When Perfectionism Turns on You

Think back to your school days. There was always the classmate who was perfectly happy with 85, and the one left fretting over the single mark that kept them from a perfect 99. Demanding 100 of yourself in everything is a trait shared by many high achievers. Are there any perfectionists in your life? Do you think of yourself as one? Psychologists hold that perfectionism is neither entirely good nor entirely bad: a perfectionist can find genuine enjoyment in the pursuit of perfection, but chasing it to an unhealthy degree can tip into self-rejection when impossibly high demands go unmet. When we place too much weight on achievement and productivity in one area of life, and even make it the sole yardstick of our self-worth, we leave ourselves open to needless pain over failure; and if we chalk every failure up to our own inadequacy, it can spill over into harsh self-criticism that takes a toll on our mental health.

The vicious cycle of setting the bar too high

Self-efficacy is a person's belief in their own ability to reach goals and complete tasks. Social cognitive theory holds that depression can arise when a person expects a task to bring a reward but, with low self-efficacy, believes they lack the ability to see it through. Perfectionists are prone to setting themselves unrealistically high standards and goals, and falling short of those impractical standards breeds low self-efficacy. Low self-efficacy in turn drags down their performance, making the self-imposed standard even harder to reach, generating still more of a sense of defeat, and feeding a vicious cycle.

Unhealthy perfectionism

The Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura, known for his social cognitive theory, offered an interesting view on the relationship between perfectionism and depression, suggesting that perfectionism may be one of the factors that triggers depressive states. When a person believes their standards are reasonable, has not realised that the standards they have set are too high, and fails to reach their goals, they conclude that the fault lies in their own lack of ability and that they must keep striving to get there. This error in thinking leads them to blame themselves, producing negative emotions, and goals so out of step with reality also lead to maladaptive behaviour.

Low moods make people more perfectionistic

Psychologists have also found that when people are in low spirits, they cannot draw any sense of satisfaction from the work they complete in daily life, and come to believe that only ever-greater achievement can make them happy. Because meeting goals that are reasonable and matched to their abilities no longer brings them satisfaction, they tend to set goals that are higher and less reasonable. The outcome is plain to see: they end up dispirited at falling short, and in serious cases this can damage their mental health. Healthy, measured perfectionism can undoubtedly spur people to work hard and make progress; even so, recognising whether one's goals are reasonable is a lesson every perfectionist must learn.

Perfectionism in the right measure

While there are extreme perfectionists in this world who demand flawlessness of themselves, there are plenty of people at the other end too, who let things slide and ask nothing of themselves at all. For these people, a fitting degree of perfectionism may help them realise their potential. So just how much perfectionism is ideal? Here are a few tips worth bearing in mind:

1. When setting goals, you can establish a minimum goal alongside an ideal one. Even if you only reach the minimum — say, finishing a paper but not earning top marks — we should still acknowledge the effort we put in. Doing this helps avoid the procrastination that perfectionism can bring on, improves productivity, and helps us recognise the factors in life that lie beyond our control, so that we do not wrongly attribute every outcome of a task to ourselves.
2. When you find that you repeatedly fall short of a task's standards, you should lower the bar to raise the chances of reaching a longer-term goal. Doing this lets us gain a sense of accomplishment more easily, builds up our self-efficacy and our confidence in completing tasks, and then lets us raise our goals step by step, until we finally reach a standard close to perfection.
3. Your achievements and results at work are not the measure of your worth. Keeping a cheerful mood matters enormously to both your mental health and your performance at work; only by taking good care of your own mental health can you pursue perfection in some field over the long run. Most importantly, perfection is like an infinite symbol — we can only do our utmost to approach it and savour the enjoyment along the way; but please do not let an obsession with it tip you into maladaptive perfectionism.