For many people, high standards are part of who they are. They are why you are trusted with the important work, why your reports are clean, and why people say, “If you want it done right, ask them.”
But somewhere along the way, the standards may have started asking for more than they give back. A simple email takes forty minutes. A small mistake replays for days. Finished work never quite feels finished, and praise barely registers before you are on to the next thing you could have done better.
If that rings true, this is not about lowering your standards. It is about noticing where they serve you, where they have started to cost you, and how to keep the first while letting go of the second.
Striving versus fearing
Researchers who study perfectionism usually describe two sides of it. One is perfectionistic striving: setting high goals and working hard toward them. The other is perfectionistic concern: worrying intensely about mistakes, doubting your work, and feeling that others will judge or reject you if you fall short.
Most people with high standards have some of both. The difference shows up in how it feels. Healthy striving tends to feel energizing. You care about the outcome, you enjoy doing something well, and when it is done, you can let it go. Perfectionistic concern feels driven by fear. The goal is less about excellence and more about avoiding failure, criticism, or the sense of not being enough.
A simple test: after you finish something you worked hard on, what do you feel? Satisfaction, even briefly? Or mostly relief that you did not mess it up, followed quickly by worry about the next thing?
Where it often comes from
Perfectionism rarely appears out of nowhere. It often grows in settings where approval felt tied to performance: a home where grades or achievements got the most attention, a school or sport where mistakes were punished, or a workplace where one error was remembered far longer than a hundred good decisions. It can also grow out of uncertainty. When life felt unpredictable, getting things exactly right may have been one of the few things you could control.
Understanding the roots is not about blame. It simply helps explain why a standard that looks optional to others can feel so urgent to you.
What the research tells us
A large review that pooled 284 studies found that both sides of perfectionism were linked with symptoms of depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and eating disorders. Because it shows up across so many conditions, researchers describe perfectionism as a transdiagnostic factor: a common thread that can make many kinds of distress more likely.
It also appears to be rising. A study of more than 41,000 college students in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom found that perfectionism increased steadily between 1989 and 2016. The largest increase was in the sense that other people expect perfection, which researchers call socially prescribed perfectionism. In other words, many people feel more pressure from the world around them than earlier generations did.
There is encouraging news, too. Perfectionism is not a fixed trait. In two trials of guided online cognitive behavioral therapy for perfectionism, participants’ concern over mistakes dropped substantially and stayed lower at follow up months later. Research on self compassion also suggests that treating yourself with kindness weakens the link between perfectionism and depression.
This is not about lowering your standards. It is about noticing where they serve you and where they have started to cost you.
Molly Hinke-DeWild, LISW
The hidden costs
Perfectionism often looks like productivity from the outside. On the inside, the costs add up quietly:
- Time. The last few percent of polish can take as long as everything before it, with little visible difference.
- Procrastination. When anything less than perfect feels unacceptable, starting becomes hard, so tasks wait until the deadline forces them.
- Rest. It is hard to relax when some part of you is always reviewing what could have been better.
- Relationships. High standards can spill onto partners, children or colleagues, who may feel they can never quite measure up either.
- Growth. If mistakes feel intolerable, it becomes safer to avoid anything new, which means avoiding the very challenges that help you grow.
Leaders feel these costs in a particular way. When the person in charge expects perfection, teams tend to hide problems, avoid risks, and wait for approval on every detail. From my years in banking, business and teaching organizational leadership, I can say that very few teams do their best work while afraid of being wrong.
Ways to keep excellence without the strain
The goal is not to stop caring. It is to aim your care where it matters and give yourself room everywhere else. Here are some approaches to try.
Ask whose standard it is
Pick one specific standard you hold, such as “every email must be flawless” or “the house must be spotless before guests arrive.” Then ask: where did this rule come from? Whose voice does it sound like? Does it still fit the life and work I have now? Some standards turn out to be truly yours, and worth keeping. Others were handed to you long ago, and you may find you are free to set them down.
Grade the task, not yourself
Not every task deserves your highest effort. Before you start, you might ask: is this an A task, a B task, or a pass or fail task? A board presentation might deserve your best. An internal update probably needs to be clear and accurate, not polished. Matching effort to importance frees up energy for the work that really counts.
Run a small experiment
Choose something low stakes and deliberately do it well enough rather than perfectly. Send the email after one read instead of four. Leave a small imperfection in a project. Then notice what actually happens. Most of the time, nobody notices at all, and you gain real evidence that your fears overestimate the risk.
Listen for rigid words
Perfectionism often speaks in absolutes: should, must, always, never. When you catch one, try rewording it as a preference. “I must never make a mistake” becomes “I prefer to do careful work, and I can handle it when I make a mistake.” The second version is still ambitious. It is also a lot more livable.
Talk to yourself like a good mentor would
When something goes wrong, notice the tone of your inner voice. Would you speak that way to someone you were mentoring? A good mentor names what went wrong, helps you learn from it, and reminds you that one error does not define your ability. You can learn to offer yourself the same steady kindness, and research suggests it helps.
Separating your worth from your work
Underneath much perfectionism is a belief that your value depends on what you produce. If the work is excellent, you are acceptable. If it falls short, you are not.
That belief often formed for understandable reasons, and it may have helped you succeed. But it can also make every task feel like a test of who you are. Gently loosening that link, so that a mistake is just a mistake and not a verdict on you, is often where the deepest relief comes from. This kind of change usually happens gradually, and it can be helpful to have support along the way.
It is worth reaching out sooner if perfectionism comes with persistent low mood or worry, trouble sleeping, rituals of checking or redoing that are hard to stop, or strict rules around food and body. Those patterns respond well to care, and you do not have to sort them out alone.
How we can help
Perfectionism is a frequent theme in my coaching for high functioning professionals, which is online and focused on keeping your drive while making success more sustainable. If you are located in Iowa and perfectionism is tied to anxiety, low mood, or older experiences, therapy is available in person in Bettendorf or by telehealth.
Either way, the aim is the same: high standards that work for you, not against you.
Sources
- Limburg K, et al. The relationship between perfectionism and psychopathology: a meta-analysis (Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2017)
- Curran T, Hill AP. Perfectionism is increasing over time: a meta-analysis of birth cohort differences from 1989 to 2016 (Psychological Bulletin, 2019)
- Rozental A, et al. Guided web based cognitive behavior therapy for perfectionism: results from two randomized controlled trials (Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2018)
- Ferrari M, et al. Self compassion moderates the perfectionism and depression link in both adolescence and adulthood (PLoS One, 2018)
