Perfectionism: Part I

Perfectionism was the subject of a thoughtful conversation I had a few years ago when I interviewed Dr. Liza Wäcker for my podcast, and it is a topic that has stuck with me ever since. It is one of those issues that can look admirable from the outside, often wearing the mask of ambition, discipline, and high standards. It can even win praise. But underneath all that polish, perfectionism is usually a much less glamorous experience. It can make ordinary tasks feel loaded, turn small mistakes into personal failures, and leave people feeling like nothing they do is ever quite enough.

That distinction matters. Healthy striving pushes us forward. It helps us work hard, improve, and take pride in effort. Perfectionism, by contrast, tends to move the goalposts. You meet the standard, and instead of satisfaction, you feel relief for about ten seconds before deciding the standard was not impressive enough anyway. Or worse, you never begin at all, because if you cannot do it perfectly, why try? That is one of perfectionism’s cruelest tricks: it masquerades as productivity while often feeding procrastination, self-doubt, and paralysis.

Perfectionism also has a way of draining the joy out of life’s more human moments. Hosting friends for dinner becomes a performance. Writing an email becomes an editing marathon. Creative work becomes a struggle to avoid imperfection rather than an opportunity to express something real. Even relationships can suffer when people become more focused on appearing competent, composed, or endlessly capable than on actually connecting. Ironically, what often makes people warm, likable, and relatable is not perfection at all, but their humanity. A little messiness is not a moral failure. It is part of being a person.

For many people, perfectionism is tied to deeper emotional themes: fear of judgment, fear of failure, fear of not being enough. It can grow out of family expectations, criticism, pressure to achieve, or the sense that love and approval had to be earned. And of course, modern life does not exactly calm this down. Social media gives people an endless stream of polished images and curated success stories, making it easy to compare their behind-the-scenes reality to everyone else’s highlight reel. That is a losing game every time.

The good news is that perfectionism does not have to be fought in such a harsh, all-or-nothing way. It usually helps more to soften it than to declare war on it. That means noticing the perfectionistic voice when it shows up, questioning its assumptions, and practicing a little more self-compassion when life does not go according to plan. It may mean sending the email without reading it twelve times, trying something new without needing to excel immediately, or letting the cookies come out slightly burnt and enjoying the process anyway. None of that is laziness. It is flexibility, and flexibility is often far healthier than relentless self-pressure.

I will be revisiting this subject soon in a new podcast episode, essentially perfectionism part two. It is a topic worth returning to, because learning to loosen perfectionism’s grip does not mean lowering your standards. It means making room for excellence, effort, humor, connection, and the occasional imperfect moment that turns out to be just fine.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Welcome to MindTricks Radio, where we’ll explore contemporary topics in psychology through interviewing creative and innovative thinkers in the field. I’m your host, Dr. Aaron Kaplan. Thanks for tuning in. We’re here today with Dr. Lisa Walker, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Honolulu. For the past 20 years, she’s helped women in all stages of recovery from disordered eating, as well as guiding high-achieving women struggling with anxiety, stress, and burnout. She’s passionate about helping her clients create more calm, balance, and connection in their lives. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Thanks, Aaron. I’m happy to be here.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So, you’re here to talk with us today about this topic of perfectionism, and I’m really excited to hear about that. I know that you work with that quite a bit in your practice. But first off, I’d like to hear a little bit more about you personally and professionally, what brought you into this field, and maybe what got you interested in this topic of perfectionism.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Actually, my entrance into the field of psychology is the tale of two careers. I started off as an elementary school teacher, which had always been what I wanted to do.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: I didn’t know that.

Dr. Lisa Walker: From the time I was little, when I’d line up my dolls and my stuffed animals and do the two plus two on my little blackboard, that had been the dream. So I had gone to school and earned a degree in elementary education, and at 21, I’m standing in front of a class of students and just really living the dream, doing exactly what I had wanted to do.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Was that in Hawaii?

Dr. Lisa Walker: It was. Yep, I had come back from college and started teaching here. And I was really excited to finally be doing what I had always wanted to do. And then as I was getting close to the end of my first year teaching, it started not to feel like the best fit, like there was something that was missing there. And I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I thought, well, if I just work harder, I can make this work.

And then we go into the second year teaching, and it’s still feeling like it’s not quite the best fit. And I started working with some mentor teachers and doing a whole lot of introspection and wondering, what’s missing here? And it turned out that I was really doing my best work when I was seeing students individually or in small groups. I liked doing the deep dive, working more intensely on something with the kids. And also that I was pretty curious about why certain kids were learning things quickly and other kids were struggling. What made the success possible? Where was the struggle happening, and why was it happening academically? But also, what else was going on with them?

And so my curiosity was really met when I was working with them individually and in small groups. So I decided that maybe teaching wasn’t going to be what I wanted to do forever.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Yeah. And so when you do clinical work, that’s the perfect opportunity to do that deep dive with people on a one-on-one basis.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yeah. And it might have been just because I was an early career teacher that maybe I would have been able to achieve those things had I stayed in the profession longer. I was only a teacher for a few years. But that wanting to do that in-depth work, and also my curiosity, was really more met with psychology. So back to graduate school I went.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: You know, I had sort of a similar story in that I was probably going to become a researcher, and I decided, like, I don’t know if I want to spend all this time crunching numbers. And even if the results of the data could be helpful on a larger scale, I really like the one-on-one interaction with people, so I can kind of relate to that.

Dr. Lisa Walker: More you can do than a class of 25.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Sure.

Dr. Lisa Walker: So I went to graduate school, and in school I had the opportunity to co-facilitate groups for women, and then specifically some groups for women who were in recovery from disordered eating. And that’s where I got really interested in psychology, and specifically in that area, and I decided that was going to be my focus. There was just something about the vulnerability and the strength that the women were bringing to group, and what I was seeing happening in that group, that was really energizing. So that became the focus the remainder of my graduate degree, my postdoc, and my dissertation. And then a lot of who I saw in the early parts of my private practice were women in recovery.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: A lot of eating disorder kind of work earlier on in your career.

Dr. Lisa Walker: A lot of it. And themes kept popping up. There were common threads that were happening, and one of them was definitely perfectionism. So I found myself talking about it a lot. And then as my private practice has gone on, sometimes seeing perfectionism as the presenting issue for people who are high-achieving students, athletes, performers, and also sometimes it was underlying depression or anxiety that might bring somebody in.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So I know we’re not here to talk about eating disorders, but I’m just curious, is this perfectionism part of the phenomenology of eating disorders, a common element?

Dr. Lisa Walker: It is. It’s a risk factor and then also a maintaining factor. It often would be something that we would end up talking about, though it wasn’t the presenting issue for people coming in. They might be coming in because they were feeling quite depressed, and underlying that depression was this feeling of failure. I’m not doing things perfectly, so I feel like I’m failing at everything in my life.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And then I’m being judged. Is that part of what perfectionism is? Tell us a little bit more about what is perfectionism, actually. How do you define that?

Dr. Lisa Walker: The simple definition is that perfectionism is that tendency to hold excessively high standards for ourselves, probably unattainably high standards, and that anything short of reaching those standards is unacceptable. And then we’re very self-critical. Our self-worth is dependent on meeting those goals, and since we can’t meet them, we’re going to be self-critical a lot.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: What kinds of areas in one’s life do they see that needing to be perfect and meet those high standards?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Perfectionism, we can really see it as a spectrum. There are some folks that have perfectionism happening in most areas of their lives, and then for other folks it’s something that pops up periodically or in certain areas. For me, and another one of the reasons why I got interested in perfectionism, is that it was happening for me in certain areas as well. I think as therapists we sort of gravitate toward issues that are reflective of something that’s personal to us, something that we either have struggled with or acknowledge in our own world or our family and our friends.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So can I assume that you’ve had some perfectionism that you’ve dealt with in your life?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Sure. Even just thinking back to the story I was telling you about transitioning from teaching into psychology, I can definitely remember a perfectionistic voice that was saying, you know, how could you make this mistake? You just graduated from college. What are people going to think if you scrap this career and you go back and do something completely different?

They can come up either across the board or just in certain areas of our lives. So when I think of certain areas, I’m thinking career, school, how you function in a relationship, how you function as a parent, how you just do your day-to-day chores, activities, those kinds of things. Perfectionism might be something that happens at work. You’re not going to send out an email until you’ve read it 10 times and are assured there’s absolutely no typos or grammatical errors.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: I see. My house is a mess, so I can’t send out this email because if it’s not perfect, I’ll look stupid. I’ll look like a failure. It’ll reflect badly on me. I’ll feel badly about myself. I’ll feel badly about myself if I send it out.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Brené Brown is a researcher at the University of Houston College of Social Work, and she describes perfectionism in contrast to healthy striving. Healthy striving would be that quest for excellence that doesn’t leave us feeling badly about ourselves. So I think it’s helpful to think of perfectionism in contrast to that healthy striving. Perfectionism is setting unachievable high standards. So instead of being energized and motivated by our goals, we’re feeling intimidated and really weighed down by the goal.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Would there be a difference in terms of whether or not you achieved the goal, whether it was perfectionism versus healthy striving?

Dr. Lisa Walker: So a perfectionistic goal, for instance, might be that I will be able to speak with you without saying any ums or ahs, right? That’s going to be probably unattainable and unrealistic, because we don’t talk like that. Healthy striving is a realistic goal. We’re likely to meet it. Your standards are high, but so is the likelihood of achievement of that goal.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And if one didn’t achieve the goal for whatever reason, I’m assuming that with healthy striving, one’s not beating up on themselves if they don’t meet that goal.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. It’s sort of like, that’s my goal, but if I don’t reach it, that’s okay.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: That is okay. That’s where we want to be.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Healthy striving is acknowledging the process and the effort that went into the goal. It’s thinking about it in terms of what we were able to achieve, not just focusing on what we weren’t able to achieve.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: How widespread is this? What percentage of the population is suffering from beating up on themselves with perfectionistic beliefs and practices?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Again, I think because it’s a spectrum, it’s not an all or nothing. We either have it or we don’t have it, because we can have it in certain areas of our life and not in others. So there was a 2019 study that looked at perfectionism from 1989 to 2016. It was a study of over 40,000 students in the US and Canada and the UK, and they were measured using a multidimensional perfectionism scale. And they looked at perfectionism on three dimensions: self-oriented perfectionism, where we’re setting demanding standards for ourselves, having unrealistic expectations of ourselves; other-oriented perfectionism, where we’re demanding of others; and then socially prescribed perfectionism, which is the belief that others are having unrealistic expectations of us. And so they looked at these and they found out that perfectionism is on the rise.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Which one do you think of those three is higher, Aaron? Gosh, I would have to think the socially oriented one, imagining that other people are evaluating you more, with more expectations.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. So socially prescribed perfectionism increased at twice the rate of the self-oriented or other-oriented perfectionism.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Is that because of social media?

Dr. Lisa Walker: The researchers suggested that it may be because we are living in an environment where we have this ability to compare more readily.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Right, instantaneously.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yeah. They didn’t make a causal relationship between the rise in social media and the rise in perfectionism or depression or anxiety. But I’ve got to think, just from what’s happening clinically, what’s happening in the world, what’s happening in the office, that social media has got to play a part in that.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Yeah, because there’s constantly comparing going on. There’s just 24/7 access to what everybody else is doing, and you’re putting yourself out there to the world about what you’re doing. Compare and despair.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yeah. Right? Compare and despair. So what everybody else’s highlight reel that we see on social media, and comparing it to the backstory. And you know your backstory. You know all of those places that are messy, that are feeling imperfect. And then you’re looking at social media where everyone looks like they’re living their best life.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So one thing I wanted to ask you a little bit about, just because we talk a lot about family of origin in this podcast. On several of the episodes we’ve spent some time talking about that, and background and history. I’m just wondering if you could say a little bit about how and why people may become perfectionistic. Where does that come from?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Well, if we look at it from an evolutionary model, folks have said that perfectionism evolves because we want to belong. We want to fit into our tribe. We want to be accepted. Or another idea is that we strive to be perfect so that we can find our role in society by developing a particular expertise in an area. Again, so we’re valued and we belong to the tribe.

But from a family-of-origin standpoint, there are three kinds of family systems that I hear folks talk about a lot. One is where there’s an ongoing issue of severity in the family, like substance abuse, a sibling with special needs, maybe a mental health issue. Someone might grow up in that household and think, well, if I achieve, if I do things perfectly, then I’m not going to be adding any more stress to the system. I’m not going to be somebody that my parents need to worry about. I’m not going to cause any more conflict. I’m not going to add anything else there.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So it’s compensating for the drama and the turmoil going on in the family, to try to not participate in that and not create more problem.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right, absolutely. A second family system that I hear about a lot is really achievement-oriented parents, where only an A is going to be acceptable or cheered.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Yeah, we sort of see that a lot, don’t we?

Dr. Lisa Walker: So only first place. If you get second place, it’s not okay, and we’re going to focus on the mistakes that you made and the reason why you’re not first place. And so a child growing up in that atmosphere might think, well, if I achieve, then I can get the love and the admiration that I really want.

The third system that I hear a lot about is families where there’s a lot of criticism and any mistakes are met with harshness. So it’s not okay to be trying something and not being successful at it to begin with.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So in those last two examples that you gave, it’s really just an internalization of this idea that I need to be a particular way in order to be accepted and be okay in this family. I won’t be criticized. I’ll actually be praised. If I do things perfectly, I’ll be praised, and if I do things less than perfectly, I’m going to be criticized. So I better be perfect.

Dr. Lisa Walker: I mentioned Brené Brown earlier, and she has this beautiful way of describing perfectionism as an armor. And it’s the armor that we use to protect ourselves from feeling vulnerable, but also from feeling that sense of not being enough, not being worthy, not being lovable, not being part of the group if we make a mistake. And so we’re using that perfectionism to keep us away from having those feelings that can arise when we’re imperfect.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: But of course that can only backfire, right?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Absolutely, because again, the perfectionism is those goals are unattainable. So then we end up feeling that way anyway.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Even if you did something perfectly 99 times, the hundredth time is not going to be perfect.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yes. And if we have a tendency toward perfectionism and we set a goal, and somehow we get close to that, or maybe we meet it, then the thinking is, well, anybody could have done that. This is nothing special. If we’ve met it, then the goal is devalued.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Right, sure. Or how come I didn’t do it before? This is so achievable.

Dr. Lisa Walker: And then we’re going to set an even higher goal.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So what if I only got an A? I mean, I got the A. That’s what I should be getting.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. It’s no big deal.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Yeah. And anybody can do that. It’s nothing special.

I’m outing you right now, and I don’t know if you’re going to appreciate this. You probably won’t. But I’ve read some blogs that you’ve written that you are going to post soon on your website, yes, www.leezawalkertherapy.com. And probably by the time this podcast is released, I bet they’ll be posted, but they may not be. They’re excellent, excellent writings, by the way, and I really enjoyed them.

One of the blogs that you wrote had to do with the cost of perfectionism. Basically it sort of seems like how people pay the price for being perfectionistic personally, how it harms them. So I was thinking maybe we could go through some of those, so we can see the toll that it can take on people. So Lisa, one thing you mentioned was stealing the joy. How does that happen?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Perfectionism really takes the fun out of anything that could be a fun task. For example, you’re having friends over to dinner, and the perfectionism will say it has to be the right food. The food has to be on the table at exactly the time that it’s supposed to be, the time that you’ve planned. It needs to look exactly like the picture from the Food TV Network website. Everybody needs to arrive on time for this to be a good dinner party.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Oh, the table won’t look beautiful enough either. Even the table’s got to look exactly right.

Dr. Lisa Walker: So what could be fun with friends has now become an external focus on the appearance of the food, the appearance of the table, even the behavior of your guests. That’s no fun.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: No, no fun at all. And then I imagine, I guess it’s conceivable that people might avoid having dinner parties because it’s so stressful to have them. Who would want to have it with that much pressure?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. So perfectionism can be really isolating. We can end up avoiding situations where we don’t have the perfect thing to wear or the perfect thing to say. So it keeps us from interacting, which is really a shame because we’re all imperfect, right? You’re hanging out in good company if you bring your imperfectness along with you.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Well, I was going to say too, it can kind of be endearing. Like, who really wants somebody else to be perfect?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. There’s a concept in social psychology called the pratfall effect, which is that when we show some of our mistakes, when we show that humanness, we become more appealing to other people. They see themselves in us, kind of like that backstory. They know that they’re imperfect, and when they see that we are also imperfect, they feel closer to us.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: That makes a lot of sense. And you hear people, I don’t like to get into politics on this podcast at all, but just as a general thing, you hear people saying, like, oh, I could vote for him or her. It’s the kind of person that I think I could have a beer with and sit down and have a real conversation. There’s a relatableness.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Relatableness, yeah. Absolutely.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So you talk about Taskmaster. I think that’s probably related to what we were talking about, but how do you define that in this context?

Dr. Lisa Walker: When we’re hanging out in perfectionism, we don’t relax until all the work is done. And I know nobody that has an empty to-do list. How about you?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: No, I don’t.

Dr. Lisa Walker: So if you’re perfectionistic, then you’re trying to finish that to-do list. And it’s never ending. So again, then we’re feeling badly about ourselves. Also, when perfectionism is driving us, there’s no time to connect. There’s no time to play. It’s always, I’ve got to keep striving, keep striving. It’s sort of like my 21-year-old self in that classroom: I’m going to work harder and work harder and work harder, and maybe through that hard work I’ll be able to achieve this goal.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So you talked about slowing productivity.

Dr. Lisa Walker: One of the things that can happen with perfectionism is procrastination. You know it won’t be perfect, so you don’t start it. Or as you’re working on it, you’re so focused on the parts of it that are imperfect that you don’t turn it in. So we see this with students, or even really high-achieving professionals, where they’ll put a lot of effort into a product, a presentation, a paper, a report, but then it doesn’t get in on time, and then they get some feedback about how it’s not in on time.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Or I could imagine if they’ve procrastinated till the very last minute because they’re afraid about just doing it perfectly, the irony there is it may not get done perfectly because they don’t have enough time to finish it. They’re pulling an all-nighter.

Dr. Lisa Walker: There’s just not the time and the concentration to be able to do that. So the paradox is that we’re feeling as if the perfectionism is being productive, but it’s really being counterproductive in a lot of situations.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Counterproductive, yeah. You talked about kills connection, because you’re focused on perfectionism rather than on connecting with people.

Dr. Lisa Walker: The other part of connection is that in order to please and get that cheering or that applause from other people that we’ve done a good job, again, to keep us away from feeling that unworthy, unlovable, I’m not enough feeling, we become a reflection of those around us. So we’re doing or saying things that are pleasing to other people, and we get farther away from who we really are. So if perfectionism is really running the show, at some point it’s like, I don’t know what I like or what I don’t like or what’s important to me, because I’m so much a reflection of what other people are wanting or expecting from me. So we get distilled down to a real plain vanilla version of ourselves.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Sure. And so it’s harder to connect if you’re not really connected with your own self. How are you going to connect with another person?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Absolutely.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: It doesn’t shut up.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. The perfectionist keeps talking. You’re preoccupied with your own thoughts and how things are not perfect and distracted trying to make them perfect. And again, that keeps you from connection.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Sure, because it keeps talking. This is also really problematic for people that rely on their creativity.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Performers, nothing kills creativity like perfectionism. So instead of putting all of the ideas out there and really being in the flow, so to speak, if we’re worried about the specific details and having each detail correct, that creativity is not going to flow.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Yeah. You know, I’ve had so many patients that are creative people, musicians, writers, and they just can’t put the pen to the paper. It’s so hard for them. They’ll write one or two lines of lyrics and they just focus on them, and they can’t continue. They have such a hard time.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Because the focus is not about the enjoyment of putting pen to paper, or sitting down at the piano and playing a piece of music, or putting the brush to the canvas and enjoying what comes out of you. So it’s more on each individual piece of it and having that be perfect, and it just stops the process.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Takes a toll on our bodies. So what does it do to our bodies, Lisa?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Well, this happens in a couple of ways. We can either try to be perfect in our physical appearance, so we’re overly focused on health and exercise, or we believe we can’t ever be perfect, so why try? This is the procrastination version of the health piece. We put off taking care of ourselves. We put off getting help. There’s just so much pressure there. And this is where folks who lean toward perfectionism can have health issues, because rather than seeking help, they’re saying, well, how come I feel this way? I shouldn’t feel this way. Other people aren’t feeling this way. And they’re not seeking out the support for health issues when they could be, and as soon as they need to be.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: How does this affect mood?

Dr. Lisa Walker: When we strive to be perfect, we’re ultimately coming up short. We’re getting depressed because we feel like a failure, or we’re experiencing anxiety because of the people-pleasing.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And just sort of demoralized.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yeah. Absolutely.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So what about killing gratitude? What is that about?

Dr. Lisa Walker: When we’re hanging out with perfectionism, we’re often just giving ourselves credit for those really big moments, the moments where people are clapping, and there is the A, when there’s the winning first place. And those are the only times when we are appreciating ourselves and our talents and what we’re bringing into the world, really appreciating ourselves. And we’re losing track of those smaller everyday moments when we’re appreciating the process, when we’re appreciating our effort. So the gratitude is for the day-to-day things that happen that we could be grateful for, but we’re just not paying attention to them. The only thing that matters are the big successes.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: We could say appreciation, gratitude, and appreciation for ourselves. And then you mentioned keeping us small. Sounds like that’s probably related in some way.

Dr. Lisa Walker: When perfectionism is on board, you’re not going to say anything unless you’re going to say it absolutely correctly. You’re not going to try something new unless you’re going to do it perfectly, unless you’re assured that you’re not going to fail. So it keeps people from taking risks, taking on challenges, because of the fear that if I can’t do it perfectly, I better not try. It’s too scary.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Right. I’m not even going to attempt it.

Dr. Lisa Walker: So again, we see that perfectionism as the armor. I’m going to protect myself from the feelings that are going to come up if I try to do this new thing and it doesn’t go well. In fact, if it doesn’t go perfectly, if I make even a small mistake with it, I’m going to feel badly. I’m not going to try it.

When we think about changing perfectionism, I think it’s helpful not to think of it in terms of giving it up, labeling it as bad, or getting rid of it. Sometimes we hear it talked about in terms of normal or good perfectionism or neurotic or bad perfectionism. I think the words we use in our heads are really important. Instead of thinking of it in dualistic terms, all or nothing, which is really a hallmark of perfectionism itself, we think about transforming it instead. Because what we know is that there are aspects of the perfectionism that have really helped us.

If, as a therapist, you’re working with someone who has a tendency toward perfectionism and you say, listen, this is something that’s wrong and we’re going to get rid of it, you’re going to get some pushback. Because there are aspects that have helped them achieve goals. They might feel more in control with their perfectionism. This idea of banishing it can feel really uncomfortable or scary.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: The idea of all or nothing, I either am perfectionistic or I’m totally sloppy with everything I do. It doesn’t have to be that.

Dr. Lisa Walker: That’s the fear, is that I can’t let this go or I’m not going to be motivated. I’ll fail out of school. I won’t care. I’m going to be someone who just sits on the couch. I won’t have any goals. We want to get away from this idea of needing to get rid of it. If we’re working on perfectionism on our own and we think of it in terms of getting rid of it, we’re going to have this push-pull, push-pull. We want to think transformation instead.

When we think about transforming the perfectionism, really the key is self-compassion. Self-compassion is what we need to start with. It sets the frame for whatever work we’re going to do on the perfectionism itself. Kristin Neff is a researcher at the University of Texas, and she talks about three parts of self-compassion: mindfulness, self-kindness, and shared humanity. That’s a really helpful place to start. We can’t expect that we’re going to change the thoughts and behaviors without developing the compassion to support ourselves when the mistakes and the imperfections happen, because they will.

So the first is mindfulness, and that’s just naming the feeling that you’re having, noticing it, not labeling it as good or bad. It just is. Like, I’m feeling disappointed with myself because I’m running late to the meeting. Acknowledging the pain in a way that doesn’t dismiss it or exaggerate it. We’re just noticing it and calling it what it is.

And then self-kindness. We’re really talking to ourselves like we would talk to a friend. We hear that a lot, but that’s not something that we’re always doing.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: What you’re talking about reminds me a little bit of the podcast episode I did with Aki Masuda on ACT therapy.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Self-kindness, self-compassion, the sitting with it.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Absolutely. So we are being compassionate with ourselves. We are talking to ourselves like we would somebody else. And then that shared humanity, reminding ourselves that everybody is struggling with similar things that we are struggling with. Everyone’s had feelings of inadequacy and disappointment, and we’re not alone in that.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So Lisa, in some of your writings, you’ve talked about what you’ve called the greatest hits when it comes to working with perfectionists. And this looks to me like different cognitive ways of examining one’s thinking when it comes to perfectionistic thought patterns. Let’s spend a little time talking about that. The first one that you’ve talked about is all-or-nothing thinking. We talked a little bit about that already, right?

Dr. Lisa Walker: The perfectionistic part of us speaks in absolutes, success or failure. If I don’t get the promotion, it’s because I suck at my job. Or if my child misbehaves, I’m a terrible parent. So it’s looking at things, again, in terms of all or nothing. And the healthy striving aspect of ourselves versus the perfectionist would describe the whole situation rather than the all-or-nothing ends of the spectrum.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So rather than the black and white, we would see things as, you might say, gray.

Dr. Lisa Walker: I like to say tie-dye. Right? If I get a B+ or a B and I don’t get an A, I didn’t fail. And if I got all A’s and I got one B, it’s very likely I’ll get an A for the semester. The B is not going to make me fail. But even if I did, I’m not failing out of school. It’s not an all or nothing. It’s describing the colorful middle part. What worked in that class that earned you the B+? What was going well? And where were there maybe some areas that you needed to work on? We’re thinking of it in terms of a growth mindset, which is also describing the behavior versus making it about you personally.

Aaron, it’s not that you’re a bad student because you got the B+, or that you suck at math. It was that there were aspects of the class that were easy for you, maybe some that weren’t so easy, but you worked hard and you were able to manage, and other areas that you’re really struggling with and you could use some help on. So it’s way more descriptive.

I think it’s helpful when we talk about the thinking of perfectionism to have a visual image that goes along with our perfectionist, that we give that inner perfectionist a form, a color, a shape, because it’s with that visual that we get a little space from it.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: What would be an example of that?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Okay, I’ll give you my example. A perfectionist for me might be the shape of a woman who is dressed beautifully, and she looks beautiful, and she looks like she’s got it all together, but she says really mean things.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: I see.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Mean things like, that’s not good enough. It should have been better. How come your house is messy and you’re getting takeout and you don’t have any time to cook and the kids haven’t done their homework, and everybody else has a beautiful Facebook-ready home and still has time for a glass of wine?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Got it. Got it. So it’s an actual visual image of the perfectionist creature.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. Because then we can say, that’s my perfectionist talking, and we get a little space from it. And we can give that healthy striving aspect a visual image also, so that we can say, what does it look like if I reach for that goal, but I’m doing it with added self-compassion? What does that aspect look like?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: What about selective attention?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Selective attention is the focus on the mistake rather than the experience itself. So again, coming back to describing the event or the situation in terms of what worked or doesn’t work, rather than just focusing on what didn’t work. Again, having that perfectionist talk. So as a therapist you would probably help the person identify and point out the things that did work and things that did go well, rather than focusing on that one negative thing that they’re focused on. Looking at it as a whole picture again, that whole tie-dyed colorful presentation in the middle of the black and white, that it is a whole picture, just like we’re whole pictures. If we’re not presenting our imperfect self to other people, we’re only presenting part of who we are. It’s not the whole picture. Just like focusing on one mistake in something we’ve done isn’t the whole picture.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: What’s double standards?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Double standards is where we’re thinking that we can’t make mistakes, but we’re fine with other people making them.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: A lot of people are their own worst enemy. Like, anybody else is okay, but I’m not.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. And this idea of how come we’re different? How come there’s this other bunch of rules that are just for us, but other people don’t have them?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And overgeneralization?

Dr. Lisa Walker: That one mistake means we’re a failure overall.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: That’s a little bit similar to the selective attention part.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yeah.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And then the shoulds.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. The shoulds, as if there is a large group of rules that are universal that we all need to know, rather than focusing on what is it that I would like to do? What is it that I want to do?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So what would that look like in a typical example from your practice? What would be a should?

Dr. Lisa Walker: I should go to the event because that’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what good workers do. I should homemake all of the cupcakes for my kid’s party because that’s what good moms do, as if there’s this universal expectation that we need to meet. Rather than, do I want to do this? Is this consistent with what I’m about right now? Do I have the time and energy and resources to be able to put toward this? Is this truly important for what I would like to do for me? Or is this something I’m putting on myself because I think it’s expected by others?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And then comparisons. I think we talked a little bit about that when we were talking about social media. Comparisons are dangerous, right?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. Compare and despair. We’re going to come up short every time when we do this.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: You had another interesting blog entry on ways to cozy up to perfectionism. And I guess this is ways to manage and deal with perfectionism and how to have a relation to it in a healthy way.

Dr. Lisa Walker: So a lot of the work with changing perfectionism is from cognitive behavioral theories, looking at how we think about things, but also how we behave. And the first part of making any changes, like I said, is to have that self-compassion so we have a kinder way to treat ourselves as we do the work going forward. That’s the internal aspect of support, but it’s also helpful to have some external support. If we’re not working with a therapist, to be talking to friends and family and letting them know what we’re working on.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So what’s focused on process?

Dr. Lisa Walker: Focusing on the process is, for instance, the fun in making the mess with your kids, even though the cookies end up burnt. The journey toward the finished product.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So the fun in making the mess with your kids, even though the cookies were burnt.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. So what’s more important than the product is the enjoyment of the process. And when we’re in perfectionism, that gets lost. The cookies didn’t come out well, so the process wasn’t worth it. And our healthy striver says, well, we had a really great time making the mess and the flour went all over the kitchen and that’s going to be a memory made.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: And that’s part of what you call let there be messiness.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Let there be messiness. We want to give ourselves permission to make those mistakes. For therapists, it’s doing a little bit of exposure work, taking those small imperfect actions that help us recognize that some of the beliefs that we have about making mistakes and what a mistake will feel like aren’t really accurate. So we want to start with small imperfect actions, like reading an email once and then sending it, and finding out that nothing really happens from that, and that’s okay.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Getting some data that your mistakes are not such a big deal usually.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Yeah. Or leaving the living room messy and then finding out that you don’t get a lot of feedback around that, that that’s okay.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: In fact, you have mentioned aiming to do it badly the first time is actually an exercise. So how does one do that?

Dr. Lisa Walker: If we decide we’re going to do it badly, then we can go ahead and get started. So this really combats the procrastination. It takes the pressure off the first attempt or the first draft, and it may even make it fun.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So that might be something for writing, right? Like, okay, I’m just going to write my first draft of this and it’s going to really suck, and I’m okay with that because I’ve got something I can edit and work on later.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Right. So then we’re replacing the anxiety about it maybe with some excitement. I wonder what’s going to come when I start writing. I wonder how that’s going to go. We don’t have any pressure. We anticipate messing it up, so we can just go ahead and get started. Because again, with perfectionism, we’re wasting a lot of time that could be productive in review, revise, revisit, review, revise, revisit.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: You talk about journaling as an exercise that can be helpful for people. Tell us about that.

Dr. Lisa Walker: When we get some distance from our perfectionist, we have the ability to use that self-compassion and make some changes. So if that perfectionist thinking gets put down on paper, we can see it in a way that we might not be able to really hear when it’s just in our heads.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: I see. So it’s on paper, and we can say, how could you make that mistake? And we read that on paper, and then we think, well, I wouldn’t say that to a friend.

Dr. Lisa Walker: That kind of goes back to gaining perspective, right? You get maybe easier to gain perspective if you have a little distance from it, you’ve written it down, you can take a read at it. It’s easier to see when it’s on paper, when it’s in black and white. And whether we’re working with a therapist or we’re working on it on our own, we can more clearly see maybe where the all-or-nothing is coming in or the selective attention is coming in, and then work on changing that.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So you recommend scheduling fun.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Perfectionism isn’t any fun at all. We get so bogged down by the details and finishing that to-do list that there isn’t the balance that comes in. So when we’re scheduling some fun in there, we put some perspective, again, that messy middle, that tie-dyed center that balances the work out with other aspects of our world that have meaning for us.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Lisa, are there any other thoughts that you have on this subject matter that you’d like to talk about today before we wrap up? Anything that we didn’t cover that you think is an important message on this subject?

Dr. Lisa Walker: As we’re working with perfectionism, sometimes we get some pushback from other people in our world. So if I’m somebody who has the immaculate house and I don’t allow there to be clutter and I don’t allow there to be any kind of dirt in my household, and now I’m taking this small step of leaving the living room messy and working on allowing other people to come in my home when it looks that way, I may have a partner who says, wait a minute, I’m kind of used to the house the way it was. What are we doing here?

So working on perfectionism sometimes means having a conversation with a partner and helping them to understand why we’re making a change, the importance of the change to ourselves and to the relationship. It might be having that conversation with coworkers or having a conversation with a boss, because they may really see the benefits of the perfectionism in the workplace, and now you’re going and changing it.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Well, I can imagine those are situations where there’s a conscious decision to talk with people in your immediate life about what you’re up to, and that makes a lot of sense. But I bet there’s a lot of situations where that’s not even possible. You decide to show up, you’re usually just dressed to the nines to your kid’s soccer game, right? And then you decide, I’m going to wear sweats to the soccer game today. And you don’t get all the feedback from everybody: oh, you look so nice, oh my gosh, you put so much effort into how you look. Nobody’s going to say that when you’ve got the sweats on, and that’s a message you’re receiving that I imagine could be difficult.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Absolutely. And that’s where the support is so important. Have you ever heard that saying, we are the five people we hang out with the most?

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: No, but that’s a great saying.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Okay. So it’s like, okay, who am I hanging out with? And if we’re hanging out with people who are okay with mistakes and are okay not being perfect, that can really be supportive in moments like that. Wait a minute. My best friend is wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She’s not dressed to the nines, and that’s okay. So it may be direct support. It may be that friend saying, you’re fine, you’ve got this. Or it may just be indirectly looking around at the people who are closest to you and really seeing them and loving them in all their imperfectness.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Sure. And then adopting some of that for yourself.

Dr. Lisa Walker: And just as a final thought, I do think that it’s helpful for us to have a mantra, some sort of simple phrase that our healthy striving self can say to us in those moments where we’re maybe holding on to our perfectionist. We often lean back into the perfectionist in novel situations or scary situations, situations where we’re feeling a little out of control. So a mantra or statement can be helpful. If we’re thinking about a visual image of our healthy striver and it’s a person, it would be the logo on the T-shirt the healthy striver is wearing. And it can be something as simple as, you’ve got this. I like Maya Angelou’s quote, “You alone are enough.”

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: So that’s just a mantra that somebody can remind themselves that encapsulates everything that they’re working on regarding the perfectionism topic.

Dr. Lisa Walker: To support themselves through those moments.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Lisa, thanks so much for coming on the show today. This has been a really lively and enjoyable conversation.

Dr. Lisa Walker: Thanks, Aaron. It was great to be here.

Dr. Aaron Kaplan: Dr. Liza Wacker, you can catch her blog at www..lizawackertherapy.com. Thanks for tuning in.