Perfectionism isn’t some quirky personality trait. It’s a thief. It sneaks in, steals your time, drains your joy, and convinces you it’s doing you a favor. And here’s the kicker: research shows that perfectionist tendencies are on the rise. So whether you identify with perfectionism personally or not, you should educate yourself about it because it is highly likely that you will find yourself grappling with perfectionist tendencies in your life, even if they aren’t your own.

The Rise of Perfectionism

A massive study spanning 40,000 college students found that rates of perfectionism have shot up over the last three decades. Today’s young adults are 33% more likely to set impossibly high standards for themselves, and 10% more likely to believe others demand perfection from them compared to students in the 1980s (Curran & Hill, 2019).

Translation: the thief isn’t slowing down. It’s scaling operations. And it is impacting individual mental health, organizational culture, and productivity. 

What Perfectionism Steals

• Time & Peace: Instead of finishing the project, eating your dinner, and going to bed, you’re still polishing slide 17…again. Harvard Business Review calls this “over-preparing and over-delivering,” work that looks busy, makes you feel like you are overworked and overtaxed, but adds little value to the end result.
  
  
• Creativity & Courage: In the book Art & Fear, the authors, both artists and teachers, tell the story of a photography professor who divided students into two groups: a quantity group (graded on how many photos they produced) and a quality Group (graded on producing a single “perfect” photo).

By semester’s end, the students with the best work weren’t in the “quality” group at all. They were the ones churning out dozens of shots, learning from mistakes, and iterating. The “quality” group mostly sat around theorizing, which produced weaker photos. The lesson? Practice and progress beat perfection. Excellence comes from volume, experimentation, and risk, not from strategizing flawless execution.

• Health & Wellbeing: There is plenty of research that links perfectionism to higher rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, and even long-term health risks. We don’t even need to give you a reference to prove our point. If you are interested, GOOGLE IT. The thief doesn’t just take today—it takes your future.

Toxic Perfectionism: Why Perfectionism is So Insidious 

Toxic perfectionism is a special kind of devil because the line between “I am excellence-seeking and awesome,” and “We have reached the point of diminishing returns, and by the way, you are driving yourself crazy,” is verrrrrry thin.. It whispers, “Don’t settle. Push harder. Push harder. Push harder. Make it flawless.” 

If you are a person with perfectionist tendencies. It is those exact tendencies that make you AWESOME at what you do. It takes next-level self-awareness to notice when your perfectionism is turning you to the dark side. 

When does a passion for excellence cross over to fear?

Fear of failing. Fear of being judged. Fear of not being enough.

What is Toxic Perfectionism?

Perfectionism becomes toxic when it is driven not by the pursuit of excellence, but by the fear and avoidance of failure. Left unchecked, it narrows your world until the only “safe” option is to avoid risk, growth, and possibility.

If This Is You

If you caught yourself nodding along, here are a few things to try on:

• Name It. Catch the thief in the act. Notice when you’re stalling, over-polishing, or avoiding risk. Awareness. Awareness. Awareness. You have to practice noticing your tipping point.

   

• Choose Progress. Done is better than perfect. Practice setting progress-focused goals — if not for the project, for yourself. Progress-focused goals improve motivation, learning, and outcomes more than “don’t mess up” goals.

• Practice Self-Compassion. This one feels woo-woo, but is backed by all sorts of science. Kristin Neff, a field leader in self-compassion research, repeatedly shows self-kindness boosts resilience and motivation more than harsh criticism ever could (Neff, 2003).

• Address Your Stress Response. Moving from working hard to falling down a perfectionist rabbit hole is an acute stress response. Use your tools. Walk, move, breathe — use whatever tactics work for you to reset your body.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to quit being ambitious or sacrifice excellence. Those are the things that make you YOU, but awareness is key.

Perfectionist Leaders

Perfectionism doesn’t just rob individuals; it steals time, energy and efficiency from teams and companies. 

Are you a leader with perfectionist tendencies that you transfer onto your team? Leaders who demand flawlessness create cultures of micromanagement and fear. And fearful teams don’t innovate. Deloitte reported that 77% of workers have experienced burnout, with perfectionist cultures playing a major role (Deloitte, 2021). When mistakes aren’t allowed, experiments don’t happen, which means innovation doesn’t happen. 

When mistakes aren’t allowed, THEY STILL HAPPEN, but you just won’t know about them. Amy Edmondson, famous for her work on psychological safety, studied hospital nursing teams in the 1990s. She expected that the best teams, the ones with good communication and collaboration, would report fewer medical errors.

Instead, she found the opposite: the highest-performing nursing teams reported more errors.

The twist? They weren’t actually making more mistakes. They were just more willing to speak up about them. Poorer-performing teams were hiding errors out of fear or shame. Best case scenario, unfortunate. Worst case scenario, DANGEROUS. Oof.

Leading Perfectionists On Your Team

Managing perfectionists can feel like managing rabbits in a thunderstorm: jumpy, hypervigilant, and ready to bolt at the first sign of failure. Here’s how to help:

• Model Imperfection. Share your own mistakes, and what you learned from them. This humanizes you as a leader, prioritizes continues learning, and normalizes risk-taking.

   

• Reward Experimentation. Praise smart risks and iterations, not just flawless outcomes. Praise smart risks, even if they don’t work out. Innovation grows where mistakes are safe.

• Set Realistic Expectations. Define done. Clarify what’s “good enough.” EX-PLI-CIT-LY. Otherwise, perfectionists will keep moving the finish line.

• Protect Capacity. Help your team set boundaries and reasonable expectations for themselves so they don’t burn out trying to meet impossible standards and/or spin their wheels into resentment.

A perfectionist-heavy team can either freeze or flourish. The difference comes down to how safe it feels to take risks. #psychologicalsafety

 You Made it to the End of This Article! Congrats!

So whether you are a perfectionist, a recovering perfectionist, work with perfectionists, or are just preparing to run into a perfectionist in the hall, we hope that you have a few more tools in your toolbelt.

XO,
Anna & The Human Solution Team

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