The most important thing to know about your perfectionism is that you don’t have to let go of it completely. Instead, you only need to minimize the toxic parts—those aspects that do more harm than good. I hope you’re already feeling a sense of relief because I know how resistant you might be to the idea of lowering your high standards. In my experience, clients often express concerns such as:

• “If I don’t have my high standards, how will I succeed?”
• “I need to be a bit tough on myself, or else I won’t get anything done.”
• “I’m known for my high standards; if I drop them, people will think less of me.”

“You only need to minimize the toxic parts”

Over the years, your identity has become intertwined with these high standards, making it difficult to imagine who you would be without them. However, it’s crucial to distinguish between toxic perfectionism and healthy striving.

The Dark Side of Perfectionism

Toxic perfectionism is not just about having high standards; it’s about the relentless self-criticism and fear of making mistakes that come with it. This form of perfectionism can lead to several debilitating issues:

• Over-Functioning: Pushing yourself to the limit, often beyond what is healthy.
• Imposter Syndrome: Constantly feeling like a fraud, despite your accomplishments.
• Burnout: Exhausting yourself mentally and physically.
• Procrastination: Delaying tasks out of fear they won’t be done perfectly.
• Poor Boundaries: Struggling to say no, often overcommitting yourself.

These problems create significant resistance to getting things done. Your brilliant ideas and inspirations remain locked in your mind, unable to flourish in the world because these toxic patterns hold you back. Your lack of progress just creates more self-criticism. 

So, the first thing to do is understand the difference between toxic perfectionism and the healthier, high-standards approach—Positive Striving.

Toxic Perfectionism vs. Positive Striving

Toxic perfectionism has the following characteristics:

• Excessive Self-Criticism: You’re incredibly hard on yourself for any perceived shortcoming.
• Fear of Negative Evaluation: You’re consumed by the worry of how others will judge you.
• Preoccupation with Mistakes: Your focus is more on avoiding errors than on making progress.
• Chronic Stress and Burnout: The pressure you place on yourself is relentless, leading to ongoing stress and exhaustion.
• Procrastination and Avoidance: The fear of not being perfect often results in delaying or avoiding tasks altogether.

On the other hand, positive striving is associated with these characteristics:

• High but Realistic Standards: You set challenging yet attainable goals.
• Healthy Motivation: You are driven by a desire for personal growth, not fear of failure.
• Adaptive Coping: You see mistakes as learning opportunities, not as a reflection of your worth.
• Balanced Perspective: You understand that perfection is not always possible and that’s okay. You can focus on getting things done and out into the world rather than getting them done perfectly.
• Positive Self-Image: Your self-esteem remains stable, regardless of the outcome (this is the ultimate goal and represents true freedom from the emotional rollercoaster that toxic perfectionism puts you on.

Breaking the Cycle: Embracing Positive Striving

One of the biggest hurdles in overcoming toxic perfectionism is the fear of lowering your standards. But the truth is, you don’t have to abandon your high standards to overcome the negative aspects of perfectionism. This realization can be liberating, allowing you to let go of the harmful habits while maintaining your drive for excellence.

Practical Steps to Shift from Toxic Perfectionism to Positive Striving

1. Set Realistic and Flexible  Goals: Ensure your goals are challenging yet achievable to avoid reinforcing negative self-criticism. Also, make sure your goals can shift in response to real-time feedback and other things that crop up. If you don’t take the ever-evolving context of your life into account as your pursue your goals you will spend too much time in the stress response. 
2. Reduce Self-Criticism: Come up with a few statements consistent with a positive striving mindset. Practice kindness towards yourself when you make mistakes. Remember, errors are part of the learning process.

Some of my own personal favourites are:

3. Know and heal your schemas: The two main schemas underlying toxic perfectionism are defectiveness/shame (“I’m fundamentally flawed, incompetent, defective”) and unrelenting standards (“I have to meet high standards to avoid mistakes, judgement and rejection”). Addressing your toxic perfectionism using the wisdom and clarity of schema therapy is one of the best ways to shift out of your shame spirals 

Learn to understand and “metabolize” the emotion of shame: Shame is one of the most under-recognised emotions – probably because there is alot of shame about have shame. One way to think about toxic perfectionism is that is really is about shame avoidance – not wanting others to see certain things like making mistakes, giving a less than perfect performance or looking vulnerable. 

Dr. JC ☺️

Can you relate? I help female leaders and entrepreneurs overcome toxic perfectionism so they can be less stressed and more productive. I bring my previous 20 years as a clinical psychologist and schema therapist into the coaching space so you can fundamentally shift your toxic perfectionism for good and completely change your world.