353. The psychology of perfectionism

We’ve all heard someone say, “I’m such a perfectionist”, like it’s a badge of honour. But what does perfectionism really mean - and what’s hiding beneath it?

In today’s bonus episode, we unpack the psychology of perfectionism: the fear, the origins, and how to finally let go of “never good enough”.

We explore:

•        The three types of perfectionism - self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed
•         Why perfectionism often disguises itself as discipline
•        How it’s linked to procrastination, burnout, and anxiety
•        Where it develops - from conditional love, insecurity, and need for control
•        Real-world costs on relationships, wellbeing and creativity
•        Tools to reframe perfectionism 

Listen now!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back

(00:25):
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners,
old listeners, Wherever you are in the world, it's so
great to have you here. Back for another episode. We've
got another bonus episode for you today. These shorter episodes
are a little bit different from our usual deep dives.
Think of them as like little psychology snack breaks, where

(00:46):
we unpack a singular term, singular theory, or psychological concept
that might be misunderstood or just thrown around pretty casually online.
Terms that we might not be able to do like
a full fifty minute episode on but I still really
want to cover. And today's topic it actually is a

(01:07):
big one. For a many episode, We're gonna talk about perfectionism.
You know what I realized the other day. I realized
I have been doing this podcast for nearly five years.
I have never just done a standalone episode purely on perfectionism,
which is ironic because it's probably the thing that I

(01:28):
like struggle with more than anything else. You have no
idea how many podcast episodes I have recorded that will
never see the light of day because I didn't think
they were good enough. It doesn't It's probably more than that,
and that's not even including the scripts. You know how
many ideas that I have that I've never acted on

(01:49):
because I'm too afraid to start. How many hours I
spend thinking about how to be good at something and
never actually doing anything about it. I probably don't need
to tell you. It's an exhausting feeling. Perfectionism is an
exhausting state of mind, and I want to talk about
it today. Broadly speaking, perfectionism is basically characterized by the

(02:12):
need for excessively high standards and the need for everything
to be flawless. It's not a mental health condition, but
it is kind of like a personality trait almost that
a lot of us have. It is one of those
traits that, in all honesty, sounds kind of good at first.

(02:32):
When someone says I'm a perfectionist, You know, we don't
always think poorly of them. We think they're really good
at things, they work really hard, they have high standards,
they care deeply about what they do. I am sure.
So many people have been asked in job interviews, you know,
what's your worst trait, and they've said perfectionist because they

(02:54):
know it kind of makes them sound good, and that's
why people are so often applauded for it. They're applauded
for these excessive high standards, like it's a badge of honor.
I will work harder than anyone because I am never
able to prove I'm good enough to myself. Underneath perfectionism,

(03:14):
it's not about excellence. It's often about fear. It's about
the underlying, constant worry that you're going to fall short,
that if you are not perfect, you are not enough,
you have no value, your life lacks, meaning people will
never love you. It gets pretty psychologically heavy pretty quickly.

(03:35):
So many of us live with that kind of pressure,
especially in our twenties and thirties, when everything feels like
it's supposed to be figured out ahead of schedule. A
twenty twenty two study of young people aged sixteen to
twenty five actually found that eighty five percent of participants
identified as having perfectionist traits, particularly around academic achief. But

(04:00):
it can be so many things. It can be obsessing
over the right career, how your body looks, how your
relationship looks, your timeline. Basically, we've learnt to equate achievement
with external appearances and external value and therefore self worth.

(04:21):
But the reality is perfectionism doesn't drive success as much
as it actually drives exhaustion. It is not the superpower
that we all believe it is. Before we go further,
we actually need to talk about the main types of perfectionism.
There is not just one. It is a lot more
complex than just wanting things to be good. There are

(04:43):
actually three main strains or versions of this trait. The
first one is self oriented perfectionism. This is when you
set your own impossible standards, and it's about an internal
drive to prove to yourself that you can control your life,

(05:04):
that you have value, that you can do good things.
You're the one telling yourself that you can't make mistakes.
You're the one who has this relentless internal critic that
is never satisfied no matter how well you do. Then
there is the other oriented perfectionist. This one's a little

(05:24):
bit different. It's when you hold the people around you
to the same impossible standards you hold yourself to Maybe
this shows up in your relationships, friendships, at work. You
want the world to be perfect. You want people to
push themselves the way you push yourself. You expect others
to meet your level of precision care, and that can

(05:48):
cause a lot of tension and disappointment when they don't.
It also drives you to try and lead by example.
So older siblings, sports captains, bosses, even parents get this
feeling a lot. And finally, we have socially prescribed perfectionism.
This is the one that's become increasingly massive in recent years.

(06:10):
It is the feeling that everyone else is perfect, everyone
else expects you to be perfect. It's the feeling that
you're constantly being watched, judged, evaluated, and so you have
to keep up, you have to look the part. Socially
prescribed perfectionism is deeply tied to our current culture of course,

(06:31):
social media comparison, our online culture. This constant subtle pressure
to perform, this sense of being visible, and that is
why this form of perfectionism has grown so significantly over time.
There was a twenty nineteen review published in the journal
Psychological Bulletin which looked at changes in levels of perfectionism

(06:55):
between nineteen eighty nine and twenty sixteen in the US,
in the UK, and in Canada, using college students as
the participant group. What they found was that, yes, all
types of perfectionism rose over time. Socially prescribed perfectionism, though,
has risen so significantly such that it is the most

(07:21):
common form of perfectionism that we currently see, and the
researchers noted this as a concern because what this indicates
is that young people, people in their teens in their twenties,
are becoming increasingly more sensitive to external pressures, and they
are finding it more difficult than previous generations to cope

(07:43):
and to recenter themselves. Here is the final twist of
the knife here. Socially prescribed perfectionism is actually the most
debilitating of all three types of perfectionism, and wider research
consistently connects it to pretty major health concerns, anxiety, depression,

(08:04):
even eating disorders. Of course, you know, we're constantly measuring
our worth through others, through people's expectations, through these metrics
of success. Unless you are the very best in every
domain and dimension of life, you are falling short, So
you may as well be the worst. Perfectionism is so

(08:27):
harmful in that way because it deeply embodies black and
white thinking. Either I'm number one or I'm nothing, Either
I get everything right or I should give up. This
raises the stakes so high that we actually can't operate
under these conditions, and so you procrastinate, you avoid starting,

(08:50):
You work yourself to the point of no return. You
become more obsessive about what other people think, until you
can't achieve anything. Now here's where perfect gets really sneaky,
because in our culture, perfectionism is often disguised as discipline,
and so even when it feels bad, it looks good,

(09:10):
and we convince ourselves that it should feel good as well.
We are hard working, we are committed, we are detailed orientated.
These things are all admirable except actually, a lot of us,
a lot of people who are born and raised perfectionists,
are starting to realize that, like the dream we are

(09:31):
sold by, this trait is a complete lie, and actually
we will never ever get to a point where we
are actually satisfied with what we have. It just keeps
us in the cycle. And now, discipline, being hard working,
those are great traits. So how do we tell the
difference between this insatiable need to be the best and

(09:55):
to never make mistakes, and this desire to truly work
hard for something and to really be passionate. We tell
the difference through motivation. What is our motivation. Discipline is
motivated by growth. We want to do well because we
care about whatever it is we're doing, and we like
the challenge. Whether we fail or not, We obviously want

(10:17):
to succeed, but the process is something that we are
invigorated by, excited by enjoying. Perfectionism is motivated by fear.
We feel as though we have to do this, we
have to do well, we have to push ourselves otherwise
we are worthless. No one wakes up one day and

(10:38):
just decides they're going to start being terrified of mistakes.
Like most of our deep rooted psychological patterns, perfectionism begins early.
It begins when we feel we needed to earn love,
whether that was from family, from friends, from mentors, from whoever.
It was a lot of us grow up learning consciously

(11:01):
or unconsciously. Love or approval is earned, maybe you earn
it through good grades, good behavior, achievements, being the easy child.
Over time, that creates this core belief love is conditional.
You only deserve to enjoy life, and you only deserve

(11:23):
to enjoy love or to have it when you perform,
when you get it right. So psychologists call this conditional regard.
It is one of the strongest predictors of perfectionist tendencies
later in life. Research published in the Journal of Personality
found that when parents express affection or approval only when

(11:45):
their children meet expectations and when they withdraw it when
they fail, those children are more likely to internalize a
sense of conditional worth. They grow up feeling that mistake
equals deep psychological rejection and that to be loved they
have to constantly strive and achieve. Another study published in
I Think It Was two thousand and five found that

(12:07):
adolescents who were exposed to this kind of unconditional sorry,
conditional parenting, conditional love showed higher levels of self critical, perfectionism,
and internalized pressure. Even years down the line, this part
of them became fundamental to how they saw themselves and

(12:28):
how they operated and how they showed up years and
years into the future. Another element of this is also
the role of insecurity and self worth. It's not just
about love, it's about how you see yourself as valuable
if at your core, you don't feel inherently worthy or
good or seen. If you've internalized the belief that I'm

(12:51):
only good when I achieve or I have output, Perfectionism
is a way to compensate for what you feel like
you're lacking. I relate to this deeply. I didn't fit
in growing up. I didn't really have good friends. I
wasn't hot, I wasn't popular, I really wasn't anything special.
That I could work hard and I could get good grades,

(13:13):
and so that pursuit. I knew this about myself. I
knew I could push myself. That became my identity, and
it became a way to feel good about myself in
an environment where I previously didn't and where I didn't
have a role, and where I didn't belong, And it
was deeply protective of my ego. This is something that

(13:36):
humanistic psychologists like Carl Rogers have written about for decades.
When somebody's self worth is based on external things, the
authentic self gets replaced with this ideal self. That's the
version of us that we're always st chasing, wanting to be,
but we never quite feel like we will get there.

(13:58):
It's a big fat lie right. We have this idea
that if we just extend, push, work, do more, we
will get to a place of satisfaction. That is a lie.
It is a mental Ponzi scheme that tells you to
invest more, that tells you just to get to the
next target and you'll finally feel good, but never rewards you.

(14:23):
The final reason we develop perfectionism is actually really about control.
I don't feel like a lot of people talk about
it from this angle, but we're going to consider this
deeply in just a second after the shortbreak, stay with us.
Perfectionism can sometimes develop as a way not just to

(14:46):
feel love, not just to feel worthy, but to manage
our anxiety or the unpredictability of life, because it gives
this mental impression that if we just work hard enough,
if we just check over things a million times, if
we rehearse everything, have a million to do lists, we
can control whatever life throws at us. Perfectionism is actually

(15:09):
really deeply aligned with an intolerance for uncertainty. We've spoken
about this before, but our intolerance for uncertainty is this
extra feeling of distress that we face when we understand
that something is unpredictable or unknown. Some of us are
more intolerant than others. Some of us face increasing or

(15:31):
more anxiety compared to others. If you've learned that unpredictable
situations often lead to pain like conflict, rejection, criticism that
you previously were not able to cope with, or didn't
feel supported through, or were really overwhelmed by, you might
cope by trying to eliminate uncertainty altogether through the process

(15:52):
of perfectionist control. It's a lie again. This whole feeling
is just like trying to sell you. It's trying to
sell you this idealistic view of the world that the
people who work hard are the ones who get love
and the ones who get achievement and the ones who
can control the world. It's trying to basically convince us

(16:13):
that there is something within us that can determine all
of these outcomes or all of these truths that we
want to know about ourselves. We want to know that
we have value, we want to know that we're loved,
we want to know that we're going to be okay.
And in our attempts to gain certainty on those things,
perfectionism becomes the way through which we think we enact
it and through which we gain it. All of this

(16:36):
it's just a coping mechanism, one that looks bloody fantastic
from the outside. I'm sure, if you're listening to this episode,
you've got great grades in school. I'm sure you had
a job growing up, you had hobbies, extracurriculars, you made
your parents proud, you had high standards, you went to
a good school. You always had some kind of side hustle.

(16:56):
But can I ask you a question right now, are
you actually happy, genuinely? If I took all of that away?
Would you know what you actually like doing? Would you
know who you actually are? Would you be doing half
of what you're doing now without external approval? How many

(17:17):
things do you do not because you have ever enjoyed them,
but because you think that you have to. That is
the paradox of perfectionism. Often it begins as a way
to feel in control, to feel loved and worthy, and
it ends up controlling you with golden handcuffs. It is
your best friend because you know what it gives you outcomes,

(17:41):
It gives you output, you know you can rely on it.
It gets stuff done. It's also your worst enemy. So
how do we loosen the grip of perfectionism when it
has been a part of us for so long that
it almost feels like a second skin. Firstly, I want
you to imagine the life you really really want, vividly.
Imagine it. Your house, your day to day life, what

(18:03):
you're wearing, who your friends are, what you have for dinner,
what your house looks like. Now, seriously ask yourself, will
being a perfectionist allow me to be that person? And
even if it does, will it allows me to enjoy
even my dream life? Is there a future where my

(18:27):
perfectionism will actually let me be satisfied. The best way
I found to start tackling my perfectionism in the now
is to use future mindedness, or what psychology calls prospection,
to kind of observe how perfectionism will continue to hurt
me into the future. I really find that the only

(18:49):
way I can stop myself from doing it is to
focus on all the downsides that I know will only increase,
like perfectionism is like the cell count of a virus,
like it will continue to infiltrate everything in my life
if I don't challenge it. If I don't challenge this
thought that I need to be the best, this needs
to be perfect that will slowly determine my entire outlook

(19:12):
on life and how I see myself, even like projecting
myself onto my deathbed, I know it feels morbid, gives
me some perspective. Is this mindset actually going to help me?
What am I going to lose out on by continuing
to focus on these things that don't actually matter? Another

(19:34):
thing that has helped me is more than anything else.
Having a work free, project, free, appearance, free, online free
day every now and again. I try and do it
once a fortnight. You know, I work in an industry
that makes it so easy to constantly be quantifying how
good my work is and how well I'm doing in

(19:55):
comparison to others and where I stand. You know, podcasts. Literally,
I have a daily ranking that is updated. Like as
a perfectionist, that is hell, That is nightmare fuel. Realizing
that numbers all those things like don't actually quantify real
life and don't actually determine how I feel is helpful.

(20:20):
And having days where I can just disconnect from all
of that and do things my human brain and soul
wants most of all, like hiking, swimming, eating with friends,
dilly dallying like that makes me feel less like a
machine and more like somebody who is here to feel
and experience rather than to get results that will fade

(20:41):
over time anyways, that will not last much longer past
the time I'm dead. Like it really does help me
to get morbid. It also helps remind me these days
off that working isn't a hobby. Constantly working on myself
on a project on my job isn't a good enough

(21:02):
way to spend all my time. Sure, I like it,
I enjoy it. I feel a deep sense of like
intensity to do it more. Is it actually giving me
what I'm giving it? No? You know, no, it's not.
Work is not a hobby. I need something more if

(21:22):
I really want to be sneaky and to be honest.
I don't know if this is something a therapist would
recommend or not. Take it with a grain of salt,
But I try on my days off to be the
best at relaxing. I try to be as perfect as
possible at taking time off. I try to do it
in the best possible way to be number one at

(21:43):
enjoying life, not you know, number one at not grading
myself based on others, which is ironic. But I'm like
if I'm gonna do this, if I'm gonna take time off,
if I'm gonna take a break from my perfectionism, I
better do it really, really well. And you know what,
it probably still keeps the underlying impulse alive, but I
like to see it as using it for good and

(22:04):
using it to really like force myself to not half
ass my time off. A tip I also picked up
from the book The Perfectionist Guy to Losing Control, which, honestly,
if you're resonating with anything I'm saying, go and pick
up a copy of that book was also to swap
the idea of perfect to better and to follow the

(22:24):
one percent rule, not one hundred percent better all at once,
one percent better at a time, and don't ignore that rule.
Apply it to your life. Apply it to your wins.
When you notice you've improved slightly on something you did before,
notice it, Celebrate it. When you've worked hard, take a break,
Let things take their time rather than rushing them. Do

(22:46):
it at the one percent level because you won't burn out,
you will have time for yourself, you'll be able to
enjoy the process, and you will be able to like
let the universe cook, let life cook you up something right,
Let things take the time they need to mature and
to get better and to see progress. Finally, redefine success

(23:08):
using your values rather than somebody else's standards. Perfectionism makes
you chase external metrics, grades, numbers, praise, outcomes, metals. I
don't know what else like all those kinds of things
that want to put progress into a box that is
numerical or hierarchical. But those hierarchies, those number places, those

(23:34):
quantifiable metrics are endless and they never lead to peace.
So instead, ask yourself what matters most to me more
than anything? Now ask the question again, but with a
slightly different tweak. What would matter most to me if
no one was watching? How do I chase more of that?

(23:56):
Another question is how do I actually want to feel
every day? And in what ways would that feeling already
be available to me if I spent less time trying
to be perfect? And finally, does perfectionism help me or
harm me in my pursuit of my dream life? When

(24:16):
you align your efforts with values instead of with perfection
with this crutch, the focus shifts from did I do
this flawlessly? To did I do this in a meaningful way?
Did I do this in a way that was aligned
with what I actually desire? And I think that's a
much kinder, more sustainable form of striving ultimately, And this

(24:38):
is where I really want to finish today's little bonus
episode reframing perfectionism isn't about lowering your standards. It's not
about quitting. You have proven to yourself time and time again,
if you wanted to work yourself to the bone, you
can do it. There's no doubt about that. It's not
that you can't do it. It's whether you you should.

(25:01):
It's whether this is actually making you happy. And it's
learning to detach from how you think people will see
you when you're the one who has to feel your life.
How people see your life matters so much less than
what it's going to feel for you to be in it.
And it's learning to really include things like joy, curiosity,

(25:24):
rest connection in your definition of success because they are
some of the best things about life and you will
miss out on them if you are in this constant,
relentless pursuit of goals that are sometimes completely arbitrary. You
know again, I just want to say it more time.

(25:46):
I know you can work hard. Everybody around you knows
you can work hard. You know it as well, but
is it going to make you happy? Is this coping
mechanism actually helping your life get better or is it
leading you to chase things that aren't actually fulfilling and

(26:08):
that you know deep down leave you feeling quite empty.
So thank you for listening to my musings on perfectionism.
I hope it's just given you something to think about.
If you have made it this far, I want you
to leave a little book emoji down below. I feel
like that ties in with how perfectionism really shows up

(26:31):
in academia and in our studies and in work. Thank
you for being a loyal listener. Thank you for letting
me have your attention for these twenty six minutes. I
really appreciate it. Make sure as well that you are
following us on Instagram at that Psychology podcast, and that
you are following along or subscribed wherever you are listening
to this episode. I would also really appreciate if you

(26:53):
could give us a five star review, especially if you
are listening on Apple. Reviews really help the show grow
and reach new people, which is really important to me.
I always want to thank our research at Libby Colbert
for her contributions to this episode. Until next time, be safe,
be kind, to be gentle with yourself, and we will
talk very very soon.