Participation Trophies and Perfectionism

What if participation trophies have caused more harm than good? The running criticism of the Millennial generation is that participation trophies were awarded to kids to make sure no one was left out and to promote a feeling that everyone wins. Enter eye rolls of the older generations as we explore how participation trophies could be a possible culprit of increased perfectionism in both Millennial and Gen Z generations.

The Millennial generation is defined roughly as individuals born 1980-1996. Stereotyped as the entitled generation that moves from one job to the next, Simon Sinek was willing to name some of the challenges in his viral video on Millennials in the workplace. Dr. Jean Twenge explored additional factors for this generation in her book Generation Me. Thanks to her research, I discovered a detailed picture of how and why perfectionism has elevated since the early 1980s. Additionally, the full experience of Millennial finances and workaholism is captured in Anne Helen Petersen’s book Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.

Following the Millennial generation, Gen Z captures folks born roughly 1996-2004 and has been named a generation that is more open to talking about mental health, quality of life, and feelings of isolation. Dr. Twenge dedicates a book to this generation’s challenges called iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—And What That Means for the Rest of Us. Serving this population in my mental health practice, I continue to see themes of perfectionism, anxiety, and burnout based on high expectations of themselves to perform well and achieve success.

How does this connect back to participation trophies? Please allow me to explain. A client of mine was doing therapeutic work around messaging their received in childhood about their worth being wrapped up in what they do. Their belief was that the more they do, the more value they possess in the eyes of others. They described getting a participation trophy for an event and recognized that it mean nothing to them because everyone else got one too. Not only that, they felt the trophy encouraged imposter syndrome in feeling like a fraud! Therefore my client felt they had to work even harder to earn accolades and positive feedback on their worth as they got older. Enter workaholism, poor boundaries, and absent self-care which landed them in my office.

Does this resonate with you as it does with me? As an Elder Millennial and therapist, I recognize powerful patterns in my own worth as well as my clients work. Is it possible that participation trophies started a spiral of messaging that our worth is wrapped up in what we do? Combined with money earned for good grades, promotions for working overtime, and focusing on our children’s accomplishments when asked how they are, is this not the perfect storm for perfectionism, workaholism, and resulting burnout as adults?

Participation trophies are not the only piece of this puzzle. I am honored to continue this journey of self-discovery with my clients as a Perfectioneur, mental health therapist, and burnout consultant. My client’s disclosure provided another layer of perspective related to rising perfectionism and burnout in these two generations. It’s not the end of our story! Our narratives of self-worth, value, and workaholism are worth exploring and rewriting to remove our badges of busyness and achieve better work-life balance!

Self-Handicapping is the Softer Cousin of Self-Sabotage

A colleague claimed they were self-handicapping in her new job to avoid feelings of inadequacy and I found myself intrigued.

According to Wikipedia.org, self-handicapping refers to a cognitive strategy to avoid effort in the hopes that it keeps potential failure from hurting self-esteem. What could this look like in real time? A student who performs well on a test attributes it to luck, believing it to be a fluke rather than the product of their hard work. A professional procrastinates on a project, thinking they may bomb the presentation the next day, anyway. An athlete skips practice, thinking it won’t matter to the match. A client puts off applying for their dream job because they’re convinced they won’t get an interview. It’s the pessimism mentality of,  “I’m going to fail, so why try?”

Self-Sabotage

With fear of failure in common, it’s important to take a closer look at self-sabotage as the more blunt, critical cousin in our analogy. Mark Tyrell, author of Self-Sabotage Behaviour Can Come in Many Forms, identifies four common reasons one may engage in self-sabotage.

·      Anticipatory Grief

·      Control

·      Boredom

·      Feeling Unworthy

Anticipatory Grief

For some of us, the familiarity of failure is a painful, somewhat predictable experience. We may go through our world anticipating loss or anticipating when something good is going to change, end, or fail. 

Perhaps you can relate to the following thoughts of anticipatory loss or end:

·      I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

·      This is too good to be true.

·      What’s the catch?

·      Nothing good lasts for me, when will this go south?

Because these thoughts have a lot of power, a client may be engaging in a belief that they don’t deserve good things. Or that they are doomed to suffer and that failing is inevitable. Similar to self-fulfilling prophecy, your client may find they are predicting a negative outcome. With these thoughts in mind, your client may also be subscribing to the second reason one can engage in self-sabotage.

Desire for Control

If we truly believe something good is going to end badly, we may want to be in control of the outcome. Have you ever found yourself thinking:

·      I’ll just end this relationship now, it’s less painful in this moment than when it ends months or years from now.

·      Better to leave this job before I get fired.

·      I know they are going to say our friendship is over, so I’ll just stop talking to them and get it over with.

We may convince ourselves that feeling in control of the failure in this moment can hurt less than something that comes on suddenly, out of the blue, or later when our guard is down. 

Boredom

The experience of our guard being down and everything feeling predictable can lead to discomfort as well. Predictability can lead to boredom, which can also be a reason to self-sabotage. If we go from feelings of chaos and excitement to monotony and boredom, Mark Tyrell states, as one example, we may find ourselves picking a fight with someone for no reason at all. Perhaps just for the alive feeling we get from adrenaline and excitement. 

Do you find yourself engaging in any of the following:

·      Picking a fight when you aren’t upset

·      Looking for trouble in new environments

·      Engaging in substance use

Feeling Unworthy

Self-sabotage can show up due to feelings of low self-worth. Maybe you feel you don’t deserve success or happiness and instead, engage by punishing yourself and setting yourself up to fail. This can represent the cornerstone of self-sabotage in wanting something and doing everything in your power to not achieve it, basically going the opposite direction of success. When explored further, many truly believe they “aren’t worth it” and engage in behaviors that prevent progress due to those negative beliefs.

Self-Handicapping

Based on what we know now, self-handicapping may be a softer, avoidant cousin to self-sabotage. Both are present when we are trying to protect our feelings or self-esteem. Both contribute to how we view ourselves and present ourselves to others. Self-handicapping just goes about it in a softer way, saying we didn’t prepare fully so we can’t be as upset with the potential failure or negative outcome.

How are you self-handicapping? 

·      Underachievement

·      Procrastination

·      Underpreparing

·      Pessimism

Self-handicapping may be a piece to the larger puzzle of recognizing the connections between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as they relate to self-worth and mental health. Therefore, I want to encourage deeper exploration into how self-handicapping may be contributing to our inner critic, self-sabotage, and imposter syndrome related to goal progression, not just for clients, but for ourselves as professionals as well.