The specialism
Perfectionism, without the labels.
My MSc thesis examined perfectionism’s link to anxiety and depression. Years of clinical work and years alongside successful people taught me the same thing the research did: most genuinely successful people are perfectionists, and most of them have never once examined what it’s costing them.
The premise
Success that runs on “I’m not enough.”
Perfectionism gets dressed up as a humble-brag - “my weakness? I just care too much.” Underneath, it’s rarely about high standards at all. Real high success often comes from a real underlying “I’m not enough”. People survive on success to make themselves feel lovable - and the better it works, the harder it is to stop.
The cost tends to arrive quietly: procrastination that looks like laziness but is actually fear, rest that never feels earned, relationships that thin out while the CV thickens. And here’s the trap - the more perfectionism costs you, the more the cost itself becomes the argument for continuing. You’ve given up so much for the standard that lowering it now would mean it was all for nothing.
“There’s no teacher marking you. There’s just you, figuring out a little bit more about yourself.”
The definition
What perfectionism actually is.
Perfectionism is not wanting things to be good. It is the belief that something bad happens if they are not - and the bad thing is almost never the client, the review or the number. It is the feeling.
That distinction matters because it changes what you work on. High standards are a preference and they are useful. Perfectionism is a condition of safety, and you cannot solve a safety problem by getting better at the task.
Three dimensions, not one
When perfectionism is measured properly it is not treated as a single trait. Hewitt and Flett separated it into three in 1991, and that split has held up ever since.
Self-oriented
The demand for perfection in yourself: striving for perfectionistic standards, then rigorously evaluating and censoring your own behaviour against them.
Socially prescribed
The perceived need to obtain and sustain standards you believe are expected of you by other people and by your environment. Not standards you chose. Standards you believe are being applied.
Other-oriented
Your expectation of everybody else: unrealistic standards for other people, and stringent evaluation of them when they fall short.
The research
What my own study found.
For my MSc in Occupational Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, I studied perfectionism in working professionals - not students, who are who most perfectionism research is done on. Everybody already knew perfectionism was associated with psychological distress. What I wanted to know was how.
Method
Working professionals, all in employment, recruited through LinkedIn and my own network. Perfectionism measured with the Hewitt & Flett 45-item Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, alongside intolerance of uncertainty, fear of negative evaluation, worry, trait anxiety and the General Health Questionnaire.
Finding one
Perfectionism predicted psychological distress. Self-oriented perfectionism was a significant predictor.
Finding two
Self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism both predicted intolerance of uncertainty and fear of negative evaluation. Other-oriented perfectionism showed no significant relationship.
Finding three
Intolerance of uncertainty and fear of negative evaluation each predicted distress in their own right. They are the mechanism, not a side effect.
Which is why the standards are not the thing to work on. A high standard, in a person built a certain way, produces a permanent state of not knowing whether you have met it, and a permanent expectation of being judged for it. Those two are workable. The standard, on its own, is not the problem.
A modest study with the limitations of one: self-report data, a sample including people who knew me, and a survey long enough that a number of busy professionals abandoned it partway. It is consistent with the wider literature rather than a replacement for it. Conducted for an MSc at Goldsmiths, University of London; I am a Registered Mental Health Nurse (BSc Mental Health Nursing), MSc Occupational Psychology.
The pattern has more than one shape
Not all perfectionists are perfecting the same thing.
The research I built my MSc thesis on - Hewitt and Flett’s multidimensional model - found that perfectionism isn’t one trait. It runs in three directions, and knowing which one runs you changes what you do about it.
- Self-orientedThe standards are yours, aimed at you. You’re the harshest voice in every room you enter, and the last person to believe you’ve done enough. It looks like drive. It often is. It’s also the version most strongly linked to burnout, because there’s no finish line you’ll accept.
- Socially prescribedThe standards feel like everyone else’s. You’re not chasing perfect because you want it; you’re chasing it because you’re convinced it’s the entry price for being valued at all. This is the version my thesis linked most clearly to anxiety and depression - and the one people least often recognise in themselves.
- Other-orientedThe standards are aimed outward. Nobody around you can get it right either. It’s the least talked about, because it doesn’t feel like suffering - until you notice what it’s done to your relationships.
Most people are a blend, with one direction doing most of the driving. The quiz tells you which.
The workbook
The Perils of Perfectionism. Twelve modules, start free.
Not therapy, not a diagnosis, no promises of transformation - a structured way of seeing your own pattern clearly enough to do something about it.
Start Here and Module 1 are free and available now. The remaining 11 are £20 each, or £119 for the complete series while early access is open.
On this subject
What I have written about it.
- The cost of not knowingOf everything I measured for my MSc, the one that has been most useful to me since is intolerance of uncertainty. Partly because it explains so much, and partly because almost nobody I work with has ever heard the...
- Who actually decided that?There are three kinds of perfectionism in the research, and the one almost nobody talks about is the one I think does the most quiet damage to people in visible roles.
- It isn't the standards. It's the not knowing, and the being seen.Years ago now, for my MSc at Goldsmiths, I did a piece of research on perfectionism in working professionals. Not students, which is who most perfectionism research is done on, for the very good reason that students are...
- The perfectionist who is completely fineThere is a finding in my MSc research that I did not expect, and which I have found more useful in practice than any of the results I actually went looking for.
Beyond the workbook
If you want to go further.
For individuals, there’s private coaching. For organisations that want this taken to their teams, there’s the consultancy, or The Performance Club.