INSIGHT
JUN. 2025
A Perfect Storm.
Examining the relationship between anxiety and perfectionism.
BY OPENING ROUND
Generative work can come in many shapes, sizes and forms. In creative industries like design, film or product, the time and quality of a creative process is at the core of how the work gets valued. But creatives aren’t the only ones that who’s process matters. In finance, professionals build models, memos and strategies to create value. Software engineers are often evaluated on the quality of their abilities develop code, user experiences or create product roadmaps. Regardless of the field it’s true that for most of us, our output (or the ‘finished product’) - can be a persistent source of stress, anxiety and inner struggle in our lives and in our careers.
According to clinical psychologist and author Ellen Hendriksen - there is a silent epidemic of perfectionism happening. Hendriksen has written about the fact that as a clinical psychologist at an anxiety specialty centre the vast majority of her clients have perfectionism at the centre of their challenges. However, patients with anxiety don’t often present perfectionism as a problem of theirs. Instead, Hendriksen’s patients describe a lived experience of consistently feel as though they are failing or falling behind.
According to Hendriksen, ‘perfectionism’ is a misnomer. In her new book, “How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists” Hendrikson’s latest research finds that perfectionism is less about striving to be perfect and more about living with a feeling of not being good enough. This is a pervasive problem because it can be about grades, social behaviours, weight, image, parenting or work performance.
In many ways, the western world is a social trap for perfectionists. Our culture rewards hyper fixation on productivity and performance. And, while, perfection is not a disorder, the trappings of late-stage capitalism have many members of society locked into a perfectionist mindset hat has the potential to be the source for bigger, more complex problems.
Social anxiety and perfectionism are siblings. If we drill down on social anxiety we find a foundation of perfectionism. Both are based on the same flawed perception of self and a felt sense of inadequacy that can separate us from others. When we feel in adequate, we can find ourselves bending to the urge to hide, avoid others or overcompensate.
Ironically, researchers cannot seem to agree on a shared, or perfect, definition of perfectionism. Hendrikson asserts that perfectionism in the modern world can be defined by demanding of ourselves a level of performance higher than is required for the situation. But there are two ways that the mindset or trait of perfectionism is understood by researchers (1) doing more than the bare minimum, or (2) equating performance with character.
The first way of understanding perfectionism can be a productive, and even motivating way of operating. Research shows that setting goals and striving to achieve them confers mastery and purpose. But striving for a more perfect result becomes problematic when it drives us towards questions of self worth. It can encourage us to confuse our ability to achieve with our own inherent value as a person.
When we start to equate performance with our character our self worth comes into questions. Perfection can slope into disorderly thinking when it manifests into questions like “Am I okay”? “Am I good enough”? Despite the fact that it is tempting and in many ways natural to have these questions, performance is not the best way to answer them.
Performance is not a referendum on your character; it’s a means to an end. But it can be easy to get confused in the practice of achieving and maintaining high performance. Some of the easiest ways to make your life harder by being a perfectionist look something like this:
Focusing only on flaws and details. Even if everything else goes well, the one mistake is the thing you focus on.
Existing within two options for evaluating outcomes: all or nothing. This gives us a very narrow criteria for success and a very wide path for “failure” .
Perfecting self criticism. Allowing yourself to be hard on yourself when you fall short of a demanding standard or moving the goal posts when you meet standards because you’ve decided retroactively that the standards weren’t demanding enough in the first place.
While these traps show up internally, perfectionism isn’t created in a vacuum.
Being a perfectionist is typically thought of as a personal problem, but it is actually interpersonally motivated. We strive for perfection in order to try to stay in people’s good graces, avoid criticism or judgement, and to connect. Evolutionarily, we learned to perform as well as possible because we thought it would keep the group together and, potentially, make others happy.
Like many of our most destructive tendencies, a perfectionist mindset is rooted in love and safety. The pursuit of perfection creates a persona; a type of armour that we create in order to get admiration. Ironically, the same walls we put up to protect ourselves from criticism and judgement prevent us from truly connecting to others and land us on a pedestal all by ourselves.
Shifting into a healthier relationship with perfectionism means moving from following rules of perfection, to being guided by your own personal values.
In her most recent book “How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionist”, Helen Hendrikson charts a flexible, forgiving, and freeing path towards a better relationship with perfectionism that doesn’t require high achievers to give up the excellence that their high standards and hard work have earned them.
Hendrikson describes a complex, but important shift grounded in understanding what your values are.
Following the rules requires a rigid application of standards that get applied regardless of the situations. An all or nothing approach means that, if you do not achieve what you set out to do, you are unacceptable. In the extreme, being governed by rules can corrupt the way we relate others. This happens when we start to impose our rules on the people we care about. For example, if you’ve decided that you know the “right” way to load the dishwasher, your rules of perfection might have pushed you off the deep end.
Allowing yourself to be guided by values, as opposed to being governed by your own rules, can create a sense of ease and release the toxic pressure that follows perfectionism. This is because values and rules are inherently different. Values are continuous and intrinsically meaningful. That means that even if nobody else knows what they are, your values are still important to you. Values are not contingent on anybody else, instead, they are under your control. We are guided by values when they are freely chosen, and not coerced. The goal of allowing your values to become your compass for performance is not to lower your standards, instead, it’s about keeping your standards high and making room for mistakes along the way.
Sources
“How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists”
Ellen Hendrikson, 2025
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