There's nothing wrong with having high standards. But when does chasing perfection start to damage your mental health and career? Thomas Curran joined host Brett Hendrie to talk about his new book The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough. They explore how to identify perfectionist tendencies, the danger in increased social pressure to be perfect, and how to break the habit.
There's nothing wrong with having high standards. But when does chasing perfection start to damage your mental health and career? Thomas Curran joined host Brett Hendrie to talk about his new book The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough. They explore how to identify perfectionist tendencies, the danger in increased social pressure to be perfect, and how to break the habit.
Brett Hendrie: We're all taught from a young age that good grades help you get far and that we should always be improving. But when does chasing perfection become dangerous? Famously, while shooting the film The Shining, director Stanley Kubrick had his lead actress Shelley Duvall film a single scene 127 times until she was exhausted and in tears. Duvall left dehydrated her voice hoarse, and she would later call the whole experience deeply traumatizing.
The film, however, is considered by many a cinematic masterpiece. Even Shelley Duvall went on to praise the movie. But could Kubrick have achieved the same success if he hadn't insisted on 127 takes. Would the film be worse if they had stopped at 34, 78 or even 100? Why do we need to chase perfection? Does it truly yield better results for us our work and society as a whole? Or is it time we embrace the power of good enough?
Welcome to Visiting Experts, a Rotman School podcast featuring backstage conversations on business and society with the influential scholars, thinkers and leaders featured in our acclaimed speaker series.
I'm your host Brett Hendrie. And I'm joined today by professor Thomas Curran to talk about his new book The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough.
His book is a comprehensive and critical look at why we pursue impossible standards and provides a playbook on how to find happiness in imperfection. Thomas is a professor of psychology at the London School of Economics and among the leading global experts in the study of perfectionism and mental health. He authored one of the first comprehensive studies to look at how different generations view perfectionism. And his TED talk on the topic has been viewed more than three million times.
Welcome to Rotman, and welcome to the podcast Thomas.
Thomas Curran: Thank you for having me. It's pleasure to be here.
BH: I'm so excited to talk to an expert on perfectionism. And I think about my circle of colleagues and work associates and friends, and I think of people that I might say, “Oh, that person is a perfectionist.” But maybe I'm using that term too casually. Can you help us understand, what is perfectionism?
TC: So perfectionism is – and this is a really important starting point for any conversation around perfectionism – a form of deficit thinking. It comes from a place of not feeling like we're enough, we don't have perfect enough life, we don't feel like we're in a good enough position, we're working hard enough, we're attractive enough or whatever it might be this important to us.
And that's the starting point for all the high standards and the over striving that we see on the surface. Now we can point to people that do those things, and we can say, “Oh, they're totally a perfectionist.” And they may be, they may not be. Because what matters is where that striving is coming from. Some people that you identify who have those excessive standards are perhaps conscientious, or maybe they're meticulous, very diligent. That comes from a very active optimistic place of wanting to improve wanting to learn. But perfectionism – the over striving, all of that effort that's bound up in trying to perfect ourselves – comes a place of lack. And that's the starting point that we need to pay attention to.
BH: So where's that line of division between having high standards and ambition, and being a perfectionist? When can you know that you've crossed over to a point that might be not great for your mental health, and you're setting the bar too high?
TC: I think one of the things that's really important to pay attention to is what happens when you actually do things well. W can look at what happens when things go wrong, and perfectionists really struggle in those moments. But when we do things well tells us a lot about whether we're perfectionist or not. And perfectionistic people, when they have succeeded, will kind of pass it off as happenstance or luck. They'll say, “Oh that's just the bar set myself.”
In other words, there won't be a great deal of satisfaction, I suppose savoring of that success. They'll always be thinking about the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing, because the better they do, the better they expect themselves to do. So, if you feel like that, in moments of success, you find it difficult to derive a lasting satisfaction, then that's quite indicative of perfectionistic mindset, which is telling you it's never enough, there's got to be more.
BH: It's a real catch 22. You set for yourself these high standards, and you're chasing them, but you're never satisfied. And the cycle just keeps repeating and repeating.
TC: Yeah, describe it in my book as success is a bit of a bottomless pit to the perfectionist. And it has a really nasty habit of turning our dreams, what we think are our dreams, it's nothing more than dead ends. I'm a perfectionist myself. And if I could go back to when I was 20, and, and tell myself that I'd be a professor at LSE, I would never in my wildest dreams of believe that would have been possible. But when you're actually there, then the next grant, then the next paper, you're always thinking about the next thing, and it's never quite enough to have this extremely high level of success. And I'm really working on that through the book, it's really helped me kind of come to terms and enjoy the success. But for the perfectionist, it's really difficult to do that because you're always thinking about what's next.
I think when most people conjure an image of perfectionism in their mind's eye, they think about the quintessential over strive, you know, the relentless workaholic. But actually, although that's part of perfectionism, it's not the only part of perfectionism. So those high self-set standards, “I need to be perfect and nothing but perfect, and I'm critical of myself, and I haven't met those standards,” that's very self-oriented perfectionism. But perfectionism doesn't just express in that way, people who have perfectionistic tendencies also tell us that there's a very pernicious social element too. So not only do I expect myself to be perfect, but I also believe that other people expect me to be perfect too. That’s socially prescribed perfectionism. And thirdly, perfectionism turned outwards onto other people. So “I expect you to be perfect. And if you're not perfect, I'm going to let you know. If you put in a substandard performance, I’m right there to tell you about it.” This is called other-oriented perfectionism.
So these are the three broad characteristics and perfectionism that capture a multi0dimensional perfectionism characteristic – self-oriented, socially prescribed and other-oriented.
BH: It's important for us to understand there's these diverse sources that are impacting perfectionism in people, whether it's themselves or the communities or the social structure that they're in or how they're relating with other people. You mentioned performance. And that was something I was really interested in your book to read about. Can you help us understand, what is the relationship between perfectionism and performance? It was counterintuitive to what I thought it would be.
TC: Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it, the research on this area. So we know that there's not really, theoretically, any link between those two. Socially oriented is constantly worrying about pleasing other people, what other people think, It's not necessarily conducive to high performance. Neither is demanding high performance of other people all the time, because that might get short term wins, but in the long run, our relationships are going to deteriorate, and we're going to find that disharmony in the workplace. It’s going to create a lot of problems. So those two haven't really been studied in the context performance itself oriented, you know, that high self-set drive, this is something we thought anyway, before we did the research that would have some links performance.
But what we see time and time again, in research study after research study is self-oriented perfectionism doesn't have any relationship with performance in the workplace. And so that's really interesting. And we think two things are happening. The first is a self-oriented perfectionist work really hard, but it's too hard. They push themselves into the zone [of] a decline in diminishing returns to any subsequent increase in their effort. They forego things like good sleep, exercise, time with family – essentially rejuvenating activities that mean we can come to work vitalized. And so they burn out. We see a lot of burnout among perfectionistic people.
The second reason is, I think even more interesting, and that's what happens when perfectionistic people encounter challenge. When you put people in the lab, so you give them a puzzle task or maybe an athletic activity, and you tell them that they failed, so they didn't meet a goal, what you're seeing people who are very highly perfectionistic,their shame increases, their guilt increases, they feel very low in terms of their self-esteem. And then when you tell them to do it again, that effort just completely drops off a cliff. Non-perfectionist people, by the way, don't do this, their shame and guilt spike little bit, pride sort of moves a little bit down, but it's not dramatic. And then on the next subsequent attempt, they'll just keep going. And it's that removal from challenge that self-sabotaging behavior, things like avoidance things like procrastination, which is very strongly correlated perfectionism, is what's going on here when it comes to perfectionism and performance because those things of course are in no way conducive to higher performance. So it's unsustainable work. And it's also self-sabotaging behavior, which I think is behind that non-existent relationship between self-oriented, perfectionism and performance.
BH: I found that relationship between procrastination and perfectionism really, really fascinating. And
I don't know if I consider myself a perfectionist or not, but something that I can identify with And I think a lot of people can that sometimes you put off the projects that you're scared about, or that you worry you might fail at. And that's a very natural tendency for people. If we have this data that positions perfectionism as something that doesn't necessarily lead to performance, how do we explain these big figures in our culture? And I'm thinking about people like Tiger Woods and Steve Jobs and people who have this aura of having perfectionistic standards and who have achieved the pinnacle of success in their fields. Are they operating despite the data and the direction from which we should understand the data?
TC: No, I don't think they are at all. I think that perfectionism is very much behind their success. However, I think we have to be really careful of extrapolating from those exceptional cases like Jobs, Woods, Serena Williams and others, that it's the perfectionism that got them. There are so many other factors behind that success: happenstance, luck being in the right place at the right time, growing up in the right socio-economic background. If you're an athlete, having the right genes that are able to give you the lung capacity, or the height, or the athletic strength to be able to compete at a very high level in the sports. So many factors.
And if you add perfectionism to the mix, then you might get a very, very high performer. But maybe if you don't have perfection to mix, you might get there as well. The point is that maybe it is perfectionism or maybe it isn't. But there are way more important factors behind those success stories. And actually, the data is clear. It's not perfection is going to carry us forward; it's going to be an impediment to success. And there are other ways to strive that on top of those other factors will get us to the top. Things are conscientious being diligent, working meticulously these things are amazing. They are important to higher performance - not perfectionist.
BH: Can you talk to us a little bit about where perfectionism is in society right now? That was something you touched on in your book that I found really fascinating, and you described it as an epidemic. So where do you see things right now in society? And what should we understand?
TC: So this is why I wrote the book. I mean, this is why I did the TED Talk. This is why my research is, I suppose, been brought to the consciousness of the general public. I did a big study a few years ago, tracking perfectionism across time, huge data. So, we've got about 45,000 young people, measured levels of perfectionism from ‘89, to the present day.
And we measure self-oriented, socially prescribed and other-oriented perfectionism. And what we see is other oriented and self-oriented is slightly ticking upwards, but it is what it is. It's socially prescribed perfectionism that's had a staggering rise in recent years, and it's on an exponential curve right now. Which means it's going to grow faster into the future and way faster than perhaps than we're ready for.
I think we have to be really aware of this. It’s why I call it an epidemic – and a brewing epidemic at that – hidden in plain sight. The ubiquity of these feelings. And these pressures are disguising the problems that create. And we know that socially prescribed perfectionism is the most extreme form perfectionism most strongly correlated with negative mental health outcomes. If there was any characteristic we didn't want to be rising like this, it was socially prescribed. But I think it's important for us to recognize that this is going on among young people, we have to understand what it is why it's happening, and as a society as a collective start to address the root causes.
BH: And what is the research or what are the best theories right now, in terms of what's driving those increases?
TC: Oh there so many factors that you can point. I mean, social media is the one I always get asked about. And clearly there is a link there.
Our data shows spikes in social prescribed, around 2007, which is when Apple released the iPhone, an interesting date for other reasons, too, but it's when Apple released the iPhone, social media platforms, almost overnight came into our lives 24/7. I don't think there's any doubt social media is driving some of this.
But there's also increased pressure out there in the broader economy. Economies have slowed quite dramatically since 2008. And that's created a lot of difficulty. In order to get more out of the system, we've had to kind of treat it as a bit of zero sum. So what's taken at the top is, is necessarily borne by young people in particular, through higher house prices for instance, more, college debt, having to put off or delay adulthood.
And they're finding it really tough right now. And this is not just in their material economic life, but also in schools and colleges, where now the college premium is really confined to an advanced degree. And therefore the competition to get into these elite institutions become really, really fierce. So schools have become highly pressurized, colleges have become highly pressures. Parents are seeing this pressure, and they're passing that down to their children. So, there's an aura here of expectation, an aura here of pressure, whichever is in social media, schools, colleges, in the workplace, for parents, is weighing on young people's perceptions, that the expectations that are put on them are excessive, and that they're struggling to deal with them and becoming a little bit overwhelmed. This is all circumstantial evidence. This isn't a causal analysis that we've done. But I think those are the main things we can point to.
BH: You talk a little bit more about parenting, and you talked about it in the book. And it was interesting if I interpreted correctly to read that. Of course, parents are a factor. But a bigger factor is just the social milieu and the socio-economic situation that they're in. Is that correct?
TC: Yeah, there was a very famous child development researcher, Judith Harris, who made a very controversial statement in the ‘90s, which is basically parents have no impact on the way young people turn out. It caused a bit of a storm because it goes against what we think about the importance of parenting. And what she was saying wasn't the parents don't matter. She was just saying they don’t matter in the way we think they matter. Parents, of course, pass their genes on to us. But beyond genes, the broader environment is what pushes on both the parental behaviors and young people's perfectionism. And what did Judith mean by that, she meant that the broader social context in terms of high expectation and high pressure – particularly for achievement, and work ethic being a very strong priority for American Canadian British parents, this is where the data has come from – has really started to weigh on young people's sense that they need to do more. They need to be exceptional. They need to excel all the time in order to get their parents approval, but also to get approval of society, to get into the best colleges, and therefore the best jobs, which is what you don't see in other countries, by the way. You don't see this so much in Scandinavia and mainland Europe, where parental behaviors tend to be less focused on work ethic and more focused on individuality and creativity, on young people pursuing their own interests. And so that tells us there are very heavy cultural impacts on not just the way young people interpret the social world, but also the way parents parent. And this is what we're seeing in the data. We're seeing parental expectations and data we've done increasing over time in lockstep with that, right and socially prescribed perfectionism. So again, it's a circumstantial correlation, but we think it's a pretty important one.
BH: The nature of perfectionism spreading with younger populations and the fact that it's growing is manifest I think, to all of us watching social media and other sources. It does seem though, and this is anecdotal, that there is a little pushback from millennials and Gen Z who don't want to be burned out at work. And there's even this phenomenon social media of that cohort talking about “acting your wage” and making sure that you're only exerting effort in relation to what your compensation is. Is that a cause for hope? Is that something you've picked up on and found interesting?
TC: I think there is definitely a counterculture that's that sprang up organically. I see it in young people recognizing that the economy isn't necessarily working for them in the way that perhaps it did for their parents. And there's many reasons for that. And some of that is true. And some of that is not true. But nevertheless, you can understand why young people feel the need to say, “Okay, well, if I'm being pushed hard, but I don't feel like I'm getting the rewards for that pushing and that working and that grinding, then maybe it's time for me to reconsider and think about other things that are more important in my life, about spending time with friends, family, communities, and all the rest of it.”
I mean, it's an eminently positive thing. But I think as a society, we need to meet them halfway in this. And if young people are telling us that the expectations they feel are very high, and that they're pushing back against them gently, then we need to look at data that suggests we can get more for less. If you've reduced the working week, for instance, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that you can get more productivity out, which is a staggering find them but it's so true. You look at AI is coming on board now. Huge productivity gains from AI.
Now, what do we do? Do we take these productivity gains, and we get people to work more? That's how we would grow the economy traditionally. But is it time for us to say “Actually, the size of the pie is really large. And perhaps you can use it productivity gains for AI to give people back more time in their communities, with the families or whatever it might be.” I.e. to use it to enhance human needs to build human and social progress, rather than just profit. All of these things I think, young people are thinking about, and they're reflected in some of these trends that you're seeing. And I think it's a very positive thing.
BH: You mentioned in the book, even some of the recent research, and we've had some here at the Rotman School as well around the productivity benefits around four-day workweeks. And that's certainly something that is very interesting, I think a lot of people should pay attention to. We talked about younger generations coming to some increased self-realization about their own mental health. And you said earlier in the conversation that you yourself, consider yourself a perfectionist and you share that quite openly in the book. Help us understand your journey and how you came to that realization and why was it a concern for you?
TC: I grew up in a working-class community never expected myself to be here. I carried a lot of anxiety about that throughout my working life and always felt like I wasn't enough. My motivation was driven from a place of scarcity, a place of lack, all the times felt like an impostor, like I didn't belong. That is catnip for perfectionism that's under the conditions of scarcity and lack, perfectionism thrives, and certainly it thrived in my case.
But towards the end of my 20s, I was burnt out. I was experienced considerable psychological difficulty, particularly panic and anxiety. And I basically broke down. I had to take six months off. It was something that created so much psychological difficulty. And really, that was the turning point.
For me, the reason why I want to do more work in this area, understand it better, was that I had to be better way to do this. I couldn't just be driven by scarcity all the time. I had to find some abundance in my life. And unfortunately, perfectionism, and even capitalism, to a certain extent, doesn't thrive under conditions of abundance. It needs scarcity, to keep us moving forward.
And what abundance essentially is is “enoughness,” of knowing that what we have in this moment is plenty is plenty being grateful for that, and just I suppose enjoying our successes, enjoying where we are trying to find the things in life that give us happiness and satisfaction and contentment. And that is really the turning point in my journey. And the people who I've spoken to have been able to turn the corner on perfectionism is being able to find and love those things that bring them joy, and not necessarily think that they've got to keep moving forward all the time.
There's a place for growth, like there is in the economy, like there is in our own lives. There's always a place for growth. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you know, burn the whole thing down. What I am saying is we also have to find in those moments of contentment, and the way we recognize that we are enough. And that's why I talk about in the book a lot about vulnerability and self-acceptance, because I think those things are so important when it comes to breaking free of perfectionism. So that's certainly been the case in my life. I've been doing taking a slightly different outlook on life and trying to work for purpose, meaning doing things that leave something in the world that make a difference. And that's like taking a sledgehammer to perfection.
BH: It definitely sounds like a very challenging process and journey that you went through, and it's very brave of you to share it so openly in your talks and, and in your books. And I think it's, it's valuable for people to hear that for people who have those feelings. What were some of the things that you did that helped you turn the corner and appreciate your achievements that you already had?
TC: Yeah, and by the way, I just want to preface before I go into this, it's really important to recognize that this isn't about dialing back expectations or not wanting to do remarkable things. This is about recognizing that when we have done things well, accepting that that is an amazing achievement and feeling that, even though yes, we can continue to grow, in this moment it’s enough.
And I think what's really important here is to recognize that vulnerability, and being able to accept that we're flawed and imperfect is an important first step in that direction. Bernie Brown talks about it a lot showing up. If you don't feel confident in something, just give it a go put your hand up to do a talk, if you don't feel like you're a very confident speaker and just go through the anxiety that that will instill and that will engender because it will. Put your hand up to do a report if you don't feel like you're very good at leading projects – whatever it might be.
Go through the anxiety, go through the discomfort, and at all times remain kind to yourself. Self-compassion, alongside vulnerability is crucial, because we're going to make mistakes, you're going to make setbacks, if we push ourselves into the world a little bit.
And then we're going to succumb to our perfectionism, because we always will. This isn't a linear path. And when we do succumb, we're going to employ even more self-compassion to make sure that we're brave enough to be vulnerable again, and so begins the cycle. But the more you get comfortable with that discomfort, the more your perfectionism starts to become less of an influence over you. And it's a long process, it's not easy, but that is really where it begins.
And finally – and this is really important – on top of vulnerability and self-compassion, radical acceptance is also crucial, because there's a societal piece too. Perfectionism is pushed on us by forces in the outside world, and some of those we can't control. And if we try to be perfect and push through everything, try to be the author of our own destiny or times, when we run into heartbreak, for instance, grief, or have a health scare, or whatever it might be, things that we have no control over, it can be really difficult for us because we feel like we just got to push through all the times when actually what we need to do is accept - radically accept - that there are limits to the things we can control. And that's okay. It's just part and parcel of living in an imperfect world. So vulnerability is really crucial. Self-compassion, really crucial. And radically accepting where we are and what we have is so, so crucial. And that doesn't preclude high performance. And that doesn't preclude success, none of those things mean that we're settling; it just means that we're able to live more contentedly and with a little bit more joy, knowing that we're imperfect.
BH: That's a great framework for helping us all, understand how we can treat ourselves with more compassion and be more accepting of what we can achieve. I'm curious what your advice is for leaders and managers who are supervising people who might have those perfectionistic tendencies and who might not be exercising the self-compassion that they need to. What's the role for leaders to develop their team in that context?
TC: Well, firstly, you got to lead by example. That's so crucial. And you've got to set up the working culture that provides a degree of psychological safety. Amy Edmondson has written very persuasively on this, and I think she would be the one to go to if you want to learn more about psychological safety. But in essence, what psychological safety is, is providing a culture where people know that it's okay to make mistakes, where it's okay to goof up, or it's okay to maybe put in a bad pitch or not get a contract or whatever it might be. These things are part and parcel of a working environment and that people know there's some kind of safety to show their vulnerability. And that's so important. Because if you don't have a culture of psychological safety, and people feel afraid to speak up and make mistakes, then it could be right up into the point where you're going to release some things where you recognize as a mistake, and that's going to cost you way more than if you were able to recognize that something was going wrong when it actually happened. So psychological safety is actually not just important on a psychological level for employees, it allows them to speak up, it allows them to feel like they're comfortable when they've made mistakes.
As leaders, we need to normalize that experience too. So, when we've made mistakes, we need to laugh about it, joke about it, tell our team about it. That's so important. We need to normalize mistakes, normalize failure. And that will allow people that we're working with to speak up when things have gone wrong. They know it's okay, that's a safe environment to do that we can put it right, we can move forward. So lead by example, and create a culture of psychological safety. Those are the probably the two most important things when it comes to perfectionism.
BH: Those are great insights and really help us understand how we can shape the workplace. And I know you grew up in England, so I don't know how familiar you are with Saturday Night Live. But they used to have a self-help character called Stuart Smalley played by Al Franken and he would look in the mirror and he'd say, “I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And doggonit people like me.” And it was played for laughs. But reading your book and listening to you now, I feel like there's some wisdom in that message.
TC: Yeah, I think there's definitely wisdom in that message. I was I was on a podcast the other day with Dan Harris. Dan Harris is an American journalist who's written a book called 10 per cent Happier. He’s a big fan of meditation and mindfulness, which I am too. And he was talking about how, you know, we should really accept that, sometimes we're just a bit fat, a bit lazy, a bit unproductive. And those things are just as important parts of our existence as other times when we're, you know, really fit and really working productively, and doing amazing things like. Our common humanity is so complex and nuanced. And are times we’re up, and there are times when we’re down. And we're exhaustible fallible creatures, and feeling like we're good enough is almost the hardest thing to do in this culture. And it's telling us that we have to focus on those areas in our lives where we are remarkable, and somehow hide and conceal those areas where we don't feel so good. That kind of denies an important part of our existence. Because it's all about the yin and the yang, the good and the and the not so good. And that's just part and parcel of our humanity. And so I'm totally on board and the message. I think we just need to recognize sometimes that we are enough, and that just living, existing is enough. The incomprehensible miracle of existence is enough, and anything beyond that is a bonus. So, I think that message is important. I think it's timely. And I think it's very particularly for young people, one that they should they need to hear.
BH: Well, it's a great message. And it's really as I said, brave of you to share your story and to give us so much to think about in terms of how we can improve our own mental health and set standards for ourselves and for our colleagues that are realistic and achievable. But also things that we can be proud of. and we can always strive, to do better, but without hurting ourselves in the process. Thank you, Thomas, for being here at Rotman and for being part of this conversation today.
Thomas, where can people find you?
TC: They can find me online. If you Googled Thomas Curran, The Perfection Trap, my website will come up, all my social media handles - LinkedIn and Twitter - will come up. If you're good enough to buy the book, please, listeners let me know I'd love to hear from readers whether they liked it or whether they didn't. It's all good to me. So do get in touch and I'd love to hear from you.
BH: Terrific. We will find you online.
This has been Rotman Visiting Experts, backstage discussions with world class thinkers and leaders from our acclaimed speaker series. Thomas Curran’s new book is The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough.
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