NOBODY'S PERFECT (EXCEPT ME): A PERFECTIONIST'S GUIDE TO BEING HUMAN

Michelangelo hated painting the Sistine Chapel[1]. Hated it. He was almost paranoid in his certainty that the whole thing was a setup by his rivals so he’d fail publicly and embarrassingly. After all, as everyone (including himself) knew, he was a sculptor, not a painter. So he spent four miserable years on his back, inhaling pigment dust, cursing the Pope, and struggling with an early form of imposter syndrome. And yet, when people talk about perfection, they talk about that ceiling.

This is the great irony of perfectionism: the people we hold up as paragons of flawless achievement were often just barely holding it together. Research shows perfectionists don’t necessarily accomplish more (Flett & Hewitt, 2002; Osenk, et al., 2020) - they just get to suffer more while they’re doing it. So why is it that so many of us live like human error is a war crime?

 

I LOVE YOU (AS LONG AS YOU’RE PERFECT)

No one is born[2] with a burning desire to delete and rewrite a text message 16 times to make sure it sounds “just right” even when the response is only going to be a thumbs-up emoji. No, we absorb this from the environment we grow up in.

Sure, we all have some perfectionistic tendencies – double-checking an important email, putting our best foot forward at interviews, practicing until we master a new skill. But for people really struggling with perfectionism, these aren’t just high standards – what they do never feels like enough, and even impressive achievements get discounted. Their value as a person becomes tied to performance. These are people who have a hard time allowing themselves to exist as human beings; they feel a need to be human doings.

At its core, perfectionism serves as a defense against fear of failure and rejection. It’s the voice of an internalized inner critic, one that often echoes messages received in childhood, perhaps from a parent who made it clear that their approval was conditional on achievement. Take Bella*, a client who had been excelling in her marketing career for years, consistently delivering creative campaigns that exceeded expectations. How long could she possibly keep outdoing herself? she wondered. What would happen when her boss found out the truth – that she’d been fooling him all along? The anxiety was affecting her sleep, her appetite, even her relationships.

“I used to feel excited about new projects,” she told me. “Now I just feel terrified of not being able to maintain my streak. Like anything less than perfect means I've failed.”

Or Brandon* who recalled bringing home a 92 on an exam only to have his mother ask, “which eight questions did you miss?” Even an ‘A’ wasn’t enough to impress her. Brandon began to wonder, how perfect do I have to be to deserve love?

Perfectionism can also grow out of being told as a child that you have "unlimited potential." While this sounds like praise to a precocious kid, it creates a painful bind: how do you know when you've lived up to that potential? What's enough? Some of these former "gifted kids" grow up to be objectively successful adults who nonetheless feel like they're somehow falling short. As long as they never fully test their capabilities, they can preserve the fantasy that they could succeed at everything (if only they’d bothered to try).

So some perfectionists procrastinate. Others avoid challenges entirely. The perfect becomes the enemy of not just the good – but of any attempt at all. And in families where performance becomes the gold coin of the realm, children learn early that their worth depends on what they do rather than who they are.

 

BAD PERFECTIONISM AND WORSE PERFECTIONISM

Research (Frost, et al., 1990; Hill, et al., 2004) suggests that perfectionism has two components: perfectionistic strivings (the drive to achieve high standards) and perfectionistic concerns (the anxiety and self-criticism tied to fear of failure). The strivings can be adaptive – associated with greater satisfaction and well-being. But as you may have guessed, the concerns are no bueno: they’re linked to anxiety, depression, and burnout. Of course it’s hard to come by one without the other; only about 20% of perfectionists show high strivings and low concerns (Stoeber & Gaudreau, 2017).

“So you’re saying it’s possible, if I can just be the perfect kind of perfectionist!” you tell yourself triumphantly.

Unfortunately, even the strivings on their own can turn toxic. They can push people to set impossibly high goals, grind themselves down in a rigid, obsessive pursuit, or tie their self-worth to achievement so tightly there’s no room left to rest, reflect, or enjoy. Leonardo DaVinci was famous for this; he rarely finished anything, delaying or abandoning many of his commissions. His notebooks show this relentless striving – hundreds of pages filled with breathtaking ideas, most of which he never executed. Many perfectionists refuse to attempt something unless they know it will come out exactly as they imagined, leaving the idea better (and safer) than any imperfect creation.

But what’s better: ten ideas executed at 80%? Or one perfect idea so idealized it lives only in your head – untouched, unshared, forever incomplete?

 

PERFECTIONIST, HEAL THYSELF

You may be hoping I have some useful advice for you in addition to just making you feel personally assaulted. I do: six pieces, in fact.

1) Reframe mistakes as data – not personal failures. Carol Dweck (2007) identified two mindsets. In a fixed mindset, setbacks are proof that you are bad, dumb, and a failure. In a growth mindset, setbacks make you “rub your hands together, smack your lips[3], and say “I love a challenge!” Unsurprisingly, people with growth mindsets are happier. They don’t fear failure; they realize it’s not only inevitable but desirable. Big tech companies favor the philosophy of “failing fast,” meaning that the best way to create something great is to fail at it repeatedly until it works. Think of yourself like a successful start-up: your errors are ways to learn, improve, and invest in your future success.

2) Something imperfect is better than nothing at all. Perfectionists often only see two outcomes: 100% perfection or complete failure. But life isn’t binary. Remember Funder’s Third Law: “something beats nothing, two times out of three.” Eating a handful of blueberries and goldfish crackers is better than being too busy to eat anything; folding three shirts is better than being overwhelmed and picking up nothing. And every writer’s lifeline: “your enemy isn’t the badly-written page, it’s the empty one.” Instead of telling yourself “this must be flawless,” say “this can be good enough without having to be perfect.”

3) Treat yourself like a friend. Imagine your best friend comes to you and says “I’m having a hard time doing this.” What’s the probability you say to them, “that’s because you’re a lazy failure, you loser!” …I’m hoping it’s near zero. So why talk to yourself that way? Neff (2003) reports that self-compassion reduces anxiety without lowering motivation. Try treating yourself with the kindness you’d offer a friend… do you deserve it any less than they do?

4) Focus on progress, not just the end goal. Perfectionistic concerns make people discount achievements, always chasing the next goal. But what’s the point if every outcome feels the same? As Aerosmith[4] said, “life’s a journey, not a destination.” Celebrate small wins, track progress, and experience life’s ups and downs instead of an endless cycle of striving.

5) Learn to say “this is good enough.” George Lucas released a near-perfect film in 1977 and hasn’t stopped tinkering with it since - adding scenes, enhancing CGI, and unnecessarily altering characters who definitely shot first. Don’t be George, for Force’s sake. To avoid endless tweaking, try the Pomodoro method: set a timer for 15 minutes and work/clean/write/whatever until it goes off. You can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes! Or instead of saying “I’ll revise this until it’s perfect,” set a 3-edit limit before submitting your work.

6) Your worth isn’t based on what you achieve. This is crucial, and might take a lifetime to fully believe, but here it is: you are not your accomplishments. You deserve love and rest and kindness just for existing. You are not your GPA, your sales numbers, your follower count, or your résumé. You are a person. That is enough.

If your childhood taught you that you had to perform to deserve love or that failure made you unworthy… let me say plainly: that was never true. That belief is not your fault, but it’s also not your destiny. You can build an identity with multiple anchors: relationships, hobbies, roles, values... I’m a person who draws and writes and runs and who loves his wife and bordoodle and wildflowers, and it doesn’t matter if my art, writing, and mile time are mediocre. It doesn’t matter to my wife or bordoodle[5] or to the blossoming lupine whether or not I’m a bestselling author. I’ve learned not to measure my worth by how “impressive” I am – but by whether I’m showing up for the people who trust me to help.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

What if I told you that I had planned this article for early March, but kept putting it off? And why would I put off writing an article on perfectionism, you ask? That’s an excellent question, astute reader! It’s because perfectionism is an important topic to me and I wanted to do it justice, and of course my outline and first draft weren’t living up to the article I’d drafted in my head, so I delayed publishing it.

Yes: even people with doctoral degrees in Psychology can struggle with perfectionism. I hope that’s wonderfully reassuring. There is of course a happy ending: despite what you’ve just read not being perfect, it’s done and dusted. And I’m letting that be good enough.

I know this probably isn’t the first time you’ve heard some of these things – if you’re a perfectionist, you’ve likely researched this before. But this is where therapy can help: you can have all the insight in the world, but without practice and repetition it can be hard to change alone. It can be invaluable to have someone celebrate wins with you and listen when you’re struggling. Perfectionism is painful. It steals sleep, joy, creativity, connection. When people loosen their grip on needing to be exceptional - when they can start to accept their flaws as part of being fully human - they often find that what comes rushing back isn't failure, but freedom.

If you saw yourself in this article and want help with your perfectionistic concerns… I’m here to help. After all, even Michelangelo needed a scaffold to reach the cursed ceiling.

FOR FURTHER READING ABOUT PERFECTIONISM, see “The Gifts of Imperfection” by Brene Brown and “Mindset: The Psychology of Success” by Carol Dweck.

*Composite example with name changed to protect confidentiality

 

[1] He wrote an entire poem about how much he hated it. It’s basically a Renaissance-era rant.

[2] Well, okay, its moderately heritable (Tozzi et al., 2004; Iranzo-Tatay, et al., 2015), so you can blame your genes for some of it, but take heart; it’s your parents’ fault either way.

[3] She always uses this exact phrasing. I don’t know why everyone is smacking their lips around Carol Dweck but I wish they’d stop.

[4] Yes, I know it was actually Ralph Waldo Emerson. But Steven Tyler sang it better.

[5] I’m lying. My bordoodle is very judgmental.