What If Your Perfectionism Isn’t Excellence, but Protection?
A client once told me she had rewritten the same email five times and still hadn’t sent it. It wasn’t high-stakes. No legal risk. Her reputation wasn’t on the line. It was just a thoughtful note she wanted to get “right.”
Another client, a senior leader with an impressive background, confessed he often stayed up past midnight polishing presentations that were already more than solid. “If I stop,” he said, “I feel this panic. Like something bad will happen.”
I know that feeling. I’ve lived with perfectionism too.
I edited my book for years before submitting it for publication. Some of that was care, craft, and learning what the book wanted to be. And some of it was fear masquerading as excellence.
Eventually, I recognized it for what it was.
So I stepped away from the book entirely. For a long time. I saw that I needed to loosen the connection between the work and my worth, the manuscript and my identity.
The pause wasn’t avoidance. It was self-care.
Neither my clients nor I lacked competence. Or commitment. Or intelligence.
What we were dealing with was perfectionism.
What Perfectionism Really Is
Perfectionism is often misunderstood as ambition, discipline, or “having high standards.” But psychologically speaking, it’s more accurately described as a protection strategy. An attempt to manage threat. Not physical threat, but emotional and relational threat:
If I make a mistake, I might be exposed.
If I disappoint, I might lose approval.
If I’m not exceptional, I might not belong.
For many high achievers, perfectionism didn’t begin as a flaw. It began as a solution. A way of protecting yourself.
Where Perfectionism Comes From
Research consistently links the more painful forms of perfectionism to early environments where approval felt conditional. This doesn’t always mean obvious trauma (although it very much can stem from there). Often it’s subtler:
Praise and attention flowed when you performed
Mistakes were met with criticism, comparison, or disappointment
Being capable, impressive, sparkly, or “together” was rewarded
Emotional needs were met indirectly, through achievement rather than attunement
Over time, the nervous system learns a powerful association: doing well equals safety.
That association can fuel remarkable success. No telling how many successful movie stars, business leaders, and creatives were born from this dynamic. Problem is: it can also quietly wire self-worth to performance without you even realizing it.
Looking back, I can see how much of my own over-editing came from that place. Not necessarily a lack of confidence in my writing (although there was that at times!), but a subtle belief that if I just refined it enough, I could control how it would be received.
The client who rewrote the email wasn’t afraid of the email. She was afraid of what it might say about her if it wasn’t perfect.
The Perfectionism Loop (and “The Overs”)
Perfectionism tends to operate in a predictable cycle:
An internal rule or belief forms: “My worth depends on getting this right.”
Anxiety rises.
You overwork, over-prepare, over-edit… or procrastinate and avoid.
Temporary relief arrives (“At least I didn’t fail”).
The rule tightens its grip and reinforces itself.
Neuropsychologist Julia DiGangi has a name for these behaviors. She calls them “the overs”:
Overworking.
Overachieving.
Overthinking.
Overexplaining.
Overgiving.
Overcommitting.
Overaccommodating.
Sound familiar?
Each of these perfectionistic behaviors creates a false sense of safety. They’re coping strategies disguised as competence. Ways we try to control uncertainty and earn belonging in systems that reward burnout more than balance. So what looks like motivation is really fear in a productive costume.
This is why perfectionism so often coexists with burnout, anxiety, procrastination, and chronic dissatisfaction. Not because people care too much, but because their sense of worth is on the line.
Why “Just Lower Your Standards” Doesn’t Work
Again, the issue isn’t having high standards. It’s the equation between standards and self-worth.
When your value depends on outcomes, every task gets tied to who you are. This means: no amount of success ever fully resolves that tension. It’s a hamster wheel to nowhere.
I didn’t need to care less about my book. I needed my nervous systems to know that nothing bad would happen if I stopped. Or, even if my worst fears of rejection came true (highly unlikely), I could simply know that there’s no such thing as mistakes here at Earth School, only learning.
What Actually Helps Loosen Perfectionism
Effective work with perfectionism doesn’t aim to get rid it. It helps people change their relationship to it. A few principles that can make a difference:
1. Separate performance from identity
Begin distinguishing “how this went” from “what this means about me.” Mistakes become information and growth opportunities, not evidence of inadequacy.
2. Run small ‘good-enough’ experiments
Send the draft. Deliver at 80%. Leave a typo in a low-stakes email. Not as recklessness, but as a way to test fear-based predictions against reality.
3. Work directly with the inner critic
Perfectionism is often powered by relentless self-criticism. Replacing that voice with something more coaching-oriented and factual changes the entire system. Such as:
Self-critical voice: “You should be further along by now. What’s wrong with you?”
Coaching-oriented voice: “Progress isn’t linear. What’s the most useful next step from here?” or “Nothing bad is happening right now. I’m allowed to pause.”
A coaching voice doesn’t ask, “Is this perfect?” It asks, “What’s useful now?”
4. Include the nervous system
Perfectionism isn’t just cognitive. It’s physiological. Learning to tolerate the discomfort of “not perfect” teaches the body that it’s still safe. The body only learns safety through lived experience—sending the email, resting anyway, letting the discomfort rise and fall—and discovering that nothing collapses.
A Reframe Worth Sitting With
What if perfectionism isn’t evidence that you’re too demanding, have unrealistically high standards, or are too much? What if it’s evidence that, at some point, you were taught that being yourself, exactly as you are, wasn’t sufficient?
Seen this way, perfectionism doesn’t need to be shamed or eliminated. It needs to be understood, honored for the role it once played in protecting you (and earning love), and gently let go.
Excellence can stay.
But it no longer needs to be tied to your sense of self worth.
