Evaluating Your Demanding Standards

This worksheet assists clients in evaluating their demanding standards, fostering the development of more flexible and constructive guidelines for performance.

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Professional version

Offers theory, guidance, and prompts for mental health professionals. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.

Client version

Includes client-friendly guidance. Downloads are in Fillable PDF format where appropriate.

Editable version (PPT)

An editable Microsoft PowerPoint version of the resource.

Overview

Striving to meet high standards can be a rewarding experience and can lead to significant improvements. However, these demanding standards may also have negative consequences, leading to emotional, social, and behavioral challenges. The Evaluating Your Demanding Standards worksheet is designed to assist clients in reassessing their high expectations and developing more flexible and supportive guidelines for their performance.

Why Use This Resource?

Demanding standards contribute to emotional, social, and behavioral difficulties. This worksheet empowers clients to scrutinize these standards and devise more balanced guidelines.

Encourages insight into the impact of extreme, self-imposed standards on well-being.
Facilitates recognition of demanding standards are fair and accurate.
Assists in establishing more realistic and flexible standards.

Key Benefits

Clarity

Helps clients clarify the demanding standards they adhere to.

Insight

Provides insight into the accuracy and fairness of these standards.

Change

Encourages the development of more flexible, balanced standards.

Who is this for?

Pefectionism

Characterized by rigid, self-imposed standards and a fear of making mistakes.

Anxiety Disorders

Inflexible standards that contribute to excessive worry and avoidance.

Depression

Perfectionism exacerbates feelings of inadequacy and failure.

Eating Disorders

High standards concerning eating, shape, and weight.

Integrating it into your practice

Identify

Encourage clients to identify a demanding standards they impose on themselves.

Evidence

Examine evidence supporting or contradicting the fairness and accuracy of the standard.

Goals

Clarify what clients hope to achieve by setting such standards.

Guidelines

Develop a flexible 'guideline' that could achieve the desired outcome.

Experiment

Develop experiments to test the new guideline.

Theoretical Background & Therapist Guidance

Individuals can set demanding high standards in almost any life domain, including their work, appearance, bodily hygiene, social and romantic relationships, eating habits, health, time management, hobbies, leisure activities, sports, orderliness, and several others (Stoeber & Stoeber, 2009).

Striving to meet demanding standards can be a rewarding process and lead to significant gains (e.g., praise, social status, financial rewards, etc.). However, demanding standards can also have adverse consequences and cause emotional (e.g., depression), social (e.g., isolation), and behavioral (e.g., procrastination) difficulties (Egan et al., 2014).

What's inside

An comprehensive overview of perfectionism and demanding standards.
Therapist guidance and instructions for using the resource with clients.
Key references and recommendations for further reading.

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FAQs

Demanding standards are a core component of perfectionism, often taking the form of rigid, self-imposed rules believed to be essential for self-worth.

This worksheet helps clients evaluate the fairness and accuracy of their standards and develop more flexible guidelines that achieve their goals.

Encourage discussion about perceived costs, benefits, and long-term consequences of pursuing them.

How This Resource Improves Clinical Outcomes

By evaluating their demanding standards, clients can:

Gain greater awareness of their self-imposed rules.
Feel more motivated to change their demanding standards.
Develop more healthy and realistic standards.

Clinicians Who Use This Resource Also Use

Demanding Standards – Living Well With Your Personal Rules

References And Further Reading

Egan, S. J., Wade, T. D., & Shafran, R. (2011). Perfectionism as a transdiagnostic process: A clinical review. Clinical Psychology Review, 31, 203-212. DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2010.04.009.
Egan, S. J., Wade, T. D., Shafran, R., & Antony, M. M. (2014). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of perfectionism. Guilford Press.
Fairburn, C. G. (2013). Overcoming binge eating (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Limburg, K., Watson, H. J., Hagger, M. S., & Egan, S. J. (2017). The relationship between perfectionism and psychopathology: A meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 73, 1301-1326. DOI: 10.1002/jclp.22435.
Shafran, R., Cooper, Z., & Fairburn, C. G. (2002). Clinical perfectionism: A cognitive-behavioral analysis. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40, 773-791. DOI: 10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00059-6.
Shafran, R., Egan, S., & Wade, T. (2010). Overcoming perfectionism: A self-help guide using cognitive behavioural techniques. Constable and Robinson.
Smith, M. M., Sherry, S. B., Chen, S., Saklofske, D. H., Mushquash, C., Flett, G. L., & Hewitt, P. L. (2018). The perniciousness of perfectionism: A meta-analytic review of the perfectionism-suicide relationship. Journal of Personality, 86, 522-542. DOI: 10.1111/jopy.12333.
Stoeber, J., & Stoeber, F. S. (2009). Domains of perfectionism: Prevalence and relationships with perfectionism, age, gender, and satisfaction with life. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 530-535. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.12.006.