Is Being a Perfectionist a Good or a Bad Thing?
Is being a perfectionist a good or a bad thing? I get asked this more than you'd think, usually by someone who's been praised for their high standards their whole life and is quietly exhausted. They'll say something like, "Everyone tells me it's a strength. So why does it feel like I'm never allowed to rest?"
The honest answer is that it can be both, and the difference matters a lot. Wanting to do good work isn't the problem. Feeling like your worth depends on it is. If you've been wondering which side of that line you're on, you're in the right place, and you don't have to figure it out alone.
The Part Nobody Mentions: There Are Two Kinds
Researchers who study perfectionism, like psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett, have long pointed out that it isn't one single thing. Some people have very high standards and stay fairly flexible when they miss them. They feel disappointed, they learn something, and they move on. Others hold themselves to standards that keep moving, and any miss feels like proof that they're not good enough.
The first kind can genuinely help you. It can make you thoughtful, reliable, and good at what you do. The second kind is the one that wears people down. It tends to come with anxiety, procrastination, burnout, and a harsh inner voice that never really clocks out.
It's also becoming more common. A large review of studies by Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill found that perfectionism has been rising among young adults over the last few decades. So if it feels like everyone around you is wound this tight, you're not imagining it.
A Quick Gut Check
Here's how I usually help clients tell the two apart. Ask yourself what happens inside when you fall short of your own standard.
Healthier striving sounds like: "That didn't go how I wanted. What can I learn from it?"
The costly kind sounds like: "I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I missed that. Everyone must think I'm incompetent."
Notice the difference. One is about the work. The other is about you. When a mistake turns into a verdict on who you are as a person, that's usually the point where perfectionism has stopped helping.
Signs It Might Be Costing You More Than It's Giving You
You put things off because you can't start until you can do it perfectly
You can't finish things, or you keep tweaking long past the point it matters
Praise barely lands, or it just raises the bar for next time
Rest feels lazy, even when you're depleted
You replay small mistakes for days
You avoid trying new things unless you're sure you'll be good at them
One client described it this way: "I don't even enjoy the things I'm good at anymore. I just feel relief when I didn't mess up." If that sounds familiar, please hear me, that isn't a character flaw. It's a pattern, and patterns have beginnings.
Where Perfectionism Usually Comes From
Almost nobody is born a perfectionist. More often, it's something you learned, because at some point it worked. It earned you safety, approval, or at least fewer problems.
Maybe love and attention seemed to show up when you got good grades, behaved well, or didn't cause trouble. Maybe you grew up around criticism or unpredictability, and being flawless felt like the best way to stay out of the line of fire. Maybe you were the "responsible one," the "gifted one," or the "easy kid," and mistakes didn't feel like an option. Sometimes it's a single painful moment, like being humiliated in front of a class, that taught your brain that getting it wrong is dangerous.
Whatever the origin, the lesson underneath is usually something like "I'm only okay if I get it right." Your nervous system took that lesson seriously, and it's still working hard to keep you from that old feeling of not being enough.
Why "Just Relax" and "Lower Your Standards" Never Work
If you've ever been told to just relax, or to lower your standards, you know how unhelpful that is. It's like telling someone with a smoke alarm going off to stop worrying about fire. Your system isn't being dramatic. It's reacting to something it learned to treat as a real threat, which is the possibility of being seen as not good enough.
That's also why perfectionism so often travels with anxiety and burnout. When every task carries the weight of your worth, nothing is ever just a task. A work email becomes a test. A dinner with friends becomes a performance. A small mistake becomes a flood of what-ifs. Your body stays on alert, and eventually it runs out of fuel.
It can show up in relationships, too. Some people become hyper-responsible and struggle to ask for help. Others get so afraid of disappointing someone that they stop being honest about what they need. None of that makes you difficult. It makes you someone who learned that being perfect was the price of being okay.
A Few Small Things You Can Try This Week
While you're deciding whether therapy feels like the right next step, these tiny experiments can start loosening the grip a little. They're not a cure, and they're not meant to be done perfectly (yes, I see the irony).
Do one low-stakes thing at 80 percent on purpose, like sending an email without a third reread, and notice what actually happens
When you catch the inner critic, ask whose voice it sounds like. Often it's someone from long ago, not you
Finish something that's "good enough" and let it sit for a day before you decide if it needs more
Say one thing out loud that you'd normally keep to yourself because it isn't polished enough
If those feel surprisingly hard, that's useful information, not a failure. It usually means there's something underneath worth being gentle with.
So, Good or Bad?
If your high standards leave you proud, energized, and still able to rest, that's probably just you caring about your work. If they leave you anxious, drained, and afraid of getting something wrong, that's not a strength you have to keep defending. It's a protective strategy that has run its course.
And here's the reassuring part. You don't have to give up caring about quality to heal this. Letting go of the fear and the harsh inner critic doesn't make you sloppy. Most of my clients find that they get to keep their drive, they just stop paying such a high price for it.
How EMDR Can Support This
Most people try to fix perfectionism by thinking differently. Reframe the thought, set a more realistic goal, remind yourself nobody's perfect. Those tools can help, but if you've tried them and still feel the same knot in your stomach, it's often because the belief isn't living only in your thinking. It's tied to memories and experiences that your body still treats as real.
That's where EMDR comes in. EMDR is a structured therapy, recognized by groups like the EMDR International Association, that helps your brain reprocess distressing memories so they stop driving your reactions in the present. In EMDR, we often work with what's called a negative belief, like "I'm not good enough" or "I have to be perfect to be safe," and the earlier experiences that planted it.
In practice, that can look like:
Identifying the moment that feels most connected to the pressure, such as a harsh comment, a failure that stuck, or years of having to earn approval
Noticing the belief and where you feel it in your body
Using bilateral stimulation, like guided eye movements, while your brain does its own processing at a pace that feels manageable
Gradually building a more settled belief, like "I'm enough as I am," that your body actually believes instead of just your head
You don't need to retell every detail of your history for this to work. The VA's National Center for PTSD notes that clients generally aren't required to describe trauma in detail during EMDR. And perfectionism doesn't have to come from "big" trauma for EMDR to be useful. Plenty of people I work with just remember a lifetime of feeling like they had to earn their place.
Many people notice that over time, mistakes start to feel less like emergencies. The inner critic gets quieter. Rest feels allowed. That doesn't happen overnight, and it isn't meant to, but it's very possible.
If you're curious whether this could fit, I offer both weekly EMDR and focused EMDR intensives, in person in Pensacola and virtually across Florida and Alabama. No pressure. Just clarity. I'm here to help along the way!
About the Author
Hannah Ciampini, LCSW, is a trauma therapist and owner of Hello Calm Therapy in Pensacola, Florida, and she specializes in EMDR and Brainspotting intensive therapy for adults working through childhood trauma, anxiety, and patterns that continue to feel stuck despite previous therapy or insight. Hannah offers in-person EMDR intensives in Pensacola and virtual intensive therapy for clients located in Florida and Alabama.
