious athlete.
Both anxiety and depression can live inside an athlete’s mind though, and the athlete may showcase behaviors arising from both issues.
Control Issues
The perfectionist scholar athlete desires not only for their life to be perfect and their plan to go according to plan, perfectly, but also for everyone around them to be perfect. They cannot understand why others cannot just do as they are supposed to and be perfect. This may be the most overt behavior of the perfectionist athlete as this spawns to attempting to control others to meet the athlete’s desires rather than allowing for a single variable, a single person, to act of their own free will.
The perfectionist athlete may project themselves into a situation they have no business being a part of just to ensure that the plan goes they way they wish. They may have trouble delegating or allowing others to help them in any way. They may have difficulty with even asking for help.
Loss of Self and Presence
Even after the perfectionist scholar athlete has caved to anxiety and depression to begin controlling every facet of their life, they still may not be able to control everything and their plan may fail at some point.
This “failure” may be an injury, a lost game or match, a lost teammate, a rejection letter, a low grade on an assignment or exam, or anything else the perfect athlete considers a failure or deviation from the “perfect” plan.
The plan may not have necessarily failed in the mind of a non-perfectionist, but to the perfect athlete, the plan might as well have been utterly obliterated before their eyes.
Even if a non-perfect athlete would see the “failure” as a minor step-back, the perfect athlete will hyperfocus on this failure and be unable to accept it. They may begin to spiral from this moment even further.
The perfect athlete desires everything to be perfect the way they planned and is unable to accept that something went awry. The plan just may need to be altered in some minor manner, but the perfect athlete has already lost sight of whom they were long ago. Their identity became the plan, become the ultimate goal. Without this one step, they feel they are losing the ultimate goal, losing their entire identity.
This “failure” may cause a loss of self and loss of presence as they do in fact feel the ultimate goal slipping away. They may double-down and cave to even more controlling tendencies as they reflect back over what else they could have done to prevent this “failure”.
To “make up” for their failure, the perfect athlete may feel they have been doing all that they could already and reach for something that may allow them even more performance.
The perfect athlete may turn to stimulating substances.
Substance Abuse
Any substance that the perfect athlete feels gives them the “edge” may be sought after so long as it does provide that “necessary” boost the perfect athlete desires.
The perfect athlete will seek this substance out over anything else and feel they cannot perform without their “magic pill” or “secret weapon” or any other euphemism they may utilize to hide the fact they are abusing a substance.
The perfect athlete may demonstrate even more erratic behaviors, sleep problems, eating disorders, or severe weight loss at this point as their mind cannot function without the substance numbing their senses.
No Other Plan
Even with the substance stimulating their mind, the perfect athlete may still be unable to rectify the “failure” in their mind. They may then have even more “failures” in the course of time and be unable to come to terms with their loss of self and presence. They, unfortunately, may feel there is only one option as they feel they are letting everyone around them down. They may feel they have become a burden to their family, friends, society, etc., as they were working so hard to please them rather than themselves. Only one option may seem reasonable to them.
To end it all.
There’s Not Just One Plan
Recognizing the signs and symptoms of perfectionism is crucial in helping the perfect athlete understand that plans succeed and fail, but that is not the end. Helping the perfect athlete express their thoughts and feelings to anyone whether that be a professional, mentor, parent, counselor, etc., will be one of the most beneficial strategies to deploy to helping the perfect athlete.
The perfect athlete will need to learn to cope with perfectionistic tendencies through a variety of methods such as talk therapy, journaling, fear confrontation, or any other safe and effective method to overcome the perfectionist tendencies and subsequent mental illnesses.
Encouraging the athlete to seek help, to allow a comforting presence to discuss what they are going through will be beneficial as well. If a perfect athlete should ever seek out help, instead of potentially stating or projecting the sentiment of, “Just be grateful! Look at all you’ve done already!” perhaps taking a moment to actually listen to the struggling perfect athlete and say or project, “I understand. It can be hard to maintain all of this. What can I help you with?”
The struggling perfect athlete needs to be heard for their own person, not for pleasing anyone else or for achieving/not achieving a goal. Their own person should be applauded, not what they did. The struggling perfect athlete is indeed perfect, but not because they did THE best, rather, because they did the ATHLETE’S best.
And, THAT, should be rewarded.