How to Let Go of Perfectionism: 8 Tips

The ironic part of writing this post as someone recovering from perfectionism myself, is that while I'm teaching you to let go of perfection, I am too finding it difficult to let go of my own perfection writing this. So here's to letting it go and letting it flow! Because I am choosing progress over perfection!

Perfectionism has been associated with high achievement, success and drive. Rather than perfectionism motivating us to succeed, it usually creates a looping effect where we get stuck and can’t move forward. I’m here to help you learn about how perfectionism may be actually hurting you more than it is helping you. Perfectionism has been linked to greater mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression and even eating disorders. The good news is, you can unlearn perfectionism and find ways to overcome it! The best starting point for learning how to let go of perfectionism is to better understand how it isn’t serving you.

Reasons Perfectionism Isn’t Serving you

Perfectionism creates unrealistic and unattainable goals.

The very idea of perfectionism sets us up for failure because it creates unrealistic and unattainable goals. Not meeting goals set for yourself can cause you to work harder causing burnout. It can also lead you to feel frozen and stuck for further fear of failure. The very thing perfectionists are trying to avoid are often the very outcomes they end up experiencing anyway.

Perfectionism is the result of fear of failure rather than value of high achievement.

Perfectionism is rooted in the fear of failure or harsh judgement from others or yourself rather than the value of high achievement. Therefore, many people with qualities of high achievers can fall into the traps of perfectionism if they are not aware of their tendencies and patterns. Perfectionism can also form from past rejection and judgement from others. These experiences can create attachment and relational trauma wounds. As a result, perfectionist tendencies can become a way to cope with traumatic experiences someone has experienced but simultaneously can create more rejection.

Perfectionism can lead to low self-esteem and harsh self-criticism.

When you keep trying and trying but continue to fall short of your perfectionistic goals, you may experience lower self-esteem and harsh self-criticism. Because perfectionism is driven by the perpetuated fear of not being good enough, it can lead to depression, anxiety and further traumatization and isolation. Though with perfectionism there is an intention to better ourselves, we end up hurting ourselves by being so hard on ourselves.

How to Let Go of Perfectionism

Become aware of tendencies rooted in perfectionism.

The first step towards working on any issue is awareness. If you aren’t aware of the perfectionist tendencies you have, you won’t be able to do something differently. Get specific with yourself. Do you compare yourself to others? Maybe you have impossibly high standards for yourself? Perhaps you avoid doing things for fear of failure? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might be struggling with perfectionism, keep reading on.

Practice self compassion and allow yourself to make mistakes.

Give yourself grace. If you ever work with me in therapy, you will at some point hear me tell you to give yourself some grace. Allow yourself to make mistakes, it is what makes you human. Think about this, robots aren’t even always perfect, technology fails, so why shouldn’t we fail as human beings? Therefore, focus on shifting your self talk. The more negatively we talk to ourselves, the more we tend to continue to fall into patterns of perfectionistic tendencies. This only hurts us more in the end. 

Learn and practice setting realistic and attainable goals.

Learn what they are and how to set SMART goals. Goals that are too vague, too future focused or too unrealistic usually set us up for failure. Therefore, the very thing perfectionists are trying to avoid (fear of failure) ends up coming true regardless.

Focus on progress over perfection.

We’ve all heard the saying, practice makes perfect. This saying is so common and automatic, most of us probably don’t even think about how many times we’ve heard this throughout our lives. And while the message in here probably had good intentions, it overlooks the fact that perfection doesn’t exist. To let go, focus on finding progress over perfection. As long as you keep moving forward, even while making mistakes, you are learning and growing. Growth is more important than perfection will ever be.

Limit comparisons to others.

In the day and age of access to information at the swipe of a finger, it can be hard not to compare ourselves. But everyone is so individually unique and has their own experiences. No matter what your experience is, it will never be the same as the person you see online. One way to work on comparing yourself less is to limit your exposure to online sources like social media. You have control over what you consume.

Accept that perfection does not exist and will never exist.

I will never stress this enough, perfection DOES NOT exist, it can’t. Radical acceptance is a skill often taught in therapy that helps people accept the things they cannot change. One of the hardest things you’ll do in learning to let go is to accept that perfection does not exist and it never will.

Seek support and ask for help.

When in doubt, reach out. Because perfectionists often struggle with feeling like they should be able to do anything and everything themselves, asking for help can be hard. But asking for help can actually be a sign of strength rather than weakness. Sometimes processing out loud in a safe space like therapy can help more than anything else could. Therefore, sometimes you just need that accountability buddy to hold you to practicing these new ways of thinking and being.  Perfectionism can be an extreme form of anxiety so find anxiety therapy that may be right for you.

Practice. It never ends.

Like any other skills in life, practice is ultimately what will help you overcome and unlearn perfectionism. Understanding and doing are two different things. Therefore, it’s unrealistic to expect yourself to let go of perfectionism if you don’t practice doing just that. Remember, practice makes progress.

Final Thoughts

To sum it all up, perfectionism is driven by the root fear of not being good enough. If you can learn ways to accept yourself as you are, you can begin to celebrate the beauty and humanness that is imperfection. AND it’s okay if learning how to let go of perfectionism is lifelong, most of what makes us human is! So practice! Practice makes progress and I’ll choose progress over perfection, every time, I know you can too.

-Nicole Egan, LMFT