Last week and the week before,TINT together with Laura Curta organized the workshop ‘Dealing with perfectionism’ for the department of Applied Physics and the study association SVTN “J.D. van der Waals”.
The evening did not start as planned as there were some technical issues and therefore the presentation was not visible to the attendees. A perfect example showing that technology is not perfect and that no matter how much you prepare an event, there might still happen some unforeseen problems. But it was also a nice example of how to quickly deal with these surprises as we changed the schedule and just started without the presentation. During the startup the attendees already started talking to each other and learned something about each other. This was actually quite nice, since that created a ‘safer’ atmosphere in my opinion.
Then, the training could finally start. We first introduced ourselves just before we immediately received an exercise. We had to divide a circle in several parts about what we do when we tend to have perfectionistic behaviour, for example, procrastinating, overthinking or just sleeping less. After we discussed this with the whole group, the TINT life coaches provided some theory about perfectionism that actually came down to three aspects: standards that are too high, pushing these standards and becoming angry when they are not achieved.
After this we had multiple other exercises and received more information. One exercise I liked particularly was to write down your reminder of relaxation. For this, we divided the group in three and discussed the answers within each of those. I thought this was really nice as you may receive some new tips that you did not think of yourself. We also came to the topic of hugs and how much we miss hugging people during COVID-19, which was a nice distraction.
The last task was to have a look at the circle made before and change it to how you want to response to perfectionism. This was a good final exercise as everyone could use the tips/stories from others.
All in all, it was an interesting and useful evening. TINT did a great job on having a safe atmosphere where everyone could say what he/she wants without feeling judged. I also really enjoyed being there and getting to know other people who struggle with the same kinds of problems.
Written by Jesse van den Tempel
PS. If you are interested in what SVTN “J.D. van der Waals” is doing with respect to Well-being, click here.