Over on my Negotiation for the Rest of Us Substack, I posted an excerpt of my interview with clinical psychologist (and friend) Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, whose recent book How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists gives reassuring advice to those of us who labor to meet our own high standards.
Here’s the full interview, condensed and edited.
Pia: As you know, my newsletter encourages people to engage in conflict rather than shy away from it, and gives them some tools to do that. When I talk to subscribers and friends about your book, many of them say “I need to read that!” So I wonder if there is some overlap between people seeking to assert themselves more, and people who tend to be perfectionists.
Ellen: The stereotypical profile of a perfectionist is someone assertive, who emphasizes being right over getting along, or someone who sets out to win. But perfectionism is heterogeneous. It can manifest very differently, including as avoidance. For instance, there might be two people who hold the same belief: “I should win this” – but one jumps in with gusto and the other decides if they can’t do it perfectly, they should avoid it altogether.
Perfectionism can also manifest as over-responsibility. It could be a sense that we should be prepared for all the points that anyone could ever present to us, with an articulate refutation or support. I know you sometimes talk about how overly conscientious negotiators will start with solutions before discussing the problems, and I think it can manifest that way too, jumping directly to solutions or thinking we need to have things figured out ahead of time.
Whether perfectionism manifests as conflict avoidance, or as going full steam ahead with the urge to win, it’s driven by “should”s. I should be winning, I should do this correctly, I should be articulate, I should make good points, I should come across as brilliant to the person I’m negotiating with. Either way, it’s about our self-imposed standards of how we think we should be presenting ourselves or, even less under our control, how we think we should be received.
Pia: How do self-imposed standards affect interpersonal interactions?
Ellen: I say perfectionism is the heart of social anxiety. [Note: Dr. Hendriksen’s earlier book, How to Be Yourself, deals with social anxiety and I very much wish it had been around when I was younger.]
Those of us who are perfectionists make a lot of rules for ourselves, demanding of ourselves a level of performance higher than required for the situation. Performance can certainly be social performance – I have to seem smart, I have to not be awkward, I have to avoid coming off as inarticulate. Self-imposed standards manifest as rules about social behavior that can apply in negotiations or at work, or can be when you’re just hanging out with your friends at brunch. If we define “failure” as “not meeting expectations,” then failure can mean not meeting our own expectations.
Pia: Can you explain the concept of “demand sensitivity” from your book?
Ellen: Sure. I’ll preface this by saying I didn’t make this up. It’s the work of Dr. Allan Mallinger. If we think about the term literally, it’s a sensitivity to perceived demands or requests, where we orient to the “should”s of life and have a talent for tuning into what we “should” be doing. His quote is that we often turn the volitional, a want, into the obligatory, a should. Some examples are that if your kid says, “I can’t find my phone,” you start looking for it. Or if we sit down to watch Netflix, we feel like we should be watching a documentary so we can learn something.
Pia: I might be stretching the concept of demand sensitivity too far, but in the negotiation context, I often find in coaching that people interpret any pushback as a demand. If you ask for something and get brushed off, you can take it as a statement that this is not worth doing, or you shouldn’t do it, or it’s not an appropriate thing to be talking about. For example, if you’re asked to work late and you say it’s your partner’s birthday, and your boss says, “Oh,” you might interpret that as being required to work late.
Ellen: We might read into their response, and take it as if we’re not supposed to be asking for more or disagreeing.
Sometimes people ask me a question and I’ll think about it, and they’ll interpret my pause as not wanting to do the thing. “Do you want to go see this comic with me on Saturday?” I’ll pause and think, “Am I doing anything Saturday?” and they’ll interpret the pause as a no and say, “It’s okay, I can find someone else.” But I don’t mean it like that, I actually am thinking.
So I see what you’re saying that we can read into spaces or silences, or phrases or raised eyebrows, even if we’re not being asked something literally. It’s not the exact flavor of demand sensitivity, but I think we can extrapolate from that. I would say it’s more about rules that guide our behavior.
Rules, especially in perfectionism, tend to be rigid, meaning that we don’t adapt them from situation to situation. For example, a common rule people internalize is “I should be nice,” and that works most of the time. But if we feel like we can’t assert ourselves because we would upset someone and that wouldn’t be nice, or we can’t ask our boss for a raise because it might make them uncomfortable, then we’re clinging to that rule a little too rigidly. Or if we can’t yell “get away from me” at someone harassing us on the street, we’re sticking to that rule a little too rigidly.
Pia: Do you think the rules come from self-identity, or what we’ve been taught and internalized?
Ellen: Both. They can be overtly taught, or can be what we think of as core characteristics.
Pia: What should you do if you feel like niceness is one of your core characteristics, but it’s getting in your way?
Ellen: We can think about whether applying the rule in this situation works. We are misapplying the rule if we’re trying to be nice to someone harassing us.
How can we adapt how we think about ourselves to work for this situation? We can make exceptions that we integrate into our positive view of our ourselves. In this case, it could be “I’m a nice person who can be assertive.” Or “I am someone who gets along and can stand my ground.” It’s not either/or. It can be both/and.
It is actually hard to engage in conflict, or what we perceive will turn into conflict. And those are not different things – you can certainly be kind and nice and polite while being assertive, it’s not that you need to start baring your teeth and snarling. Negotiation can be polite and kind.
Pia: “Cringe attacks” are very relatable. Can you talk about those and how they relate to uncomfortable conversations?
Ellen: Cringe attacks are a colloquial name for something that doesn’t have a scientific name: the tendency for embarrassing memories to pop into our minds, often when we are doing something passive like taking a shower or folding laundry. It’s a physical experience – we might cringe, or wince, or shake our head – and it’s almost always a memory of us doing something interpersonally humiliating, or being embarrassed or ashamed in some way.
Embarrassing or humiliating memories are more likely to sting, or feel wrong, if we think they are the result of a mistake we made. But mistakes are more of a problem if we think we should not make any.
A way to turn down the volume on the cringe attacks is to make some room for mistakes, challenging the idea that we should never do anything wrong or embarrassing, or make a fool out of ourselves, or be in an awkward situation. If we can allow for some of those as part of the package deal of life, if we can make some room for that, then the intensity of these memories will decrease.
Pia: How do you deal with a cringe attack in the moment? It’s hard to broaden your perspective when you’re feeling embarrassed or humiliated.
Ellen: I’ll give you an example. Last week, I double booked a client and a supervisee, and I left my client hanging on Zoom. I felt horrible when I realized what happened. I couldn’t believe I did that. It’s not a one and done. Over that day, and a few days afterwards, I was able to broaden my perspective. Of course I will apologize and make things right. But if I make this kind of mistake once a decade, I would expect that from someone else in my position, so it’s reasonable for me too. Mistakes are a problem if we think we should not be making any.
Saying something humiliating, forgetting someone’s name, telling a joke that doesn’t land correctly – once in a while, these things are going to happen.
Pia: Your book is organized in seven “shifts.” Can you talk about the shift from control to authenticity?
Ellen: This part of the book gets into perfectionistic self-presentation. Control implies being more fake – controlling what you present to the world, and presenting to the world only part of yourself. Which might be appropriate in some situations. In a job interview, for example, you’re not going to display your weaknesses.
But authenticity is not one thing. It’s different in different contexts. You would be authentic with your boss differently than you would be authentic with your best friend of 20 years.
Applied to negotiation, there might be an idea that we have to be someone else who is tough or strong or unyielding, or we have to finesse things or be polished. But we don’t have to be someone else’s idea of the generic perfect negotiator. If we are generally affable or laid-back, we can be authentic in the context of a negotiation. Or if we tend to be serious or precise, we can also be authentic to ourselves in the context of a negotiation. You don’t have to fake being a character, or control how you present; you can be authentic to yourself in any context.
Pia: Sometimes I’ve advised people to actually pretend they are somebody else, their negotiation role model – imagine someone who would stride in and take charge of the situation, and do what you think they would do.
Ellen: You can totally channel someone else and play a role.
Pia: But what you’re talking about here is trying to control how others see you.
Ellen: Yes, they connect. Pretending you’re someone else actually sets up useful scaffolding, but then eventually the goal would be to get rid of the scaffolding and be able to be yourself. I know that sounds cliché, to be yourself, but it’s about not having to be somebody else and bringing yourself, as appropriate for the situation, into the negotiation. I think people sometimes think authentic means “raw,” or “super casual,” and that’s not the case. You can be authentic to your personality style, or who you are, as appropriate for the situation.