When "Good Enough" Isn't Good Enough: How Perfectionism Feeds Burnout

In this episode, we tackle the paradox of perfectionism and the value of "good enough." 

Discover how the relentless pursuit of flawlessness may be the root cause of your exhaustion, anxiety, and burnout. Learn about the origins of perfectionist tendencies, how they play out in adulthood, and the ways they drain your energy and time. More importantly, find out how to shift your mindset without feeling like you're lowering your standards. 

From understanding contingent self-worth to embracing a more flexible and adaptable approach, this episode will help you break free from the perfectionism trap and start truly living.

00:00 Introduction to Perfectionism
01:39 The Roots of Perfectionism
03:52 Perfectionism in Adulthood
04:57 The Consequences of Perfectionism
05:34 Perfectionism and Control
08:06 The Cost of Perfectionism
08:50 Wasting Time and Missing Opportunities
12:00 Breaking Free from Perfectionism
15:24 Building Tolerance for Imperfection
18:56 Choosing Freedom Over Perfection
 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Perfectionism
• 2:25 The Roots of Perfectionism
• 4:38 Perfectionism in Adulthood
• 5:43 The Consequences of Perfectionism
• 6:20 Perfectionism and Control
• 8:52 The Cost of Perfectionism
• 9:36 Wasting Time and Missing Opportunities
• 12:46 Breaking Free from Perfectionism
• 16:10 Building Tolerance for Imperfection
• 19:42 Choosing Freedom Over Perfection

Transcript

[00:00:00] Alright friend, you knew this episode was coming. If you're anything like me, and my guess is you probably are, or you wouldn't be here, you have a complicated relationship with the idea of good enough. The phrase itself, it probably makes your eye twitch a little, because good enough sounds like settling.

And it sounds like slacking off. It sounds like an excuse for people who don't care as much as you do. At least that's what you've always told yourself. But the irony is that good enough is actually the thing that's going to save you from completely wrecking yourself. In fact, perfectionism, the thing that's probably driven most of your success up to this point, let's be is the very thing that's likely making you feel exhausted.

anxious, and like you're never really doing enough. Yet perfectionism isn't a high achiever flex like we think it is. It's actually a slow energy draining [00:01:00] burnout inducing spiral, and I'm not just making that up. There's a massive body of research showing that perfectionism is directly linked to higher rates of burnout, stress, anxiety, and even depression.

So today we are breaking it down. We're talking about how perfectionism is sabotaging you, why your brain keeps convincing you that working harder is the answer, and most importantly, we're going to talk about how you can start shifting out of it without feeling like you're completely lowering your standards.

Because I know that's your biggest fear. Because it's mine too. So I've got you, don't worry. So first I want to talk about where this perfectionism comes from. The thing is, you weren't born a perfectionist. You didn't pop out of the womb worried about whether your swaddle was neatly folded, or if your baby babble was grammatically correct.

Perfectionism is learned. It's something that at some point your [00:02:00] brain decided it was necessary for survival. And that's why it's so damn hard to let go. Because perfectionism isn't just a personality treat. It's a coping mechanism. Somewhere along the way, you picked up the message that being perfect, doing things flawlessly, working harder than everyone else, making zero mistakes was the key to being safe.

Safe from criticism, safe from rejection, safe from feeling like you weren't good enough. For a lot of us, perfectionism starts in childhood. Maybe you were the kid who got praised for getting straight A's. And then over time you started believing that your worth was tied to your achievement. Every time you aced a test, your parents beamed, your teachers called you gifted.

Your identity became the smart one. And when that happens, you start to think that [00:03:00] mistakes aren't just mistakes, they are failures of character. Or maybe you had parents who set the bar so high that you were always chasing approval. Why did you get a 95 instead of 100? Why aren't you taking a harder class?

Why did you come in second place? So you learned that good enough wasn't actually good enough. Or maybe your household was completely unpredictable. Maybe love, attention, or even just basic acknowledgement felt conditional, like you had to earn it. If you performed well, if you did everything right, then you got the validation that you craved.

But if you fell short, the warmth disappeared. Maybe it was replaced with disappointment. Maybe with anger. Maybe with silence. Your young brain made a note. Being perfect keeps me safe. Fast forward now to adulthood and suddenly that same pattern plays out in your career. You're the one who can always be counted on to go the extra mile, [00:04:00] to make things flawless, to over prepare, over deliver, and probably over think every tiny detail.

And you tell yourself it's because you care. You take pride in your work. You have high standards. But really, it's because you don't feel safe not being perfect. Psychologists actually have a name for this. It's called contingent self worth. It's when your entire sense of value is tied to external achievements.

Your job title, your productivity, your salary, how well you perform, you get the idea. And here's the problem with that. When your self worth is built on what you do instead of who you are, there's never a finish line. Because no matter what you accomplish, there's always something else. The bar just keeps moving higher.

And that's exactly what fuels burnout. Studies show that people with high levels of [00:05:00] perfectionism experience higher rates of chronic stress, anxiety, and exhaustion. In fact, a meta analysis published in Personality and Social Psychology Review looked at 43 studies and found that perfectionists are significantly more likely to develop burnout, especially in high pressure environments like corporate leadership, medicine, and academia.

Why? Because they're constantly working not to succeed but to avoid failure. And that's an exhausting way to live. But here's where it gets even deeper.

At its core, perfectionism isn't actually about perfection. It's about control. I mean, think about it. When you're obsessed with making things perfect, what you're really doing is trying to control how other people see you. If your work is flawless, no one can criticize you. If you never make mistakes, no one will think you're incompetent.

And if you do [00:06:00] everything right, no one will be disappointed in you. And what's underneath all of that? Anxiety. Psychologists have found that perfectionism and anxiety are highly correlated. When you feel like your worth is on the line, every task becomes a test. Every decision carries extra weight, and over time, that level of pressure literally fries your nervous system.

This is why perfectionists struggle with chronic stress, because your brain never gets a break from the pressure. They struggle with decision fatigue because every choice feels like life or death. You're literally in fight or flight pretty much non stop. They also struggle with procrastination because if they can't do it perfectly, why start?

And, you know, while we're all here, this is why they struggle with burnout. Because no matter how much you do, it never feels like enough. Once again, you're chasing something that you just can't reach. Hell, even when perfectionists [00:07:00] succeed, they don't feel relief. Instead, they just think, well, that was lucky.

Next time, I need to try even harder. So the goalpost moves again. The pressure stays. The burnout worsens. Now, you'd think that once you realize perfectionism is running you into the ground, you'd just stop. But nope, that's not how it works.

Because perfectionism doesn't just feel necessary. As I mentioned earlier, it feels like a part of your identity. It's how you prove yourself. It's how you keep yourself safe. It's how you've built your entire career, your reputation, your self image. So that idea of letting go feels like losing control.

And that's terrifying. So even when perfectionism is burning you out to a crisp, it's making you anxious, it's literally ruining your ability to actually enjoy life, you still hold on to it. Because the alternative, learning to [00:08:00] be okay with being good enough, Feels deeply uncomfortable. But the thing about perfectionism is that it makes you miss out on things because while you're obsessing over details, you're overworking yourself or hesitating to take any kind of action because something just isn't right.

Life is moving on without you. And I don't say that dramatically. I say it because I've lived it. I've been the person who stayed up late tweaking a presentation that was already fine while my friends were out making memories. I've been the person who didn't hit publish on something because I thought it needed one more edit, only to see someone else put out something similar and get traction on it.

Perfectionism steals time and it steals opportunities. And if you don't start recognizing that, it's gonna keep robbing you blind. So let's talk about time first, because if there's one thing perfectionists are good at, it's wasting an absurd amount of time on things that don't actually matter. [00:09:00] I mean, how many times have you rewritten an email five times before sending it just to make sure it sounded professional enough?

Or maybe you've spent hours tweaking a project that was already finished because you were convinced that there was one more thing you could improve. Or maybe you held off on sharing something like an idea, a pitch, a post, because it just wasn't perfect yet, and then you never actually shared it. Now multiply that by every workday, every month, every year.

How many hours, hell, how many years have you lost to this? And the problem is that most of that extra effort isn't actually making your work better. Studies show that after a certain point, all that extra tweaking doesn't improve quality. It just increases stress and exhaustion. So while you're over here burning yourself out, the person next to you, the one who's okay with good enough, is getting ahead faster than you because they actually finish things.

That one stings a little, doesn't it? [00:10:00] Now let's talk about opportunity cost. How many things have you not done because you were waiting for the perfect time? The perfect version, the perfect circumstances. Think about that job you didn't apply for because you didn't meet 100 percent of the qualifications or that business idea you never pursued because you weren't an expert yet.

Or maybe it's as simple as that post you didn't share because you weren't sure it was polished enough. Meanwhile, someone with half your talent and a fraction of your effort tolerance is out there taking those opportunities because they were willing to be imperfect in public. And guess what? In a sense, they're winning.

Because the world doesn't reward perfection, it rewards consistency, courage, and action. And if you're waiting until you feel ready, qualified, or certain, I hate to break it to you, but you'll be waiting forever. You are. But the biggest thing perfectionism [00:11:00] is stealing from you is your actual life. Because if you can't ever rest, if you can't ever slow down, if you can't ever let yourself just be without feeling guilty about what you should be doing instead, you're not living.

You're just working. And I need you to really hear me when I say this. You don't get a second round at this. You don't get to go back and experience your life again without the anxiety, the stress, and the overthinking. And if you keep waiting until you deserve to rest, until things are perfect, until you feel caught up, you're gonna look back and realize that you spent your best years waiting for a finish line that never came.

So I want you to ask yourself, is perfectionism really worth all of this? Because at some point, you have to decide, do you want to be perfect or do you want to be [00:12:00] free? Okay, so now you know perfectionism isn't serving you, but knowing that doesn't make it just disappear. In fact, recognizing its grip can actually make it feel even stronger because now you're aware of it, but you still don't know what to do with it.

And here's the thing, perfectionism isn't just a behavior. It is a system. It dictates how you approach work, relationships, decision making, and even rest. Breaking away from perfectionism doesn't just happen when you tell yourself to stop being a perfectionist, you have to replace the system. And that's what we're going to do now.

is rigid. It demands control. It needs things to go exactly as planned and exactly how you pictured it. But we all know life is unpredictable. Workplaces shift. Even within the same workplace, your environment can change pretty regularly. [00:13:00] Expectations change. People react in ways you don't anticipate because we can't predict what other people do.

The mistake perfectionists make is clinging even harder. When things start feeling uncertain. Doubling down on control, over preparing, and reworking things to death, essentially. But the most effective successful people, they're responsive, not rigid. They don't waste energy forcing something to be flawless.

They pay attention. They adapt. They make things work with what they have in real time. So the next time a project takes a left turn, instead of stressing over what should have happened, ask, what's the smartest next move based on what's actually happening? And if you catch yourself obsessing over details, ask yourself, is this making a meaningful difference or am I just trying to feel in control?

The more flexible and adaptable you [00:14:00] become, the faster and more effectively you can move. And in a world that rewards execution over perfection, that's where the real power is.

Another thing is that most perfectionists are addicted to finishing things perfectly, but they struggle with starting things imperfectly. They wait, they plan, they prepare. They hesitate because if something isn't ready, if they don't feel fully equipped, they hold off. And that is how years slip by. The job change that never happens, the business idea that never launches, that creative project that just stays in your brain or in your drafts forever.

Perfectionism convinces you that waiting will make things better. But in reality, the longer you wait, the harder it gets to start. So instead of asking, is this perfect? Or am I ready? Ask, is this in motion? Or what can I do to make this in [00:15:00] motion? Instead of aiming for the best possible version, aim for the next possible step.

Momentum here is your best weapon against perfectionism because once you're moving, your brain just cannot fixate on what's missing and it just starts focusing on what's next. So you get out of that perfectionism cycle.

Now I want to recognize the discomfort that comes along with good enough. Perfectionists assume that letting go of perfection will feel good, that they'll finally feel free. But honestly, at first, it feels terrible. Letting something be good enough when you know that you can make it better, that's like an itch you can't scratch. Your brain screams at you to go back and fix it. Your body tenses up naturally, like you're making a mistake and your mind starts spiraling into those, like, what if this isn't enough kind of thoughts?[00:16:00] 

This discomfort is what keeps perfectionism in place because every time you almost let go, you panic and then you tighten your grip again. But you can build tolerance for imperfection, like it's a muscle. Maybe just start by sending an email without over editing, or maybe leaving a slide deck slightly less polished than your usual habit.

When you do this, then you have to recognize when you feel the urge to fix it, but don't actually act on it.

Then look at the outcome. Did anyone care? Was there actually a real consequence or did it not actually matter? The more you practice, the less painful it gets. Eventually you stop feeling like you're failing every time you don't overdo it. And that's when you start getting your life back.

Lastly, stop performing and start engaging. Perfectionists don't just want things to be flawless. They [00:17:00] want to be perceived as flawless. And that's where the real exhaustion comes from. It's not just the pressure to do things well, but the pressure to always appear in control, competent, and honestly, to like, seem impressive.

Now, logically, you probably know that perfection isn't actually what makes people respect or connect with you. Yet, you may think people admire you because you're polished, or you think they trust you because you never make mistakes, or you think you'll be taken seriously 100 percent of all the time. Now, the reality is that people connect with you more when you're real. They trust you more when you admit mistakes. And they respect you more when you show them how you handle imperfection.

The next time you feel the need to perform perfection, test this instead. If you're struggling with something, say so. See what happens. If you don't know the [00:18:00] answer, the best thing you can do is admit it. Notice how much respect you gain, not lose when you do so. And if you make a mistake, Please own it quickly.

Watch how it strengthens, not weakens, your credibility and your relationships and builds trust with the folks that you're working with. If nothing else, remember this. You will never reach the day where you feel fully caught up, fully accomplished, fully enough. We've already talked about it. That goalpost will always move.

There will always be another standard to chase. There will always be someone who's doing more, better, faster. And if you keep waiting to feel done, you're going to be waiting for the rest of your life. But the moment you decide to step off that treadmill, everything shifts. You don't actually perfectionism.[00:19:00] 

You just have to stop feeding it. The less you engage with it, the less you let it dictate your choices, your worth, and your actions, the weaker it becomes. And eventually, it collapses under its own weight. Not because you conquered it necessarily, but because you stopped needing it. At some point, you have to decide what kind of life you actually want to live.

One where you spend every day proving yourself to a finish line that doesn't exist, or one where you get to show up, do the work that matters to you, and actually live your damn life without the weight of perfectionism on your back. You don't need another pep talk. You don't need more proof that perfectionism is wrecking you at this point.

You already know. So now the only thing left is this. Do you want to keep perfecting or do you want to start living? Because the version of you who is still waiting. Still tweaking, still hesitating, still trying to earn the right to just be, will spend their entire life [00:20:00] waiting. And the version of you who chooses to stop waiting, that's the person who finally gets to be free.