How to escape the trap of perfectionism

It's a never-ending pursuit

Ever felt emotionally drained by your perfectionistic qualities? Image: iStock

When reformed perfectionist and psychology professor, Thomas Curran, dropped a TED Talk on what some consider society’s most toxic trait, it racked up more than three million views. Here’s how to put the brakes on it, and reclaim your health in the process.

Have you ever responded to the classic job interview question “What’s your greatest weakness?” with a faux modest: “I’m a perfectionist.” You’re not to blame. In a world where going the extra mile is seen as key to getting ahead, perfectionism has become “society’s favourite flaw”, according to psychologist Thomas Curran.

Curran, 35, is an associate professor at the London School of Economics and the world’s leading authority on perfectionism. He’s also a self-described “recovering perfectionist”. And, he argues in his book The Perfection Trap, that the personality trait is self-esteem kryptonite, on the rise as the cause of many modern mental health disorders and the opposite of useful.

Curran says growing up working class in wealthy Northamptonshire, England, with a perfectionist mother laid the groundwork for his insecurities. “I felt inferior because we didn’t have the things other kids did. A lot of my perfectionism comes from worrying about not being good enough or that I don’t belong.”

Like what you see? Sign up to our bodyandsoul.com.au newsletter for more stories like this.

His perfectionism became a serious problem at university. He found himself working 80-hour weeks, consumed by an excessive need to excel. This resulted in a low-level depression which “exploded” into panic attacks following a painful break-up. It was then he entered therapy.

The therapist told him perfectionism was to blame. “It was an incredible epiphany,” says Curran. He also discovered he wasn’t alone: “I talked to friends and realised I wasn’t the only one feeling pressure or a need to excel and get well above average metrics, otherwise people would judge me.”

Curran has studied perfectionism ever since, and his 2019 TED Talk, Our Dangerous Obsession with Perfectionism Is Getting Worse, has had more than three million views. A hyper-consumerist society and social media make things worse.

“Every last one of us in the West lives inside a culture knitted by perfectionistic fantasies,” he says. “There’s always another product to help us be the person we should be. There’s always more, always better, always extra performance to eke out. We can’t even just fail– we have to ‘fail better’ and constantly ‘grow’.”

In a world where we can always go above and beyond, few of us are immune to the lure of perfectionism. But it’s those in higher socioeconomic brackets who are most at risk, says Curran. They have the luxury of hyper-focusing on career, fine-tuning fitness regimens and nailing exams. Here’s what you need to know to break free.

Those in higher socioeconomic brackets are most at risk, having the luxury of hyper-focusing on career goals or fine-tuning fitness regimens. Image: iStock

It’s not just about having high standards

Perfectionism isn’t the same as setting the bar at a superstar level. “Perfectionists do have high standards, but they have them because they feel at their core not good enough,” explains Curran.

As he experienced himself, they could push themselves to collapse. “People sometimes say, ‘But wouldn’t you want your surgeon or pilot to be a perfectionist?’ Absolutely not. Perfectionists find challenging situations very difficult. They’re self-critical, anxiety takes over their decision making and they spin out. I wouldn’t want to be on that plane,” says Curran.

“What I would like my pilot or surgeon to be is conscientious, meticulous and extremely adaptive to unexpected situations.”

There are three distinctly different types

In the late 1980s, two Canadian psychologists, Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett, came up with a perfectionism scale based on how strongly you agree or disagree with statements such as: “If I don’t appear or perform perfectly, I feel a lot of guilt and shame”; “Everybody expects me to be perfect”; “When someone close to me screws up or falls short, it’s important to call them out.”

Three types of perfectionism emerged. The most common is self-orientated: an inner pressure to be perfect that manifests as a sense of never being good enough. The second is other-oriented: expecting others to be perfect and calling them out when they fall short, often because you’re compensating for your own imagined imperfections (men tend to score higher on this than women).

The third is socially prescribed: the feeling that others expect perfection, and are constantly judging you. Most perfectionists will be a mix of all three, although will likely score higher on one kind. Women are no more likely to be perfectionists than men, says Curran, but are exposed to more societal pressure so are more vulnerable.

Being a perfectionist is about more than just having high standards. Image: iStock

The most dangerous kind is on the rise

Curran spent years with his colleague Dr Andrew Hill tracking 40,000 students who filled in the Flett and Hewitt assessment between 1989 and 2016. They found all three perfectionist tendencies were increasing. But they saw an alarming, close to 40 per cent spike in socially prescribed perfectionism after 2005, when social media boomed. Curran expects that in 20 years, one in three people will suffer “clinically relevant levels” of socially prescribed perfectionism– and that’s dangerous.

While all three perfectionist types have negative mental health consequences, socially prescribed is the most damaging. The belief that everyone expects you to be perfect means a lifetime spent trying to gain approval. Sufferers report loneliness, poor-quality relationships and low self-esteem. It’s associated with self-harm, body image problems, anorexia and anxiety, and is more strongly linked to thoughts of suicide than other types.

Procrastination is just one of the signs 

Perception that perfectionism is a secret weapon in the school or workplace is unfounded. Some studies have found no link between perfectionist tendencies and academic achievement; others have found a tiny (four per cent) uplift, offset by mental health problems. 

In paid employment, it’s a disaster. Workplace perfectionists tend to be

inefficient over-strivers. They avoid difficult but rewarding tasks for fear of failure, and prioritise easier ones. They don’t apply for promotions or pay rises. They also procrastinate and withhold energy when things get tough.

In an experiment with cyclists completing a time trial, Hill found that when he told them they had failed, the perfectionists didn’t bother to try hard the second time, but the non-perfectionists’ efforts remained high.

It's time to embrace your perfectionist qualities in a healthy and productive way. Image: iStock

Accept that ‘good enough’ is good enough

From personal experience, Curran says you can tame perfectionism. While it’s unlikely to completely disappear, you can take steps. The first is to accept it’s a problem.

“Almost every perfectionist is adept at hiding their pain behind a mask of high functioning, maximisation and competency,” he points out. Accepting yourself as ‘good enough’ is key – but that can be hard work. It’s important to confront underlying fears of judgement, rejection and failure. “Pick a task that will challenge your basic anxieties in uncomfortable ways,” says Curran.

“Speak up in situations you ordinarily feel uncomfortable in, send off that job application, talk to your boss about the raise/promotion you deserve, say no to that unpaid piece of work. Then observe what happens. How did it turn out? How do you feel?” Curran says the magic happens when you sit with the anxiety these situations generate, especially if they don’t pan out as you’d hoped. “Don’t repress it,” he advises, “Just let it wash through you.”

Don’t look for lessons in failure

Given avoiding failure at all costs is a symptom of perfectionism, you might imagine Curran would be in favour of the ‘growth’ mindset that has taken hold in recent years.In fact, this can be a Catch-22 for perfectionists, he argues. “The lesson we learn is that we must always be hyper-vigilant of failure, concocting a way, whenever we encounter it, to turn it into something else. Growth mindset purports to celebrate failure but does the opposite. The biggest turning point for me was when I was able to accept that there are things I can’t control, and that’s OK.”

Now, when facing stress or when things don’t go well, Curran accepts the headwinds. “We don’t have to continually reinvent ourselves or ‘fail better’,” he says. “They’re not things to be fixed; they’re to be recognised and appreciated as reminders of what it is to be a human being.”

Originally published as How to escape the trap of perfectionism