“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.” This is a famous quote from Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Intuitively, we know that perfectionism is unrealistic and restrictive, a tyrant that steals success. In fact, there are many sayings and experts that stress the importance of making mistakes for creating and achieving great things.

But still, there are many people who fear to make mistakes. According to Martin Antony, Ph.D, professor of psychology at Ryerson University and co-author of When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough, “Generally, fears are influenced by both our biological and genetic makeup, as well as our experiences.”

We model what we see, Antony said. He gave the example of parents expressing their fears over making mistakes, which a child, like a sponge, soaks up.

The messages we receive from others, including friends, employers and the media, also play a role. “The constant pressure to improve performance can have the effect of triggering fears of underperforming and of making mistakes,” Antony said. He added that constant criticism has a similar impact.

Having some fear of mistakes can be a good thing, Antony said — it can help to improve your performance. But excessive fear causes problems. For instance, you might start avoiding fear-provoking situations. “[People] may avoid social situations (meetings, dating, presentations), for fear of making some sort of blunder, and they may procrastinate for fear of not being able to complete a task perfectly”, Antony said.

Or you might engage in “safety behaviors” to prevent making mistakes. Antony defined safety behaviors as “small behaviors to protect oneself from perceived dangers.” So you might spend hours pouring over your work to make sure it’s mistake-free.

“Overcoming any fear involves confronting the feared stimulus directly”, Antony said. For instance, he and other perfectionism experts recommend people practice making small mistakes with mild consequences – and stop engaging in safety behaviors.

Changing perfectionistic thinking also is important since it’s our thoughts, our interpretations of what’s occurring around us, that perpetuate perfectionism. As Antony and co-author Richard Swinson, M.D., write in When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough, we actually don’t fear making mistakes. We fear what we believe about making mistakes. That’s what’s upsetting or anxiety-producing for us.

“Perhaps you assume that making mistakes will lead to some terrible consequence that can’t be corrected or undone (such as being fired or ridiculed by others). Or you may believe that making mistakes is a sign of weakness or incompetence,” they write.

Perfectionists tend to take such distorted thoughts as gospel. In their book, Antony and Swinson explain how readers can alter their perfectionistic thinking with these four steps:

• identify the perfectionistic thought;
• list alternative thoughts;
• think about the pros and cons of both your thoughts and the alternative thoughts; and
• pick a more realistic or helpful way to view the situation

They give the example of a man who feels embarrassed and anxious after making a joke that others didn’t seem to find funny. Initially, he thinks that others see him as awkward and boring, and won’t like him if he’s not entertaining.

His alternative thoughts are that people won’t judge him based on one measly uncomfortable situation; and they find him interesting, anyway. When evaluating these thoughts, he realizes that his friends know him well, and even though they make bad jokes, he still enjoys their company. Plus, people invite him to functions, so they must find him entertaining.

In the end, he picks this more realistic and helpful perspective: “Perhaps I need to give myself permission to make mistakes when I am talking to other people. I don’t judge other people when they say something unusual or awkward. Perhaps they are not judging me when I make mistakes.”

Instead of assuming your thoughts are facts, Antony also asks people to test their beliefs with small experiments. “For example, if someone is convinced that mispronouncing a word would be a disaster, we might encourage him or her to mispronounce a word and see what happens.”

Examining the evidence for your perfectionistic assumptions is another way to alter distorted thoughts. For instance, let’s say you believe that getting less than an A on your research paper is terrible and unacceptable. According to Antony and Swinson, “you could try to recall what happened in the past when you received a lower grade on a paper or exam. Did you survive the experience? What happens when other people receive grades that are lower than an A? Do terrible things occur as a result?”

While it might feel like your fear of mistakes is unshakeable, fortunately, there are many effective, practical strategies to overcome perfectionism. If your fear seems excessive and impairs your functioning, don’t hesitate to see a mental health professional.

Reference: Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S. from Psychcentral

Experts say kids are growing up with more anxiety and less self-esteem.

Many parents worry about how exposure to technology might affect toddlers developmentally. We know our preschoolers are picking up new social and cognitive skills at a stunning pace, and we don’t want hours spent glued to an iPad to impede that. But adolescence is an equally important period of rapid development, and too few of us are paying attention to how our teenagers’ use of technology—much more intense and intimate than a 3-year-old playing with dad’s iPhone—is affecting them. In fact, experts worry that the social media and text messages that have become so integral to teenage life are promoting anxiety and lowering self-esteem.

Young people report that there might be good reason to worry. A survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health asked 14-24 year olds in the UK how social media platforms impacted their health and wellbeing. The survey results found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all led to increased feelings of depression, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness.

Teens are masters at keeping themselves occupied in the hours after school until way past bedtime. When they’re not doing their homework (and when they are) they’re online and on their phones, texting, sharing, trolling, scrolling, you name it. Of course before everyone had an Instagram account teens kept themselves busy, too, but they were more likely to do their chatting on the phone, or in person when hanging out at the mall. It may have looked like a lot of aimless hanging around, but what they were doing was experimenting, trying out skills, and succeeding and failing in tons of tiny real-time interactions that kids today are missing out on. For one thing, modern teens are learning to do most of their communication while looking at a screen, not another person.

“As a species we are very highly attuned to reading social cues,” says Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, a clinical psychologist and author of The Big Disconnect. “There’s no question kids are missing out on very critical social skills. In a way, texting and online communicating—it’s not like it creates a nonverbal learning disability, but it puts everybody in a nonverbal disabled context, where body language, facial expression, and even the smallest kinds of vocal reactions are rendered invisible.”

Certainly speaking indirectly creates a barrier to clear communication, but that’s not all. Learning how to make friends is a major part of growing up, and friendship requires a certain amount of risk-taking. This is true for making a new friend, but it’s also true for maintaining friendships. When there are problems that need to be faced—big ones or small ones—it takes courage to be honest about your feelings and then hear what the other person has to say. Learning to effectively cross these bridges is part of what makes friendship fun and exciting, and also scary. “Part of healthy self-esteem is knowing how to say what you think and feel even when you’re in disagreement with other people or it feels emotionally risky,” notes Dr. Steiner-Adair.

But when friendship is conducted online and through texts, kids are doing this in a context stripped of many of the most personal—and sometimes intimidating—aspects of communication. It’s easier to keep your guard up when you’re texting, so less is at stake. You aren’t hearing or seeing the effect that your words are having on the other person. Because the conversation isn’t happening in real time, each party can take more time to consider a response. No wonder kids say calling someone on the phone is “too intense”—it requires more direct communication, and if you aren’t used to that it may well feel scary.

If kids aren’t getting enough practice relating to people and getting their needs met in person and in real time, many of them will grow up to be adults who are anxious about our species’ primary means of communication—talking. And of course social negotiations only get riskier as people get older and begin navigating romantic relationships and employment.

The other big danger that comes from kids communicating more indirectly is that it has gotten easier to be cruel. “Kids text all sorts of things that you would never in a million years contemplate saying to anyone’s face,” says Dr. Donna Wick, a clinical and developmental psychologist. She notes that this seems to be especially true of girls, who typically don’t like to disagree with each other in “real life.”

“You hope to teach them that they can disagree without jeopardizing the relationship, but what social media is teaching them to do is disagree in ways that are more extreme and do jeopardize the relationship. It’s exactly what you don’t want to have happen,” she says.

Dr. Steiner-Adair agrees that girls are particularly at risk. “Girls are socialized more to compare themselves to other people, girls in particular, to develop their identities, so it makes them more vulnerable to the downside of all this.” She warns that a lack of solid self-esteem is often to blame. “We forget that relational aggression comes from insecurity and feeling awful about yourself, and wanting to put other people down so you feel better.”

Peer acceptance is a big thing for adolescents, and many of them care about their image as much as a politician running for office, and to them it can feel as serious. Add to that the fact that kids today are getting actual polling data on how much people like them or their appearance via things like “likes.” It’s enough to turn anyone’s head. Who wouldn’t want to make herself look cooler if she can? So kids can spend hours pruning their online identities, trying to project an idealized image. Teenage girls sort through hundreds of photos, agonizing over which ones to post online. Boys compete for attention by trying to out-gross one other, pushing the envelope as much as they can in the already disinhibited atmosphere online. Kids gang up on each other.

Adolescents have always been doing this, but with the advent of social media they are faced with more opportunities—and more traps—than ever before. When kids scroll through their feeds and see how great everyone seems, it only adds to the pressure. We’re used to worrying about the impractical ideals that photoshopped magazine models give to our kids, but what happens with the kid next door is photoshopped, too? Even more confusing, what about when your own profile doesn’t really represent the person that you feel like you are on the inside?

“Adolescence and the early twenties in particular are the years in which you are acutely aware of the contrasts between who you appear to be and who you think you are,” says Dr. Wick. “It’s similar to the ‘imposter syndrome’ in psychology. As you get older and acquire more mastery, you begin to realize that you actually are good at some things, and then you feel that gap hopefully narrow. But imagine having your deepest darkest fear be that you aren’t as good as you look, and then imagine needing to look that good all the time! It’s exhausting.”

As Dr. Steiner-Adair explains, “Self-esteem comes from consolidating who you are.” The more identities you have, and the more time you spend pretending to be someone you aren’t, the harder it’s going to be to feel good about yourself.

Another big change that has come with new technology and especially smart phones is that we are never really alone. Kids update their status, share what they’re watching, listening to, and reading, and have apps that let their friends know their specific location on a map at all times. Even if a person isn’t trying to keep his friends updated, he’s still never out of reach of a text message. The result is that kids feel hyperconnected with each other. The conversation never needs to stop, and it feels like there’s always something new happening.

“Whatever we think of the ‘relationships’ maintained and in some cases initiated on social media, kids never get a break from them,” notes Dr. Wick. “And that, in and of itself, can produce anxiety. Everyone needs a respite from the demands of intimacy and connection; time alone to regroup, replenish and just chill out. When you don’t have that, it’s easy to become emotionally depleted, fertile ground for anxiety to breed.”

It’s also surprisingly easy to feel lonely in the middle of all that hyperconnection. For one thing, kids now know with depressing certainty when they’re being ignored. We all have phones and we all respond to things pretty quickly, so when you’re waiting for a response that doesn’t come, the silence can be deafening. The silent treatment might be a strategic insult or just the unfortunate side effect of an online adolescent relationship that starts out intensely but then fades away.

“In the old days when a boy was going to break up with you, he had to have a conversation with you. Or at least he had to call,” says Dr. Wick. “These days he might just disappear from your screen, and you never get to have the ‘What did I do?’ conversation.” Kids are often left imagining the worst about themselves.

But even when the conversation doesn’t end, being in a constant state of waiting can still provoke anxiety. We can feel ourselves being put on the back burner, we put others back there, and our very human need to communicate is effectively delegated there, too.

Both experts interviewed for this article agreed that the best thing parents can do to minimize the risks associated with technology is to curtail their own consumption first. It’s up to parents to set a good example of what healthy computer usage looks like. Most of us check our phones or our email too much, out of either real interest or nervous habit. Kids should be used to seeing our faces, not our heads bent over a screen. Establish technology-free zones in the house and technology-free hours when no one uses the phone, including mom and dad. “Don’t walk in the door after work in the middle of a conversation,” Dr. Steiner-Adair advises. “Don’t walk in the door after work, say ‘hi’ quickly, and then ‘just check your email.’ In the morning, get up a half hour earlier than your kids and check your email then. Give them your full attention until they’re out the door. And neither of you should be using phones in the car to or from school because that’s an important time to talk.”

Not only does limiting the amount of time you spend plugged in to computers provide a healthy counterpoint to the tech-obsessed world, it also strengthens the parent-child bond and makes kids feel more secure. Kids need to know that you are available to help them with their problems, talk about their day, or give them a reality check.

“It is the mini-moments of disconnection, when parents are too focused on their own devices and screens, that dilute the parent-child relationship,” Dr. Steiner-Adair warns. And when kids start turning to the Internet for help or to process whatever happened during the day, you might not like what happens. “Tech can give your children more information that you can, and it doesn’t have your values,” notes Dr. Steiner-Adair. “It won’t be sensitive to your child’s personality, and it won’t answer his question in a developmentally appropriate way.”

In addition Dr. Wick advises delaying the age of first use as much as possible. “I use the same advice here that I use when talking about kids and alcohol—try to get as far as you can without anything at all.” If your child is on Facebook, Dr. Wick says that you should be your child’s friend and monitor her page. But she advises against going through text messages unless there is cause for concern. “If you have a reason to be worried then okay, but it better be a good reason. I see parents who are just plain old spying on their kids. Parents should begin by trusting their children. To not even give your kid the benefit of the doubt is incredibly damaging to the relationship. You have to feel like your parents think you’re a good kid.”

Offline, the gold standard advice for helping kids build healthy self-esteem is to get them involved in something that they’re interested in. It could be sports or music or taking apart computers or volunteering—anything that sparks an interest and gives them confidence. When kids learn to feel good about what they can do instead of how they look and what they own, they’re happier and better prepared for success in real life. That most of these activities also involve spending time interacting with peers face-to-face is just the icing on the cake.

Reference: Rachel Ehmke by Childmind.org

Research has shown that spending time outside is good for our bodies and our minds. I'm sure you've experienced these benefits: After feeling stressed out or bored indoors, you step outside and your spirits lift.

One great way to spend time outdoors is to garden. My dad always had a garden when I was a kid, and now I understand more about what drew him to it. I've always enjoyed being outside and gardening, but it took on special significance for me when I was recovering from an extended illness. As I began to recover, I felt compelled to greatly expand my garden beds and the things I planted, even though I was still struggling physically and mentally.

The experience seemed to accelerate my own healing. It felt like even as I was building the garden, it was helping me come back to life. One day as I stood in the afternoon sunlight and looked with amazement at all that had grown, I felt my own strength that had returned over the same stretch of time.

This personal experience, along with numerous studies about the positive effects of time outside, made me curious to explore the many benefits of gardening. Recently I discussed this topic on the Think Act Be podcast with professional gardener Joe Lamp'l, creator of joe gardener®. Here are 10 benefits of gardening that emerged from our conversation:

1. 

Most of our suffering comes from trying to control things that we can't. The more we can accept the limits of our control and the unpredictability of life, the more peace of mind we can find—and gardening is a great way to practice. "Every day is one more reminder from Mother Nature that I'm not in control," Lamp'l said, which he finds helpful as a self-described "control freak."

I learned to practice acceptance in my own garden as the first baby lettuces were ready to harvest in mid-April. I had looked forward to spending time in the garden with my family, but when my 4- and 8-year-old daughters asked if they could help me harvest the lettuce, I was less than enthusiastic. What if they "messed up" my carefully planted garden? What if they broke off the stem instead of a leaf?

Thankfully, I managed to get over myself and welcome them into the garden even with the possibility that they could break something. I realized that a "perfect garden" could wind up being a pretty lonely place, which wasn't my idea of perfection.

Acceptance in the garden or elsewhere doesn't mean giving up, of course. We bring our best efforts to what we can control, and we let go of the rest. With gardening that means "preparing the best environment you can possibly make for your plants," said Lamp'l, and allowing nature to take it from there. Your garden (like your life) is in bigger hands than yours.

2. 

If you're prone to perfectionism, you're probably well aware of the costs. Trying to make things perfect can lead to frustration, missed deadlines and opportunities, and strained relationships. It can also lead to not even trying to do something, with a mentality of "why bother if it can't be perfect?"

Given the lack of control we have, gardening can be a good antidote for perfectionism. No matter how carefully you plan and execute your garden, there are countless factors you can't predict—invasions by bugs, inclement weather, hungry rodents. Years ago one of our neighbors had a beautiful garden growing until a neighboring resident sprayed weed killer on a windy day, damaging many of my neighbor's vegetable plants.

Gardening offers an endless supply of these kinds of "neutralizers for perfectionism," as Lamp'l called them. He confessed to being a perfectionist himself and knows firsthand that "pursuit of perfection is a waste of time—especially in the garden. So don't bother!"

3. 

The inability to garden perfectly is actually cause for celebration. Psychologist Carol Dweck developed the distinction between "fixed" and "growth" mindsets, and gardening is a great opportunity to develop the latter. With a growth mindset, we assume that we're constantly learning. When something doesn't work out the way we had hoped, we view it as a learning opportunity rather than as a "failure."

We can even look forward to our mistakes. "I love making mistakes," said Lamp'l, "because I look at them as a chance to learn something new. Through those mishaps, you can understand what happened and why, and you can be empowered to relate that learning to new things." So more mistakes just mean more learning and more growing.

I certainly make my share of gardening mistakes and find a growth mindset to be so helpful. For example, this season I experimented with a seeding method that I didn't do quite right and ended up with plants that were overcrowded and nearly impossible to disentangle when it came time to put the seedlings in the garden beds. My initial reaction was to feel stress about needing to "do it the right way," and then I realized all I had to do was the best I could do, and I would learn something for my fall planting.

4. 

Few things boost our well-being like good relationships, and gardening offers ample opportunities to connect with others. Lamp'l noted that "gardening is one of the best ways to connect strangers" and quickly become friends "because we have that gardening thing in common."

I've experienced that quick connection myself when meeting other gardeners, and there's so much to talk about—not only the nuts and bolts of gardening but the emotional and spiritual connections we can experience with our gardens. "It's a collective effort," said Lamp'l, "and we're all better together when we share our experiences."

5. 

Gardening provides a connection not just to other people but to our world. Many people feel that connection in a visceral way when they eat food they've just harvested. "We all have an innate connection to the earth," said Lamp'l, "and that connection manifests itself when we consume what came from the ground—which is where we came from and where we all end up."

Having a garden really means having a relationship with the plot of ground you're tending. Since I've gotten more into gardening I've had to be much more aware of the elements: the first and last frosts of the season, how much rain we've had, the temperature, where sunlight falls throughout the day. Gardening also connects us intimately with the cycle of the seasons.

And as Lamp'l described, it's easy to feel "like a parent" to one's growing plants. "You nurture the seedlings and do everything you can for them," he said, "and then it's like you're putting your babies in the soil"—much as we might nurture a young child who eventually heads out to meet the world. "They don't call it a 'nursery' for nothing!" Lamp'l continued. "I put a lot of care and emotion into the garden."

6. 

The Japanese expression "shinrin-yoku" can be translated as "forest bathing," which nicely captures the experience of being immersed in green. A growing body of research has found all kinds of benefits from being in natural landscapes.

These studies have found evidence that being in green, or even being able to look out on a green landscape, is linked with better recovery from surgery, less anxiety and depression, better stress management, and many other positive effects.

The nice thing about a garden is that it can be right out your back door. And while you could just as easily spend time sitting in your yard, you're much more likely to be outside consistently when the work of a garden requires it.

7. 

Mindful presence is tied to a long list of positive outcomes, like relationship satisfaction and less emotional reactivity. The garden can be a protected place where we practice being where we are and actually doing what we're doing.

Lamp'l described finding his "Zen moment" in his garden, where he tunes in to his experience. For example, while he generally loves to listen to podcasts, he doesn't when he's in the garden. "That's sacred time for me," he said. "When I'm out there weeding, I want to hear the birds. I don't want to hear anything else. It's a quiet time, and I relish it."

I often find that centering effect in my own garden. Just last night after heavy rain I sat in my garden in the dying light of the day and took in what was around me. It was striking how quickly I felt a sense of ease.

8. 

Moving your body regularly is an effective way to boost mood and lower anxiety, and gardening offers "no shortage of opportunities for physical activity," said Lamp'l. Even when he's not able to get to the gym consistently, he maintains muscle tone and feels good through daily work in his garden.

The movements are varied, too, which may mean fewer repetitive use injuries compared to more structured exercise. "When I do my weeding, I'm on my belly, on my butt, lying on my side—doing a lot of things you probably do in a yoga class," he said. "I can give up my gym membership."

9. 

Not surprisingly, time in your garden can be a great way to release stress. There's something about feeling the life all around you, the warmth of the sun, the soil in your hands. As I sit in my own garden these days I see rainbow Swiss chard and lettuces shaking in the wind, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries ripening, and feel the breeze as clouds move across the blue sky.

Just don't forget to spend time simply being in your garden. There's always the next thing to do, as Lamp'l pointed out, so take time deliberately to step away from activity and experience what's around you.

10. 

Last but not least, a garden can yield the freshest and healthiest foods available—the types of food that can have a significant impact on our mental health. For example, two studies showed that dietary changes can be an effective treatment for depression.

Studies in this area tend to find benefits of the "Mediterranean" (and similar) diet, which emphasizes consuming minimally processed whole foods—exactly the types of food that your garden will yield. Plus there's the added benefit of knowing you played a role in growing the food.

How to Get Started

Ready to start a garden of your own? Here are six quick tips that Lamp'l recommends for beginners.

1. Just start. Decide that you're going to get started, even though you don't know how it's going to go or even exactly what you're doing. "Try it, and so what if you fail?" asked Lamp'l. "The worst that will happen is you'll learn something. And that's worth the price of a plant, every time."

2. Start slow. Lamp'l noted that it's easy to get excited when starting out and plant too much, which ends up being hard to keep up with. As a result, you could end up feeling overwhelmed and discouraged. So get started, but don't overdo it. You can always add to your garden over time. A simple first step is to grow something in a container that you can put close to your house, so it's easy to take care of and enjoy seeing every day.  

3. Focus on healthy soil. Successful gardening starts literally from the ground up, according to Lamp'l. "Soil is life. When you focus on that, good things happen." He strongly advises gardeners to avoid synthetic chemicals and "start feeding the soil with organic material." That can include compost, the "single best thing you can add to the soil because there's so much in it," and anything else that nature provides, like shredded leaves, shredded bark, or aged manure. 

4. Grow what you like. Choose fruits and vegetables to grow based on "what you want to eat or what you like looking at," advised Lamp'l. "Grow something that's easy and that grows quickly, like a radish or lettuce." The ease and quick reward will be the motivation to stick with it. 

5. Know your plants' needs. "Learn something about the plant before you stick it in the ground," said Lamp'l. "Read the plant tag so you know if it likes sun or shade and wet or dry, and do your best to give it the environment it wants to thrive in." After all, plants can't move, so it's up to us to "put the right plant in the right place." Your plants will reward you for it. 

6. Pay attention to your plants. Spend at least a little time in your garden every day observing what's happening. That way you can "be proactive when problems arise and can circumvent potentially bigger problems," said Lamp'l. Besides, there's really no downside to spending time in your garden, given all the benefits discussed here

Reference: Seth J. Gillihan, PhD from Psychology Today