If you plan your route down to the minute, you may be a perfectionist who doesn’t know how to relax. And the more points match, the more likely it is that you need to work on your pursuit of perfection, either on your own or with a specialist.
You live by plans
Your vacation is more like a to-do list: a restaurant, a museum, a show — you have to be on time everywhere, double-check your reservations, find tickets in your email. Instead of enjoying the moment, the taste of food, communication and anything else, you live by plans. Perfectionism can prevent you from deviating from the plan even for the sake of what you sincerely want at the moment. This approach can completely ruin your vacation — a bit of spontaneity on vacation never hurts!
You assign blame
According to psychologists, both internal and external conflicts are common among perfectionists. Such individuals are very strict with themselves and other people for not meeting their imaginary standards of perfection. When plans fall through, a perfectionist cannot let the situation go without looking for someone to blame. On vacation, they may criticize themselves for not planning everything in advance, when tickets for an event are sold out. Even if they heard about it for the first time a few minutes ago. Or they may start a conflict with a partner because he or she did not choose the best table at a restaurant.
Flexibility is not about you
Of course, we’re not talking about gymnastic tricks. When things don’t go according to plan, perfectionists can have serious problems adapting to a new situation.
It’s all down to a false sense of control, where it can seem like a “perfectly planned” holiday – with excursions, meals and outings planned down to the minute – means nothing can go wrong. As a result, perfectionists are frustrated by 1,000 little things – from the wrong weather for that perfect shot to a hotel menu tweak that ruins their holiday.
You are resting “for show”
As a perfectionist, you may be concerned about your image in the eyes of others — and so planning a trip often boils down to how it will look on social media. You don’t need three excursions in one day if you’ve been dreaming of spending the day in bed all year. You don’t need to book a luxury hotel room if you want to live in a tent for a week without amenities. Don’t rely on your friends’ “perfect” trips on social media — what if you did without content at all? Vacation for yourself, not to impress others.
Not traveling seems like the lesser of two evils
Perfectionists often want everything to be so perfect that they end up obsessing over worst-case scenarios—a habit called catastrophizing or catastrophic thinking. In other words, it’s the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative events. And it’s quite capable of ruining not only a vacation, but also your life. Cancelling a trip because of the weather forecast or because you didn’t have time to buy the perfect outfit isn’t very rational. “Perfect or nothing” is a mindset that’s incompatible with a leisurely vacation.
You get more tired on vacation than at work.
In fact, the whole point of a vacation is to get away from the daily grind and improve your well-being, and sometimes even your health. If you sacrifice your inner peace for the sake of a “perfect” vacation, you may have gone too far. By the end of it, you may feel so exhausted and anxious that you wish you could get back to work as soon as possible, where you might be able to control the situation and make your life your own.