Specialties
Perfectionism & High Achievers
For the people who look like they have it handled, and are exhausted by what it costs.
From the outside, nothing looks wrong
You push yourself incredibly hard and you strive for excellence in everything you do. It has worked. It is also exhausting, and it is starting to take a toll.
You feel burnt out and overwhelmed, and somehow still like you are falling short of your own impossibly high standards. The achievements do not land the way you expected them to, and the bar moves the moment you reach it.
This is the part that makes perfectionism hard to get help for. Nothing is visibly broken. You are still delivering. The cost is entirely internal, which makes it easy for everyone, including you, to decide it is not a real problem.
Sound familiar
What perfectionism actually costs
- Success that never quite registers as success
- Procrastination driven by fear of doing it badly
- An inner critic sharper than you would ever be with a friend
- Trouble delegating or asking for help
- Rest that feels like something you have to earn
- Impostor feelings that persist despite the evidence
- People pleasing and difficulty with boundaries
- Identity fused with output
A useful distinction
Two very different mindsets
Adaptive
Take the statement: you can never become perfect, and you are already perfect. It comes from Katherine Morgan Schafler's book The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control (2023).
People in an adaptive mindset recognize the truth in both halves. Humans are inherently imperfect and true perfection is an illusion, and their worth is not something they have to earn on a rolling basis.
They still have high standards. The standards simply are not load-bearing for their sense of self.
Maladaptive
People in a maladaptive mindset reject both halves, and relentlessly pursue perfection at all costs, driven by the belief that their worth is contingent on reaching an unattainable standard.
Two people can chase the same goal with the same effort, and one is pursuing excellence while the other is demanding perfection. The difference is in the thinking, not the behaviour, which is why it hides so well.
The cost of the standard
Everything in line, and exhausting
The standard that makes your work good is often the same one that makes it impossible to stop. We work on keeping the first without paying for the second.
The work
Keeping the drive, losing the tax
The goal is not to make you less ambitious. Your standards are part of what you value, and I am not going to talk you out of caring.
- 01
Separate drive from punishment
Effort stops requiring fear as its fuel. This is the central move, and most of the rest follows from it.
- 02
Question how and why you strive
Two questions, asked in the moment: am I being flexible and honoring my values, and am I doing this to grow or to prove my worth?
- 03
Build worth that does not move
Self-esteem anchored somewhere other than your last result, so that a bad quarter or a bad race is information rather than a verdict.
I choose to look at my mistakes and failures as a gift of knowledge, and an opportunity to reflect and grow.
Dr. Savannah Landis, Psy.D.
Perfectionism
What people want to know
Often. Imposter syndrome and perfectionism usually travel together: the same standard that makes your work good is the one telling you it was luck and that you are about to be found out. Therapy for imposter syndrome here is less about talking yourself into confidence and more about loosening the rule that says your worth has to be re-earned from scratch every time.
You deserve a space to master the art of thriving
Book a free consultation and let us talk about what you are carrying.
Book a free consultation