The Perfectionism Trap and How to Escape

It can feel good to set a goal, aim high, push yourself, and feel like you’ve done your best. But sometimes high expectations become a burden rather than a motivator. Perfectionism can impact your work and relationships and lead to anxiety and low self-esteem. There’s good news, though: Techniques from cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) can help you figure out if you’re setting the bar too high and what to do about it.

What Is Perfectionism?

Perfectionism isn’t just being organized or wanting things to go well. It often involves setting extremely high or unattainable standards, being highly self‐critical when you don’t meet those standards, basing your sense of worth too narrowly on your success or achievement, and obsessing about mistakes, decisions, or what others think. Perfectionism has been linked to depression, anxiety, stress, eating issues, avoidance, procrastination, and low self-esteem.

Studies show that CBT is effective for the problem of perfectionism. A systematic review and meta‐analysis (Galloway et al., 2022) examined 15 randomized controlled trials (the gold standard for psychological research) with more than 900 participants. The researchers found that CBT had a significant effect on participants’ overall clinical perfectionism. Other difficulties improved too, like depression, eating disorder symptoms, and anxiety. This demonstrates that CBT for perfectionism tends to have general positive effects beyond just perfectionist thinking.

A Case Example

Maria was a 24-year-old woman whose perfectionism significantly interfered with her mood and sense of well-being. Her first job out of college was teaching world history in a large public high school, and she had received pretty good, but not perfect, evaluations in her first year of teaching. She vowed to do better in her second year. Her perfectionism showed up in several ways:

• She spent several hours most evenings preparing the lesson for the next day, despite having detailed notes for each class that she had composed the year before.
• She spent a significant part of most weekends reading and rereading her students’ papers or writing test questions.
• She believed there would be a serious consequence if she made a mistake.
• She reduced the time she spent doing self-care like exercising, having good sleep habits, eating nutritious meals, and spending time with friends and family.
• If she made a mistake, it deeply affected her mood and self‐image.

Maria received eight sessions of CBT, learning techniques for perfectionism, many of which I’ll describe below. Her therapist helped her reduce her high standards, decrease the amount of time she spent working on evenings and weekends, increase self-care, accept imperfections, and interrupt her cycles of worry and self-criticism. She began to live in better alignment with her important values, focusing on activities that were meaningful to her. Her mood and sense of well-being improved, as did her relationships, and she felt less anxious about making mistakes.

How Does CBT for Perfectionism Work?

Before beginning treatment, your therapist performs an evaluation to help them understand the degree to which your perfectionism impacts your life and whether you have other psychological difficulties (which may or may not be connected to perfectionism). As part of the assessment, the therapist asks questions to find out how and when your perfectionism started, how pervasive it is, and how it affects your thinking, emotions, behaviors, and relationships. They’ll also try to figure out what you’re not doing because of the time you spend trying to be perfect.

The therapist then develops and shares a treatment plan, making sure you understand how therapy will proceed, discussing whether you think their plan will help, and making adjustments if needed. Next, your therapist will explain the theory of CBT: how your thinking about situations influences your emotional, behavioral, and physiological response. You’ll also learn that therapy will target the essential characteristics of perfectionism: rigid, unreasonable standards and a pattern of unrelenting self-criticism and fear of failure.

Evaluating Your Thinking

Maria often thought, “My worth depends on my achievements,” and “Mistakes mean I’m a failure.” Perfectionists often make mistakes in their thinking, such as catastrophizing (believing the worst will happen), all-or-nothing thinking (believing that anything less than 100-percent success equals failure), and mental filtering (focusing only on mistakes).

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Maria learned to ask herself, “What was just going through my mind?” when she noticed she was feeling anxious or caught herself taking too long to grade papers. Your therapist will teach you how to assess the degree to which your thinking is accurate—or not—and helpful—or not. Maria learned to ask herself questions such as:

• “What’s the evidence that this thought is true? What’s the evidence on the other side, that it isn’t true, or not completely true?”
• “If the worst happened, how would I cope? What’s the most realistic outcome?”
• “What’s the impact of telling myself this over and over again? What could be the effect of changing my thinking?”
• “If _____ [a close friend or family member] were in this situation and had this thought, what would I tell them?”

Learning Through Experiments

Your therapist may also work with you to do “behavioral experiments.” During treatment, Maria deliberately made a mistake in an in-class assignment. She asked her students to read about a particular historic event in their textbook, but gave them an incorrect page number. The students were confused and pointed out her mistake—but nothing bad happened! Experiments like this helped Maria realize that she didn’t need to be perfect all the time.

Focusing on What’s Really Important

Perfectionists often spend so much time trying to be perfect that they tend to devote less time to activities that are connected with their values and aspirations. Maria’s therapist helped her re-engage in many activities that she had found important or enjoyable during high school and college. In addition to doing more self-care, Maria rejoined a church and became involved in communal and spiritual activities. She reconnected with friends and strengthened relationships with other teachers at school. She took a drawing class and a cooking class, and she volunteered for a social justice program.

What You Can Do if Perfectionism Is a Problem for You

If you struggle with perfectionism, here are some things you can do on your own to be more flexible and resilient:

• Talk to a friend, family member, or co-worker about your perfectionism and any related consequences. Ask for help in developing more reasonable expectations for yourself.
• When you feel anxious or compelled to check something more than once, identify and respond to your unhelpful thoughts.
• Purposely do some things imperfectly (for example, send some emails or texts with a spelling or grammatical error or wear a shirt with a stain on it). Allow yourself to settle for doing a “good enough” job on relatively less important tasks at work or home.
• Answer self-critical thoughts with a compassionate response. It can be helpful to think about what you’d say to someone you care about if you saw that their perfectionistic tendencies were leading to negative consequences.
• Participate in activities that bring you a sense of pleasure, joy, or awe; that strengthen your relationships; that improve your physical or mental health; or that nurture your spiritual, creative, or intellectual side.

If you find that your perfectionism is causing you significant distress, seek help from a therapist who offers CBT for perfectionism. Be patient because change can take time. Studies show individuals often improve across weeks or months. With help, you can reduce perfectionism, feel less anxious, become more flexible, and increase your overall well-being.