Those who do not try do not succeed.

Those who do not err do not learn.

Obviously the following is advice for people who feel like something is wrong with them when there isn’t, so if anyone else reads this stuff please don’t universalise it. This is not to be interpreted as an endorsement for like, harassing behaviour or anything like that.

This is also going to be a scattershot of thoughts because I don’t have it in me to write a nice, coherent response that flows logically.

One thing to consider is that perfectionism is very often a fight-or-flight response. When your nervous system is telling you that it feels like a life-or-death situation then you’re going to have a singular focus on getting things perfect because it will feel like any small mistake is a catastrophe, because in a true life-or-death situation it really can be.

In these sorts of cases, as in certain other ones, there’s a paradoxical trap you can fall into by transposing this perfectionism onto being perfectionistic about not being a perfectionist - in this case you aren’t actually addressing perfectionism, you’re just adding another layer of perfectionism to the situation. The risk is that if you try to “do better” at not being a perfectionist then you can basically aggravate the underlying perfectionism while expanding it to a new dimension.

In cases where perfectionism is a product of a fight-or-flight response, it’s better to try and address the underlying anxiety and dysregulation in the nervous system than it is to try and adjust your attitude or your behaviour.

If your perfectionism doesn’t come from that place then I would encourage you to engage in a practice of conscious observation without engaging in judgment. If you’re well supported and you feel up to the challenge, learning a new skill is a very good crash course in the antidote to perfectionism. If you can hold the space for yourself and you can find ways to enjoy the learning process then you can parlay that into personal growth by reflecting on things like why you enjoy, say, learning the guitar even though you’re far from a virtuoso and you can only play a few simple songs - perhaps you value the activity more than you value perfection? Perhaps, in the context of learning guitar, your perfectionism has taken a backseat either by conscious effort or by your attitude towards playing guitar and that this has allowed you to enjoy your experience more. Perhaps by not being perfectionistic you are more inclined to play, more inclined to enjoy it, and more inclined to improve? And you might reflect upon the implications this has for other areas in your life.

Or you could observe your reactions to other people who are learning. Kids especially tend to embrace failures and imperfections better than adults, although not always. If your perfectionism doesn’t manifest when observing others who are far from perfect then it’s worth reflecting on why you hold yourself to a different standard and exploring what exists beneath that. It might be a useful exercise in perspective to consider how a close friend or loved one would consider your recent performance - would they agree with your perfectionistic assessment of yourself? If you got a committee of the people closest to you to assess your recent performance, would they judge you the same way that you judge yourself? If not, what makes you certain that your assessment is the most accurate one? etc. etc.

You might find that you benefit from making a habit of giving yourself permission to be imperfect. One example of that is what I’ve done at the top of this comment - I stated that this advice isn’t going to be perfectly suited to all situations and I gave myself permission not to do my best ever work because today I’m not at my best and so I’m going to do a good enough job given that I’m operating under far from perfect conditions currently. If you do this routinely it you might find that it curtails your perfectionism because you are basically giving yourself a verbal reminder that it’s okay to not be perfect.

As a little story to illustrate this, my doctor pulled me up on something a while back and I think they completely misunderstood me. They asked me to recall specific dates. I did my best but I admitted that I’m terrible when it comes to dates. I wasn’t berating myself and it didn’t come from a place of shame or self-reproach.

I am honestly just terrible with dates.

I was making space for myself and engaging in what I see as radical acceptance. I was essentially saying that I’m not going to be reliable in recalling dates and that it’s a case of like it or lump it; I was communicating that I was going to do this, I was going to do this badly, ans that’s just how it’s going to be.

You might also try working on this on an intellectual level as well. Spending some time hashing this stuff out with yourself and really reflecting on the paradoxical nature of perfectionism, on asking yourself whether your priorities are things like learning and growing or about doing things perfectly, what is required to achieve excellence, things about standards (e.g. who is setting the expectations, how perfection is even defined - is it actually a positive definition or is it something that you define through the absence of imperfects and what implications this has etc.), whether the people who you admire the most are the people who do one thing perfectly or whether they did a lot of good and made some mistakes, stuff about who is keeping score, and stuff on the theme of not letting perfect become the enemy of good, and so on.

You might also spend time observing the gaps in your perfectionism and using that to develop a deeper understanding of it and, hopefully, to exert more agency over how you apply your perfectionism. For example, when you make breakfast do you attempt to toast your bread to the heights of perfection? Do you actively strive to achieve the perfect ratio of milk to cereal? Does that feel absurd and unimportant to try to be perfect in this regard? What about tying your shoelaces? Etc.

If you can learn to embrace the areas of your life where you are not perfectionistic and where you have set your own priorities that supercede a drive for perfectionism, such as just having some food to eat or getting to work on time rather than having the perfectly tied shoes, then maybe you can gently expand this into other areas of your life gradually.

I just want to put a caveat on all of this advice because it depends on the severity of your perfectionism and if you’re really, really struggling with it then it would be important to work through this with a therapist because having an outsider to provide guidance and to help you with blind spots will be critical. And I wouldn’t recommend engaging in a lot of these things if you feel that there’s a significant risk that your perfectionism will dominate the practice - if you’re examining areas of your life where you aren’t perfectionistic there is a risk that you can run away with yourself and start to impose perfectionism on how you make your toast in the morning and this can have serious consequences if you end up aggravating the underlying perfectionism. So if you feel as though you’re at that place then don’t go diving headlong into this stuff but seek professional support instead because that’s veering into the realms of compulsivity which is not really something that you can just ✨fix✨ using some simple exercises or thinking your way out of.