We all know that nobody’s perfect, but it can be very hard to believe that about yourself. While no one can dispute that hard work is admirable—we see you Beyoncé!—you might be surprised to find out that perfectionism can sometimes make it even harder to reach your goals and hurt your mental and physical health too.
Perfectionism is feeling like you have to achieve or function at 100% capacity, Kate Cummins, PsyD, a California-based licensed clinical psychologist, tells SELF. It traps you into thinking “you can’t make any mistakes, there’s no room for flaws,” says Jenna Nielsen, LCSW, an ADHD Advisor therapist who specializes in treating anxiety, depression, ADHD, and PTSD. Rooted in low self esteem, fear of failure, or a deep-seated desire to avoid the harsh judgment of others, the irony is that it can land you in a place where you are your own worst enemy due to self-criticism. You may be unable to take a compliment or celebrate your achievements and feel only relief that you didn’t fail rather than delight that you succeeded. “There is a conditioned thought pattern of never feeling like you’re doing enough or trying enough,” Cummins says.
Perfectionism isn’t a mental health diagnosis, but it can be a tendency you are born with or a learned response to social norms and standards that you may have unconsciously internalized, Nielsen says. It might also be related to the family dynamic you grew up with. “These thoughts are often linked to core beliefs from childhood that stem from rigid or absent parents,” Cummins says.
Research shows this personality trait has become more common in young people over the last 30 years, possibly due to more psychological pressure to excel at school or work, with no room for failure if you want to compete at the highest level. Seeing the highlights of people’s lives on social media certainly doesn’t help, Nielsen adds, because it can drive a comparison mindset.
Here’s how perfectionism can become a trap that may affect your health over time—and some expert advice on how to truly embrace the “nobody’s perfect” mindset.
This type of thinking can include rumination (an endless loop of repetitive negative thoughts) and catastrophizing (expecting the absolute worst thing to happen in any given situation), which can make you feel pretty stressed and unhappy. In fact, one Cognitive Behaviour Therapy study linked perfectionism with anxiety, depression, and OCD.
When a worry does come true—for example, you got some feedback on a work project or made a mistake on your taxes—it hits hard if you’re a perfectionist: You may be ultrasensitive to criticism, so any mistake, no matter how minor, can leave you feeling like something’s majorly wrong with you. But constantly feeling down about yourself and your abilities only breeds more negativity and feeds that cycle of ruminating or depressive thoughts, Nielsen says.
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“Anxiety typically goes hand in hand with perfectionism, because many of the cognitive symptoms are interrelated or the same,” Cummins says. “The fear related to anxiety is similar to perfectionism.”
Perfectionistic thoughts can be bad when it comes to how you view your body. For example, people who are more prone to self-criticism have a higher risk of eating disorders, Nielsen says. In one American Journal of Psychiatry study, women with anorexia scored higher on measures of perfectionism than those without disordered eating habits. And in a Journal of Eating Disorders meta-analysis, perfectionism was also tied to binge eating.
Even though perfectionism can make you want to ace every task, the fear of failing can be so great that you avoid doing anything, Cummins says. You may wait for the exact right time and place to do something, whether that’s cleaning your kitchen or finishing a term paper, and end up not getting started.
Most people dealing with these kinds of thoughts “would rather put the pressure on themselves of not starting a task rather than feeling uncomfortable in not being perfect right away,” she says. In the real world, that can look like missed deadlines, constantly re-checking or questioning your own work, and analysis paralysis, which is probably the exact opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
Perfectionism keeps your sympathetic nervous system activated, Cummins says. That’s the one that triggers your fight-or-flight response and amps up production of the stress hormone cortisol. And consistently higher cortisol levels are linked to health concerns like an elevated blood sugar and heart rate and even a lower libido. Worrying about being imperfect has also been linked to trouble sleeping, according to a study in Sleep Health.
If you are feeling pressure to be perfect, you might think that taking a break will help, Cummins says. But the chronic stress of perfectionism doesn’t quiet down just because it’s the weekend or you went on vacation. Instead, it can escalate into full-blown burnout.
For example, if you’re a perfectionist at work, in order to complete a task perfectly by your deadline, you might end up putting in 80 hours a week instead of 40, and that’s simply not sustainable, Nielsen says. While being dedicated to your job can be a matter of survival—for example, you need to work overtime to make rent or buy groceries—people who are perfectionists have a greater risk of becoming “workaholics,” or feeling anxiety or guilt when they don’t have their nose to the grindstone. In one November 2022 BMC Health Services Research study, doctors who had high scores on measures of self-critical perfectionism were more likely to have burnout.
If you have unrealistic expectations for yourself, that can extend to the people around you as well, including friends, your partner, or your children. One May 2024 survey from Ohio State University found trying to be the perfect parent was linked with higher levels of stress and burnout and more strain in parent-child relationships.
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“If you are constantly striving for perfection, you’re likely going to have a lot of conflict in relationships,” Nielsen says, especially if your worries, fears, or procrastination are getting in the way of being an effective partner or compassionate friend.
If you have kids, they might observe your behavior and start holding themselves to similarly unreachable standards. “You’re putting that same pressure on them, and that’s not healthy either,” Nielsen says.
How to overcome perfectionism
Even though you might feel like utter failure not giving 110% to a task or making a mistake, the reality is that perfectionism is really just a “made-up construct,” Cummins says. While that can be more than a little frustrating to hear (it’s not easy to change lifelong patterns!), there’s actually some good news: It means it’s possible to reframe the way you’re thinking to reduce the anxiety and rigid thinking that can make you miserable.
If you can leave perfectionism behind, it can open up a world of new possibilities that your hypercritical approach has been hiding from you. “If all you’re focused on is being the best employee or getting in ‘perfect’ physical shape, you’re missing out on a lot,” Nielsen says. “Most people don’t want to live in a constant state of being in a negative mindset.”
When you notice you’re holding yourself to a certain standard, ask yourself if that expectation is realistic and attainable, Nielsen says. If not, try to start talking to yourself more positively instead. For example, if you’re tempted to work unpaid overtime to ace a presentation, instead say, “I accept that this is the best I can do with the time that I have, and I’m not going to get fired,” she says.
Here are a few other examples of positive self-talk you could try:
- I’m doing the best I can, and I am doing well.
- All humans have flaws, and mine don’t define me.
- I’ve made mistakes in the past and I’m still here.
- All humans are going to make mistakes, and I can overcome them.
It’s not easy to undo a lifetime of unattainable expectations on your own, so you may want to seek out expert help. Look for a mental health professional who is specifically trained in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). (You can filter for ACT using Psychology Today’s Find a Therapist function.) This form of treatment helps people identify certain fears and shift their mindset to be more accepting of those thoughts, Cummins says.
It can be a huge help to have someone to reach out to if you find you are spending too much time at work, not sleeping well, or just constantly being hard on yourself, Nielsen says.
Feeling bad about yourself after seeing a former coworker’s engagement announcement on Instagram or hearing about a friend’s recent swoon-worthy trip to Thailand? Remember there’s so much you’re not seeing. “A lot of people only post on social media during happy times,” Nielsen says. “You don’t see many people ever posting about marriage counseling or that their kid is getting all D’s, so social media feeds into this desire to be perfect because it appears as if some people do have that. There’s that false sense of reality there.” Things may look perfect, but literally no one is. Say it out loud if you have to.
It can help to recognize your perfectionist tendencies for what they are, and then let them pass—they’re just tricks your mind is playing on you, anyway. “Be compassionate with yourself, understand that perfectionism isn’t something you do to yourself but instead you learn to become this way,” Cummins says. Giving yourself this grace can help you untangle your drive to be flawless and your sense of self over time and embrace the messy, complicated, imperfections of being human. “It’s really not possible to be perfect, there’s really no ‘perfect’ out there,” Nielsen says.
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