THE desire to be perfect is something most of us have felt at some point in our lives. Studying for the perfect test result, searching for the perfect partner, working through the night to smash that perfect presentation. Often, having high standards can drive success, but for some people, diligence and motivation can shift into perfectionism, a sorely misunderstood personality trait that can have dangerous consequences.
Perfectionism has increased significantly over the past three decades, a recent analysis shows. Young people in particular place higher demands on themselves and on others. Our dog-eat-dog world, full of impeccable images of what our bodies, careers and aspirations should look like, is creating a rising tide of millennials who may be putting themselves at risk of mental and physical illness in their search for the perfect life.
Advertisement
An epidemic of perfectionism poses a serious, even deadly problem, according to those researching the trend. That sounds alarming, but there are solutions. So how can we learn when good is good enough, reach our goals without burning out and teach our children how to avoid the oncoming storm?
“Perfection is hard to define,” says at the University of Bath, UK, who has been studying its rise. There is no fixed way of diagnosing it. However, many studies measure it using the , which was developed three decades ago. It consists of 45 statements – such as “I strive to be the best at everything I do”, “If I ask someone to do something, I expect it to be done flawlessly” and “People expect nothing less than perfection from me” – and people rate how much they agree with each of these on a scale of 1 to 7. If you very much identify with these kinds of statements, it is likely that you have perfectionist tendencies.
“I had to maintain that veneer of being perfect at all costs. Eventually I couldn’t even get out of the house”
Sarah Marshall-Maun
The scale also distinguishes between three different kinds of perfectionism. “Self-oriented” perfectionists set themselves high goals in their work and relationships. They can often experience anxiety from losing to a competitor, failing at a test or not getting a bonus at work. “Other-oriented” perfectionists hold those around them to exceptionally high standards. They are very critical and judgemental of others and risk social rejection and relationship problems. Finally, there are “socially prescribed” perfectionists, who feel immense pressure from others to be perfect, while also seeking their approval. “The impossibly high standards they set for themselves mean they often feel rejected or harshly scrutinised,” says Curran. “As a consequence, their self-esteem takes a hit on a daily basis. It’s a real battle involving lots of negative emotions, guilt and shame.”
Part of the difficulty in pinpointing perfectionism is that the line between having high standards and being a perfectionist is very blurred. “The difference between someone who sets high goals and a perfectionist comes at the time of success or failure,” says Andrew Hill at York St John University, UK. For instance, someone who is hard-working and diligent will appreciate any success, and will adapt their goals when they fail. They will be able to put in just enough effort for a strategic benefit. A perfectionist will take much less pleasure from success. Even a perfect score will be met with a sense of pressure that they need to keep up this level of success or that the goalposts need to be placed further away.
If the experts find perfectionism difficult to identify, it is also hard for many perfectionists. Take Jonathan Stern, a master’s student at Florida State University in Tallahassee, who competes in cross-country races at a national level. For him, the word perfectionist was something that people without high standards used to describe people with them, to denigrate them. “That’s the way I saw it for most of my life,” he says. Although he didn’t acknowledge them, his perfectionist tendencies drove him to run hundreds of miles a week and continually challenge his personal best. But he was still dissatisfied. “Even when I ran my fastest, it never felt like enough,” he says. Eventually, it led to severe burnout. “I got to the end of the line. I realised it was perfectionism that was weighing me down.”
A wider toll
It is impossible to put an exact figure on how many people experience perfectionism, says Hill. However, a published earlier this year leaves no doubt that perfectionist tendencies are on the rise. Curran and Hill analysed data from more than 41,000 US, Canadian and UK students who had completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale between 1989 and 2016. They discovered increases in all dimensions of perfectionism. The most dramatic, however, was in socially prescribed perfectionism: almost two-thirds of students who took the test in 2016 scored above the 1989 average. “It was really alarming because that’s the most harmful kind,” says Curran.
So what has caused this upward trend? does have a genetic aspect. When at La Fe University Hospital in Valencia, Spain, and her colleagues analysed the DNA of 258 pairs of twins they were able to calculate that genes accounted for between 11 and 56 per cent of the variability in perfectionism between people. The team also found that a person’s environment influences whether perfectionism emerges, and can push them towards expressing one type of perfectionism over another.
It is these environmental factors that have changed in recent decades. “There are new pressures today that young people have to negotiate that young people in the past were not exposed to,” says Curran. A generation ago, governments took more responsibility, he says. “Now students take on their own risk for success and failure. They have to pay for university, they have to take part in more standardised testing from a younger age and they have more competition for good schools and colleges,” he says. On top of these academic pressures, social media sites set unrealistic targets for young people in all other aspects of their life, says Curran. “If you throw a dodgy economy into the mix, then you have an unprecedented storm of pressure to reach unattainable targets.”
“On the outside you’re winning, but you’re giving yourself the hardest time on the inside. I always felt I could do better”
Jonathan Stern
Hill and Curran believe their research reveals a , with alarming implications for the mental health of young people. Perfectionism isn’t included in psychiatry’s diagnostic bible, the DSM-5, as a syndrome in its own right. But it has .
When at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, and her colleagues analysed 284 studies, which included more than 57,000 participants, they found that people with eating disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression had higher levels of perfectionism compared with people who didn’t have any of the conditions. Those with perfectionist tendencies were more likely to experience more than one condition at a time. .
Physical health may also be affected as a result of the stress that perfectionists subject themselves to, leading to an increased . Additionally, they because they experience higher levels of anger, depression and anxiety.
An epidemic of perfectionism among young people could be storing up trouble for the future. Martin Smith at York St John University and his colleagues have found that . It sounds counter-intuitive, but perfectionists become less conscientious, less diligent, less productive, increasingly neurotic and .
“Those who strive for perfection perceive a high frequency of failures and low frequency of successes. In turn, they become increasingly disengaged with their work and increasingly emotionally unstable,” says Smith. This helps explain why perfectionism is often associated with procrastination. “The slightest failure can be catastrophic to a perfectionist’s motivation for subsequent efforts,” says Curran. “So rather than opening themselves up to failure, they shut down and don’t try in the first place.”
Are there any benefits to having exacting standards? Admittedly, perfectionists tend to achieve academically or in their career. But it comes at a price. Even among elite athletes and professional dancers, perfectionism is a double-edged sword, according to research by at the Swedish School of Sport and 91ɫƬ Science in Stockholm. Through a series of questionnaires and in-depth interviews, she found that perfectionism boosts performance in the short run, but . “These dancers and athletes speak about the positive aspects of it, but there’s always a ‘but’. The elements of perfectionism that drive them to reach high standards always come at a cost,” she says.
That goes for all of us. Sarah Marshall-Maun, a teacher based in Devon, UK, has experienced the highs and lows of being a perfectionist. “I got promoted and promoted because I was so diligent and productive – perfect but quick. It meant I’ve had great opportunities,” she says. “In that sense it has some positives, but the negatives end up outweighing it all.” She was staying up until 1 am planning lessons two weeks in advance, then rising at 5 am so she would look immaculate for work. “I didn’t question whether it was normal to cry every morning because some small detail wasn’t right,” she says. Eventually a tricky class, a tricky parent and a tricky boss created the perfect storm for her perfectionism to spiral out of control. She was diagnosed with severe stress, generalised anxiety disorder and depression, and was unable even to walk to the local shop.
“My husband found me sitting on the floor at 5 am, crying, because I couldn’t find the perfect cardigan to wear”
Sarah Marshall-Maun
“We certainly shouldn’t be promoting perfectionism as a positive trait in an uncritical manner,” says Nordin-Bates. It isn’t even true that you need it to be an elite athlete, she says. Hill goes further: “People who say there are positive attributes to perfectionism are probably confusing it with diligence, conscientiousness and hard work.”
Fortunately, there are ways we can combat perfectionism. But first we need to recognise it, which can be difficult. By the very nature of this condition, it is extremely hard for a perfectionist to admit that there might be something wrong, says at Dalhousie University in Canada, who specialises in treating perfectionism. Acknowledging the problem is an excellent first step. “We usually see people at the end of the road, when they are in a bad way,” he says.
Depending on the extent of the problem, some people find that self-help books are enough. Others need professional help. This normally comes in the form of talking therapies or cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which give people tools to analyse why they are acting in certain ways and enable them to break out of negative patterns.
Good is good enough
In the future, therapists may be able to better focus their treatments for those whose perfectionism is linked with other mental health conditions, after research found that different conditions are . For example, self-criticism – “perfectionistic concerns” – is linked with OCD and anxiety, whereas “perfectionistic striving” is linked with eating disorders.
For Stern, the key has been to step outside his comfort zone. He pushes himself to do things when he knows the conditions aren’t perfect – from working out or writing an assignment when he is tired to saying hello to a stranger in a supermarket. Crucially, he acknowledges the effort he makes, rather than the outcome. “I now have a better understanding that it’s not about everything being perfect,” he says. “No action is too small. Good enough really is good enough.”
Marshall-Maun found that CBT helped. She now accepts that something doesn’t have to be perfect to be great. “But it has taken a lot of work, lots of self-reflection and antidepressants to get to this point,” she says. And she still has one big concern: “I’m always aware of how I might be unconsciously passing these tendencies on to my daughter.”
With perfectionism rising rapidly among young people, many parents will share Marshall-Maun’s desire to protect their children. “We’ve been working on the role parents play and it’s complex,” says Smith. “In terms of preventing it in your children, we know that parental practices have an important influence.” Extremely critical or demanding parents risk triggering perfectionism in their kids. “To avoid creating perfectionist tendencies, parents need to focus on loving their children in a more unconditional way, rather than focusing their love on specific successes,” says Sherry. They can also help young people cope with the pressures of modern life. “It’s incumbent on parents to coach their children on the potential hazards of social media. Teach them that it doesn’t offer realistic images of lives, that they are often lofty and fake,” he says.
“It’s a cliché, but we need to promote the idea of life-long learning as an attitude in our children – the sense that things are not over when one test has been done, one race has been won or lost,” says Nordin-Bates. All of us can benefit from this approach to life. “It’s not about being perfect,” she says. “If you want to be happy and healthy for 80-plus years then you have to focus on what you gained from an experience, rather than what grade you achieved.”
