Practice makes Perfect
Or does it?
Have you heard about the pot that never left the shelf?
A potter shaped a beautiful clay pot and placed it on his workbench. As the pot was drying, he spotted a small, uneven curve near the base. He smoothed it out, then found another flaw. Then another.
Days passed. The potter kept adjusting, reshaping, and reworking the clay. Meanwhile, other pots were fired, sold, and used in homes across the village.
One morning, the potter returned to his bench to find that the clay had dried beyond repair.
The moral of the story: Waiting for perfection can mean losing the chance to be useful at all.
Or even worse, suffer the consequences of trying to be perfect — anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and chronic health issues. In short, perfectionism harms mental health.
What is perfectionism?
Perfectionism is the relentless striving to be perfect or flawless. Healthy striving means setting goals, working toward them, and learning along the way. But when performance is associated with self-worth, it creates a vicious cycle of toxicity.
Perfectionists regard mistakes as personal failures. They live under constant pressure, which directly impacts their nervous system. Perfectionism creates a fear of failure, leading to procrastination, avoidance, or overworking. Tasks are delayed because they’re never good enough, or the individual may work continuously, completely immersed in the pursuit of unrealistic targets.
Even though compliments provide temporary relief, the person quickly reverts to a state of worry about the next task. Over time, this unhealthy cycle can sap motivation and self-esteem. What started as “high standards” has now become emotional exhaustion.
Where the Cycle Begins
Perfectionism often develops early. It can result from:
- Conditional praise — “I’m proud of you when you succeed.”
- High expectations with little emotional support
- Comparisons to siblings, classmates, or peers
For many people, perfectionism once served a purpose, helping them to stay safe, earn approval, or feel in control. The problem is that what once protected the individual may now be doing more harm than good.
The Role of Social Media
Social media fuels perfectionism by constantly curating filtered versions of success, beauty, productivity, and happiness, presenting them as the norm. This perfect picture of achievement inadvertently encourages constant comparison and ties self-worth to likes and engagement, advocating unrealistic standards for appearance and achievement.
Hustle culture extols nonstop improvement while mistakes and rest are never brought into the forefront, making anything less than “perfect” feel like failure. Over time, this creates a pressure to perform, the fear of being judged, and chronic self-criticism, even when the individual understands that the content is not fully real.
How to break the cycle
The cycle is broken through a number of approaches.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): CBT helps clients replace negative and catastrophizing thoughts with healthier and balanced perspectives, also helping them with coping strategies for tolerating imperfection.
Practicing Self-Compassion: Individuals learn to be kind to themselves through mindfulness journaling or guided meditation sessions that help to change the thought process from judgment to understanding.
Exposure to Imperfection: Leaving a task halfway or submitting a project without proofreading are two of many such intentional strategies that are aimed at practising imperfection.
Value-oriented Goal Setting: Clients are advised to choose personal values like growth, connection, and creativity when setting goals rather than appearance or performance.
Changing the language: Imperatives like must or should are replaced with less harsh alternatives like “I prefer” or “I would like.”
Breaking down goals: Setting attainable goals that can be realistically realized within specific time periods helps the individual move away from unrealistic expectations.
EMDR therapy: Clients identify memories of how they learned to be perfectionists and process these in order to let unreasonable expectations go.
Also Read: Teletherapy vs In-Person: Which Is Right for You?
When do you need therapy?
It’s time to seek therapy if you find yourself:
- Constantly procrastinating because you fear you’ll make mistakes
- You feel you’re not good enough even after meeting goals and deadlines
- Your harsh self-criticism or judgments about others are interfering with your relationships
- You don’t recognize or feel happy about what you’ve achieved because in your mind, you could have done better.
Seeking therapy on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York?
Laura Pearl uses a combination of techniques to address the problem.
