In second grade I came home from school with an A on a math test. Math was a subject I struggled with as a young child, needing extra help and even tutoring in the subject from an early age. What can I say, my brain is just more wired towards words I guess? So, getting an A in math was kind of a big deal. I remember my mom taking the test from my hands, scanning and it and saying “It’s good, but I know you have A+ in you. Let’s aim higher next time.” That was my earliest encounter with perfectionism. That despite the effort it took my then tiny hands to pull myself up by my bootstraps in this subject, a good grade would always be a moving target.
As time went on, I saw perfectionist tendencies in the women around me, many of whom were powerful, high-ranking career women (my mom included). I began to understand and contextualize their perfectionism as a commitment to excellence, a misguided belief that being hard on yourself and never being satisfied, equates to having high standards. I eventually adopted some of those perfectionist behaviors. For years I engaged in an inner battle with trying to be perfect and coming up short, blaming myself for not being able to achieve it through sheer force of will until I became so anxious, I was like one of those balls made of elastic bands, with hair.
It took me a long time, a lot of therapy, and literally moving across the world to realize something — our perfectionism is a sign that something is very broken, and that overcoming perfectionism, nay healing our relationship with perfection is our collective responsibility.
Let me start by saying, not all perfectionism is equal. After all, if we didn’t strive for excellence, we would never run marathons, compete in the Olympics, or dare to leave our planet to explore other worlds. There is an innate desire in the human condition to improve and be better. But that’s not perfectionism. What we mistake for perfectionism is the adaptive pursuit of excellence — trying to achieve perfection while knowing that things can never truly be perfect. What I am talking about is toxic perfectionism — when we try to be perfect and accept nothing less. And that’s a losing battle.
Who needs to be perfect?
I don’t need to tell you that women suffer from perfectionist tendencies, at a much higher rate than men. In a Salon article by Gail Cornwall, she describes missing a Zoom call with a male perfectionist scholar because she got the time difference wrong. His assistant wrote to her with a simple, curt response when she requested another slot, saying he would “not be available for further interviews.” During the global pandemic, while juggling five children of her blended family she wrote: perfectionism is a virtue/vice not afforded to single mothers at this moment in history.”
Perfectionism is a virtue/vice not afforded single mothers at this moment in history
Gail Cornwall
There are enough examples of talented, exceptional women who struggle with self-doubt in a world that tells them to be nothing short of the best. And it starts when we’re young. In the quiet disapproving comments from a parent, disappointed about a less than perfect grade. Or when we are encouraged to be a “good girl,” a message that teaches young women to play by the rules and never fail.
But what happens when we become adults and carry those nagging voices in our heads everywhere we go? And is that presence just our heads, or is it out there wagging its finger at us every step we take?
The research shows that across the board when women mess up, their futures are more likely to hang in the balance. A Harvard Business School study found that women in finance were 20% more likely to be fired for making a mistake compared to their male counterparts, and a female surgeon that loses a patient is likely to see a 34% drop in referrals compared to a male surgeon who won’t see any.
The situation is worse for women of color, especially Black women. Studies show that Black women in the workplace tend to be penalized more severely for their mistakes, are less likely to get support from their managers, and generally experience a more hostile working environment compared to their white counterparts. In an essay titled Black on Bay Street, writer, and former lawyer Hadiya Roderique, describes the countless ways in which falling shy of perfect in Canada’s corporate legal world impacted both her opportunities for advancement and her mental and emotional state.
And yet whenever we talk about perfectionism and women with perfectionist tendencies, we make it an individual problem. We think of it as something that is largely self-inflicted instead of as the fallout and mental-health consequence of an oppressive system, that penalizes women for failing in areas where we give men a much longer rope.
How can we overcome perfectionism?
At this point I know what you’re thinking – I hear you and I agree that perfectionism is anxiety-inducing, harmful to my mental health and well-being, and a losing game because it’s unattainable. But how do I stop? To this I put forth the following approaches:
Fix your relationship with perfection as it relates to you — your self-oriented perfectionism
Frankly, this is easier said than done, but also the only thing YOU have control over. We are all only, ever in control of ourselves and our responses. So, reorienting your idea of perfection is the first step in setting healthy boundaries between you and the finger wagging specter that makes you doubt yourself. Accept that life isn’t a zero-sum game. Perfectionists tend to see the world as all or nothing; black or white, success or failure. Life simply doesn’t work that way. Instead of all or nothing, try an adaptive approach towards perfection — strive for perfection while accepting things will never quite get there.
Focus on the process
We are a results-obsessed world. It’s the way we are trained to think from a young age-grades, keeping score, ranking, bottom lines. The problem with this way of thinking is that the results are always a moving target and no matter what you achieve, you’re going to feel like you need to do more.
Have you ever had a boss praise you for an excellent job on something then say “Congratulations, you’re perfect, here’s a big fat bonus check, you can put your feet up for the rest of the year while the rest of the team catches up to your perfect score?” I doubt it. It’s probably more in the vein of something like this, “Congrats on a job well done, I think you can really beat your personal best next quarter and help the rest of the team do the same!” Yes, congrats on a job well done. Here’s a big bump to your workload and even higher expectations for next quarter.
Or how many times did you tell yourself If I achieve X or Y, then I will be happy. Then I’ll have my perfect life.” And once you got X or Y did you feel like you could stop? Of course not! It doesn’t work that way because as human beings we want more, we want to be better and we are socially conditioned to never be completely satisfied. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take your foot off the gas for a bit and soak in your good work. So instead of focusing on the results, enjoy the process of getting there. Perfection can be the simple act of improving.
Fix your relationship with perfection as it relates to your expectations of others
Perfectionism tends to overlap, and most self-oriented perfectionists also expect others to meet their impossibly high standards. You know these people. They are micromanaging bosses, unimpressed parents, or Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada (incidentally Meryl Streep who so perfectly played this imperfect character described being unhappy and in a bad mood on set because she was constantly in the headspace of someone who was never satisfied).
You can see why this is setting yourself up for a lifetime of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Understand that the same approach you might take towards reorienting your relationship with perfection in yourself applies to your expectations of other people. The one universal truth about perfection is that it’s a moving target and therefore by definition unattainable. So go easy on yourself and those around you, a healthy amount of skepticism for what’s possible sets you on a path to developing a healthier relationship with perfection while still maintaining high standards.
Understand that the world is unequal and so are the consequences
This brings me back full circle to my point about perfection and how it shows up in women or in women of color. We now better understand the ways in which biases and unconscious biases affect different people. Perfectionism tends to affect women and women of color more severely simply because of the ways in which our prejudiced world treats them. Other oriented perfectionism has unintended cultural, social, and even mental health implications for people who tend to be marginalized, causing perfectionism to show up in more acute ways. If Black women say they need to work twice as hard for half as much, it’s because they do.
In our world of hustle culture and do more, live more, buy more, want more, comparison is the thief of joy and perfection the thief of balance. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Accept that your idea of perfection, a perfect life, a perfect job, a perfect family are largely a construct in your head of how life should be not how it is. Know that perfectionism is a symptom of an imperfect world, not the cure and that the act of letting go of perfection is, well, just perfect.
