The Dangers of Perfectionism

I’m my own worst critic.

I grew up in an overachieving environment, with prep school, AP classes, debate team, extracurricular math classes, the works. That environment fostered a lot of pressure to succeed, and it gradually evolved into perfectionism. And I continued that pattern through college and my career.

I’m on a good track at this point, but it still feels empty at times. There’s honestly times where I’m tempted to gloat about my fancy crypto job because the validation feels good, but that’s only a temporary patch for that empty feeling.

It is good and important to have dreams and aspirations. But at the same time, we’re human. As my engineering professors would say, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough”. Here, I want to talk about the consequences that perfectionism has had for me, and how we should give ourselves a break every now and then.

Failure

Perfection allows no room for failure; and that turns into an outright fear of failure.

And making decisions from that place of fear has had a couple of effects:

First, it keeps me in my head. The engineer in me will try to prepare for every possible scenario, and analyze every possible variable to try and predict the future. Whether it’s going into a job interview, or getting ready for that one date, or going somewhere completely new, I spend all my time thinking about the possible futures rather than the present. And that results in me becoming increasingly anxious.

Second, it results in being risk-averse. I would only take on challenges that I know I could succeed in. But the reality is that some of the most worthwhile goals involve some form of risk. I could continue to squash a large number of small goals, but it doesn’t feel nearly as fulfilling as taking a leap of faith and coming out the other end. Whether that’s starting a business or traveling to an unknown place, I would rather take solace in knowing that I went for it, even in failure.

Third, it results in defeatism. If I’m thrown into situations where I “know” I will fail, then I won’t bother to expend the effort. I’ll just self-sabotage myself out of it, and guarantee failure in some form of self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, I can’t truly fail if I don’t truly try.

Fourth, I would dwell on my failures. All of them; from the small mishaps in grade school to the failed job interviews. They all weigh on me. And even years later, I periodically beat myself up over them. Resistance, ironically makes the feeling of failure fight back even harder.

Feedback

When I evaluate myself on such perfectionist terms, it is impossible for me to do any wrong.

And under that framework, it becomes nearly impossible to internalize any type of criticism or feedback. I will not listen to anything or anyone that tells me that I’m doing something wrong. In the face of criticism, I would become defensive and perform some mental gymnastics to clean myself of any wrongdoing.

Admittedly, I still do this sometimes; ironically, nobody’s perfect.

Feedback is a useful tool for course correction, but I have to be willing to internalize and truly accept it in order for it to be useful. It’s much more valuable to accept my faults and learn from them rather than live in my own personal shell of denial.

Support Systems

As a perfectionist, one of the hardest things to is ask for help. Being perfect means being able to take anything and everything that comes my way, by myself.

Support systems are an invaluable resource. Friends, family, coworkers, etc. are crucial for helping me back up when I fall.

But when I try to go it on my own, reject those systems, and fail to maintain those personal relationships, then they start to wither.

Sure, my friends still always call themselves my friends. But when I’m pretending that everything is awesome, then why would they think that I need them? Their willingness to confide and invest in me is compromised when I’m not willing to be honest and vulnerable with them.

I’m still working to rebuild those relationships after years of atrophy.

Parting Thoughts

Perfection and hopelessness are equivalent, in that they both represent situations with no possibility of improvement. To accept perfection means denying opportunities for growth.

Some of the most successful people in the world are failures. Steve Jobs, a college dropout, got fired from the company he founded. Simu Liu got fired from Deloitte before pursuing his acting career and becoming a Marvel superhero.

In the words of a close colleague and a hit punk song, I have a tendency to “kick the living shit out of me”. Stop being afraid of failure. And stop beating yourself up when you do fail.