Let me describe someone you might recognize.
They work harder than almost everyone around them. They set a high bar for themselves and clear it regularly (before immediately raising it). When something goes wrong, they are the first to know why and the last to let it go. When something goes right, they move on quickly, already focused on what could have been better and what comes next.
From the outside, this person looks like a high achiever. From the inside, they feel like an imposter, exhausted and frightened that someone is about to find out.
If that sounds familiar, this post is for you.
What Is Perfectionism?
Perfectionism gets misunderstood constantly, usually because it gets confused with having high standards. Having high standards is a useful and healthy thing. Perfectionism is something different.
A distinction I like to use is this: high standards are about the work. Perfectionism is about what the work means about you.
A person with high standards wants to do something well because the outcome matters to them. When they fall short, they are disappointed, they learn from it, and they move on. A perfectionist wants to do something well because doing it well is tied to their sense of worth. When they fall short, it feels like evidence that they’re not as capable as people think, and that it’s only a matter of time before someone figures that out.
That is why perfectionism is so exhausting. You’re never just going about your work. Instead, you’re in a constant battle to defend your worth.
Where Does It Come From?
Perfectionism usually develops in response to environmental factors. Specifically, perfectionism takes root in situations where people learn that love, approval, or safety are directly related to their performance.
For example, a child growing up in a household where praise is only given for academic success, and is withdrawn when they come up short, learns the lesson that love and belonging are conditional, depending on their performance. In this environment, a child may internalize that belief and begin to see their own self-worth as connected to their academic (and eventually professional) success.
Alternatively, a child growing up in an environment where dysfunction rules the day may learn to see themselves as the sole source of stability and safety in the home. Because they observe that things at home only work out when they’re the one making them work, they begin to associate their own stability and safety with performance. Similar to the previous example, this lesson carries forward to adulthood, creating an adult who believes that even an inconsequential failure could jeopardize their safety and security.
The Cruelty of the Moving Goalpost
Some people will trick themselves into believing that perfectionism is a sustainable way to achieve their biggest goals. They might acknowledge that they’re a perfectionist, but believe that once they achieve their ultimate objective (the big promotion, the end of this project, etc) they’ll feel satisfied, relieved, and capable of turning it all off.
If only that were true.
The cruelty of perfectionism rests in the ever-shifting goalposts. The truth is that, even once you achieve your big goal, the relief won’t come. You’ll shift focus to the next big goal, and you’ll tell yourself the same story all over again. The cycle doesn’t magically end once you’ve achieved more than anyone else around you.
What are the Impacts of Perfectionism?
- Procrastination — This one is kind of surprising, because we often think of procrastination as the opposite of achievement, but it’s actually really common with perfectionists. Perfectionists often procrastinate the start of projects out of fear that the finished product may be imperfect, and that imperfection would feel unbearable. In other words, if you never start, you never fail.
- Performative, rather than authentic, relationships. Perfectionism tends to lead people to spend more time managing how they come across rather than being authentically present.
- The inability to ask for help, because needing help is evidence of inadequacy.
- Chronic low-level anxiety that spikes whenever stakes are high.
- A difficulty celebrating anything you’ve done because you’ve already moved on to what you should have done better.
- And underneath all of it: the loneliness of feeling like the people who think well of you don’t really know you. Because you’ve tied your worth to performance, and because internally you feel like you can barely keep up with your own standards, you always feel like you’re one mistake away from losing it all.
What Changes Things
Unfortunately, you can’t just fix perfectionism by deciding to abandon your standards. Instead, you need to begin to separate your sense of worth from your performance. That means learning to notice when the voice of perfectionism is activated and to gradually build a relationship with yourself that doesn’t depend on the next thing going well.
It also means sitting with some of the questions that perfectionism keeps you too busy to ask. What am I actually afraid would happen if I fell short? What do I believe about myself that makes that fear so powerful? Where did I learn that my value worked this way?
Those questions are not comfortable. But they’re the ones that lead somewhere.
If any of this resonates, our team at Bellevue Family Counseling would be glad to talk with you. Reach out when you’re ready.
