How to overcome unhelpful perfectionism and accept you are good enough

Striving for excellence is useful, and at times vital. However, there is a big difference between doing this in certain areas of your life and feeling that it applies to everything you do and are. This is when perfectionism becomes unhelpful and even damaging.

Unhelpful perfectionism is where you feel that whatever you do is never good enough. Where you feel that unless you are perfect (which is impossible), you are useless or unacceptable. Where you judge everything you do against some impossibly high standard you have set for yourself. Where you are super-critical, blind to the good bits and only focussing on the (often imagined or unimportant) errors. This can apply across the board - how you look, sound and behave as well as what you do or achieve.

It's not surprising that so many people fall into the trap of perfectionism. Right from the word go, you have been judged against a set of standards. Starting from SATs through to your degree classification. There has been a constant raising of the bar. For example, introducing A*s. Always some higher standard to aim for. Then the sense of failure or inadequacy if you don’t attain it. This feeds the idea that you must be perfect to be acceptable.

Unfortunately, it is not only about academic perfection or getting everything right at work. It can be how you look, dress, walk, talk. Social media doesn’t help as everyone presents their perfect image to the world – no matter how imperfect they might feel inside.

Do you recognise any of yourself in this? It’s probably been going on for a long time. It is pernicious as it deprives you of ever having a real sense of achievement or feeling good about yourself or what you have done.

Perfectionism can also lead to anxiety and low self-esteem as you are driven by the fear of not being good enough. The reality is probably that everyone else sees you as fine and often excellent. This might be hard for you to accept. This can lead to imposter syndrome, where you feel like a fraud, afraid of being ‘found out’ at any minute.

Procrastination is another by-product as you may put off doing things because they have to be perfect! This can be driven by fear of failure or rejection. It is all very complex.

In this video, mental health trainer Jenny Langley explores the concept of perfectionism in children and young people. She explains why it can be a problem, how to identify students who might be struggling and how to open a conversation with them. She also gives practical tips on how to communicate with a perfectionist student to help them reframe negative thoughts and to encourage thoughts about change.