Defining Success With Perfectionism
Perfectionism vs. Healthy Striving: Learning to Keep What Helps and Let Go of What Doesn’t
Perfectionism occurs when we learn patterns that may be helpful to achieve success initially, but as time goes on, they become rigid and unhelpful. Perfectionism can even be motivating! ….Sometimes.
Maybe you’ve succeeded with perfectionism in the past, but now it's leading to burnout. Maybe you can’t relax after achieving success. Or maybe you were praised for achievement growing up but that mindset is keeping you stuck now.
Healthy striving is values-driven. It’s flexible. It allows room for learning, mistakes, and rest. You can care deeply about doing something well without your worth being on the line.
Perfectionism, on the other hand, is often fear-based. It’s driven by the threat of failure, criticism, or shame. The standards become rigid, the goalpost keeps moving, and “good enough” can start to feel like a personal failure.
A question I work with my clients on is:
Is this standard expanding my life, or making it smaller?
We want to ask ourselves this question when making decisions, when noticing we get anxiety around making a mistake, or when we want to evaluate our goals. When a standard is expanding our lives, we feel connected with learning, growth, and connection. When it's making our lives smaller, we feel connected with avoidance, stress, and rigidity.
Perfectionism vs. Healthy Striving
Perfectionism
Values-driven
Flexible standards
Self-worth is inherent
Mistakes are informative
Effort and meaning matter
Healthy Striving
Fear-driven
Rigid standards
Self-worth tied to outcomes
Mistakes feel dangerous
Success is never enough
You are allowed to do meaningful work, show up for people you love, or grow professionally without needing to be flawless.
The Emotional Cost of Perfectionism
Perfectionism is exhausting! This is due what’s happening internally, not due to doing too much. People with rigid high standards have constant mental monitoring and fears of making mistakes, lots of mental “background noise” that isn’t helpful, feelings of never being finished, and when they do achieve success, it feels short lived.
Many perfectionists live with:
Intense anxiety and fear of failure
Self-criticism and shame as motivators
Conditional self-worth: “I’m only okay if I succeed”
Decisions can become harder, rest can feel undeserved, and pride in accomplishments feel short lived, because relief is short lived and then the goalpost gets moved.
Common emotions perfectionists feel include:
Guilt for not doing “enough”
Resentment toward themselves
Emptiness after success
Fear of being exposed as “not good enough”
Perfectionists feel stuck because the goalpost keeps moving, success doesn’t resolve the worry and anxiety, and the sense of internal pressure doesn’t go away.
How Perfectionism Shows Up in Daily Life
Perfectionism isn’t always obvious. It often disguises itself as responsibility, diligence, or high integrity.
Common ways perfectionism shows up:
Procrastination disguised as “waiting until I can do it right”
Over-preparing and burning out or difficulty starting or finishing tasks
People pleasing and taking on too much responsibility
Replaying conversations to check for mistakes
Avoiding situations, places, or people (Larger problems may show up due to this)
Huge fear of failure
Setting rigid or high standards for others
Spending more time than necessary editing an email
Rewriting work repeatedly
Difficulty delegating
Some perfectionism is internal (pressure we put on ourselves), and some is external (driven by fear of judgment). Often, it can be both.
The Role of Avoidance in Maintaining Perfectionism
Perfectionism and avoidance are closely linked.
Avoidance can look obvious (like procrastination) but it can also be subtle.
We overwork to avoid feeling inadequate. We micromanage to avoid uncertainty. We avoid feedback (even constructive!), rest, or being vulnerable. We check work repeatedly and are trying to avoid making a single mistake. We seek reassurance. We procrastinate because we are scared of failure, judgement, or making a mistake. We look for reassurance to feel better or relieve doubt. We suffer from “analysis paralysis.” And maybe we try to avoid all risk even if it may lead to something new and exciting.
Avoidance may reduce anxiety in the short term. But in the long term, it strengthens the belief that mistakes, imperfection, or uncertainty are intolerable, and that we cannot tolerate making a mistake or the feelings that come along with it.
The avoidance cycle in perfectionism looks like:
Fear of failure or inadequacy shows up
Perfectionistic rules kick in
Avoidance reduces discomfort briefly
Fear grows stronger over time
Eventually, fear takes the lead, and life can get smaller. We may suffer from missed opportunities, our goals may become delayed, relationships can be strained, and creativity can be reduced.
Perfectionism Is a Learned Pattern—Not a Personality Flaw
Perfectionism doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s often learned in situations where achievement, approval, or safety are closely linked.
At one point, it likely served a purpose and may have helped you succeed, earned you praise or reduced criticism, or created a sense of control or predictability.
Perfectionism can lead to missed opportunities, increase in fatigue, and relationship issues.
It can feel like it's keeping you safe, but it isn’t, and the issue is that this perfectionism isn’t helpful anymore.
Values: A Key Piece in Combating Perfectionism
I always find it helpful to guide clients to clarify their values. What is important to them, and how do they actually want to be living their life? What do they want to be doing more or less of? From there, we can assess if their perfectionistic behaviors are taking them towards or away from where they want to be headed.
When we approach perfectionism from a values standpoint, we bring in flexibility instead of the rigidity perfectionism demands.
When values guide our choices:
We can act while anxious
We can take risks that matter
Success is defined by meaning, instead of being flawless
With clients, I often go over the following values clarification questions in a given situation:
What kind of person do I want to be in this situation?
What matters most here?
What would “good enough” look like if fear wasn’t in charge?
We want to move from fear-driven to values-driven choices in our lives, and choose to act even when anxiety shows up. We are choosing progress towards what matters to us over perfection, and even lowering our standards a small amount can help us to feel lighter.
Learning to Respond Differently to Self-Criticism
Many perfectionists rely on harsh self-talk as motivation, often using what we call “absolute statements”:
Should, always, never, ought to, have to, must, supposed to… sound familiar?
We want to change our relationship with our inner critic. We get to choose how we respond, and we can work on building our ability to handle big feelings or challenges.
Instead of arguing with it, you might respond with:
“I hear you, and I’m still choosing to move forward.”
“This is uncomfortable, not dangerous.”
Our critic may still show up, and sometimes may actually be motivating! But we want to be able to catch when it has TOO much power, and be able to notice the voice and choose not to obey it.
Self-Compassion Is Not Lowering Standards
A common fear is that self-compassion will make you complacent, and you will stop striving or being successful.
In reality, it's actually the opposite!
Self-compassion can actually increase resilience, support persistence after setbacks, and encourage values based risk taking. We can try talking to ourselves like we would talk to a friend, allowing ourselves to make mistakes, and respond to setbacks with curiosity instead of shame.
We can keep our high standards without using shame as fuel, recognizing when perfectionism is showing up.
What Change Actually Looks Like in Therapy
Letting go of perfectionism doesn’t mean becoming careless or unmotivated.
In therapy, we want to:
Soften or challenge rigid standards
Examine what perfectionism has really cost you
Challenge “absolute” statements such as “always,” “never,” “should”
Practice “good enough”
Add to your life- In what ways can we do MORE of the things that help us actually feel fulfilled?
Build tolerance or willingness for imperfection and uncertainty (this can include doing exposures)
Learn to act while anxious or uncomfortable
Some ways we may practice exposure (ERP) in therapy with perfectionism include doing something imperfect on purpose, sending an email without rereading it multiple times, allowing rest without “earning” it, “wasting” time, or practicing a new way to respond to mistakes.
Clients often fear that without perfectionism, they’ll fall apart. What can actually happen instead is that their energy becomes more focused, sustainable, and aligned with what matters to them.
Our standards can become more flexible.
Redefining Success With Compassion
Perfectionism may have helped you once, but you’re allowed to choose something different now.
You don’t have to earn rest, worth, or belonging.
If you’re interested in working on perfectionism, anxiety, or self-compassion in therapy, I offer free phone consults to see if we’d be a good fit.
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For more on self-compassion: https://psychwire.com/free-resources/q-and-a/21eyx9/self-compassion
For more on perfectionism, I recommended Jennifer Kemp’s workbook:
References from this blog post came from Jennifer Kemp’s website- https://jenniferkemp.com.au/