Workplace Wellbeing: Chasing perfection is a fast track to burnout

Wanting to do our best is a healthy attitude, but striving for flawlessness can leave us feeling like we have failed if we don’t get things exactly right. That mindset can have a serious impact on our wellbeing

People who struggle with perfectionism are advised to break tasks into small, manageable steps. Picture: iStock

Claiming to be a perfectionist is a classic humblebrag. It’s something many of us were advised to do in job interviews when asked to name a weakness. Constantly pushing ourselves to achieve excellence can only be a good thing, right?

Wrong, says counsellor and psychotherapist Sarah Donnelly. “Perfectionism isn’t just caring about doing a good job. It’s when our self-worth becomes tied to how well we perform. Wanting to do our best is healthy. Perfectionism is different because we tell ourselves: If I don’t get this right, I’ve failed. That pressure can be exhausting and instead of motivating us, can keep us stuck in fear and self-doubt.”

Instead of driving us forward in our careers, perfectionism can paradoxically hold us back.

Chartered psychologist and president of the Psychological Society of Ireland, Dr Sarah Cassidy, explains how perfectionism can cause procrastination because perfectionists aim to never make mistakes.

“Making a mistake is feared because of the shame we will feel as a result. So we delay starting a difficult project or labour over every single detail of that project once we do get started. Perfectionists can also find it difficult to make decisions because making a decision inevitably means taking a risk, which triggers their fear of failure.”

Dr Sarah Cassidy says that perfectionism can cause procrastination

A 2011 British study showed how deep that fear can run. It involved athletes being tested for perfectionistic tendencies. Those athletes were then set a goal they could comfortably expect to achieve. Finally, they were told they had failed to achieve that goal and had to try again.

The athletes who had scored low for perfectionism put in the same effort or a little more. But the athletes who had scored high for perfectionism performed poorly, appearing to give up entirely rather than risk failing again.

“Ironically,” says Donnelly, “perfectionism often stops people from doing the very things they want to achieve.”

Perfectionism has other downsides. Cassidy points out that it stops people from asking for help.

“If we ask for help, people will realise we’re not perfect,” she says. “But fear of asking for help is a barrier to co-operation, collaboration, and progress. That’s not to say we don’t sometimes need to do things by ourselves. But as a rule, two heads are better than one, and many hands make lighter work.”

She believes that burnout and ill health are “an inevitability” for perfectionists. “Even when we’re not working ourselves to the bone in the never-ending quest for perfection, we are thinking about how we will achieve it or doing a post-mortem on past performance,” she says.

“Our brains are constantly activated, which means our bodies can’t downregulate. Our whole system is driving at 100 miles an hour when we should be resting or sleeping. There is nothing wrong with striving for excellence, wanting precision, or being detail-oriented but when these things are conflated with not allowing time for rest and regulation, it can have a serious impact on health.”

Perfectionist behaviours

What are the behaviours that alert us to perfectionistic tendencies?

Donnelly says they include “putting things off until we feel completely ready, spending too long tweaking details most people wouldn’t notice, struggling to delegate because we think nobody else will do it properly, avoiding feedback and rarely being satisfied with what we have achieved”.

To overcome perfectionistic tendencies, the first step is self-awareness, says Donnelly. “Once we notice perfectionism, we can begin challenging our thoughts rather than automatically believing them.”

Developing such an approach isn’t necessarily easy. “It’s a practice and won’t happen overnight,” says Cassidy.

An approach she recommends is asking: Why am I doing this right now? And what is the most important thing at this moment?

“Being guided by what we can do in the here and now is better than being guided by the harsh critic in our mind who never has anything nice to say anyway,” she says.

She treats her own inner critic in a playful manner, calling him Frank and imagining him as a cranky old man. “I just tell him: ‘Go home, Frank’. Another thing she does is notice when Frank shows up in her mind and ask herself why.

“When Frank arrives, something important is usually happening either professionally or personally,” she says. “So I scan my life to see what my mind is trying to tell me and what I can do about it.”

Donnelly’s advice to her clients who struggle with perfectionism is to break tasks into small, manageable steps, as this can make it easier to get started. She also encourages them to “set realistic deadlines, aim for ‘good enough’ rather than perfect, and to celebrate finishing something instead of endlessly improving it”.

She also encourages them to ask themselves the following question: What would I say to a friend in this situation?

“We’re often kinder to other people than we are to ourselves,” she says. “It helps to practice self-compassion.”

A lesson that everyone — not just perfectionists — would benefit from learning is that it’s normal to make mistakes and that they are part of the learning process.

As a perfectionist, Cassidy struggled to learn this lesson, but says that reminding herself that lots of scientific discoveries were made by mistake shifted her perspective a little. So did telling herself that people can’t learn when they are fearful.

“The best learning happens when we feel safe and able to explore,” she says. “We cannot feel safe if we are continuously beating ourselves up.”

Take steps to minimise risks

Instead of berating herself for mistakes, she accepts that they will happen. However, she also takes steps to minimise the risk.

“This means not staying on the treadmill that leads to exhaustion and burnout but ensuring I get enough sleep, take breaks during the day, exercise, eat well, spend time with loved ones and on things that are important to me,” she says.

“Our best and most sustainable performance happens not when we drive ourselves into the ground striving to reach an impossibly high bar but when we move towards living a life of purpose and meaning.”

Donnelly adds that employers can play a part in ensuring that perfectionism doesn’t take a toll on their employees.

She says that “workplace culture makes a huge difference and people perform best when they feel psychologically safe to ask questions, admit mistakes, and seek support without worrying they will be judged”.

Practical tips for employers who want to create a culture of psychological safety include modelling behaviour by “acknowledging they don’t have all the answers and treating mistakes as learning opportunities rather than something to be punished,” says Donnelly.

“Employers can also recognise effort, learning, and progress and not just results.

“Hard work, effort, and progress being consistently validated through ongoing feedback and appreciation help people feel valued and reduce the pressure to be perfect.”

None of these strategies will banish perfectionism overnight. Overcoming it can be a lifelong project.

“But the goal isn’t to have perfectionist thoughts again,” says Donnelly. “It’s to recognise them more quickly, challenge them, and choose a different response. Over time, our inner critic becomes quieter, and people become more compassionate towards themselves.”

Cassidy ends on a rallying call, urging us all to accept that “perfectionism doesn’t actually exist. It’s like a rigged slot machine. You play and play and play and occasionally get a big payout. But mostly, you just spend everything you have.

“So let’s stop glamourising what’s impossible and unsustainable. Let’s instead celebrate authentic humans who collaborate, innovate and do their best while being gloriously imperfect.”