What’s the Difference? High Standards vs. Perfectionism

At first glance, high standards and perfectionism seem like the same thing, but here’s why it’s important to know the difference, especially if you’re a perfectionist. 

Perfectionism: The Elusive Illusion

Perfectionism is a theoretical idea that promises a winning outcome – except no matter how hard you try, you never get there. 

You might be wondering, “Well, getting a 100/100 on an exam is a ‘perfect’ score, isn’t it? That’s not theoretical.” Sure, but if you’ve ever lost sleep or your temper because you got a 99/100, then that 100/100 is probably about more than just the score, it’s the signature mindset mistake of a perfectionist:

Believing that your worth as a person is the same as the worth of what you produce.

This belief will keep you constantly striving for the next win, the one that will finally make you feel good enough…but every time you get there you find yourself unfulfilled, exhausted, and confused. Why?

Because you’re trying to solve a soul problem with a superficial strategy.

High Standards: A Concrete Reality

High standards are tangible and achievable, and separate from your identity and self-worth. They represent a measurable benchmark that you can define and aim for, without attaching your sense of self to the achievement of the goal. Unlike perfectionism, which is about an imagined emotional state that never manifests, high standards are about concrete outcomes. 

Perfectionists often worry that if they relax their standards, their work is going to be below average and they’ll lose their job, or fail out of school, or be exposed as a fraud. This is often a myth based on the belief that self-worth is contingent on performance. This belief is often conditioned in early life and unfortunately, reinforced in many achievement-oriented contexts like school and the workplace. For perfectionists, the myth never gets tested because it’s too scary to risk being less than “perfect.”

I want to be clear that aiming for a perfect score, say 100/100, is not inherently problematic. In fact, it may be motivating for you and challenge you to level up. The problem occurs in the aftermath of getting less than a perfect score. If anything less than 100/100 sends you into a damaging spiral of self-doubt, anxiety, insecurity, or depression, that’s a red flag. I also want to acknowledge that there are work and school settings where the myth of perfection is propagated and anything less than perfect is punished. Recognizing the toxicity of this kind of setting and getting out of it as soon as you can will be the first step towards a healthier perspective on yourself and others.

When you can separate having high standards from maintaining your self-worth, you create space for growth and you can more openly receive constructive feedback because you’ve taken off the pressure to prove your worth by seeking external validation.

Overcoming Perfectionism: A Pathway to Well-being

It’s one thing to talk about separating self-worth from performance, and it’s a completely different thing to factually do it. Changing a mindset is not an easy or quick process. They have often developed over the course of years, and so it takes time and practice to unlearn old associations and build new ones. 

Here are three ways to begin this journey, no lowering of standards necessary:

Instead of just focusing on what you do, start identifying who you are

Spend 15-20 minutes of uninterrupted time making a list of personality traits that you like about yourself, things like conscientious, curious, or organized. If nothing comes to mind, list at least 3 behaviors you perform on a regular basis that you’re glad you do, like going to the gym or meeting deadlines. Then, ask yourself what the underlying personality trait or motivation is for each of these behaviors, and write those down.

The goal of this strategy is to make a conscious separation between who you are as a person from what you do. This allows you to more clearly see that you don’t stop being a detail-oriented person if you made a typo in a slide deck for a high stakes presentation. You just made a typo and you can work to avoid it next time.

See failure as formative, not final

Perfectionists often mistake feeling like a failure for being a failure, and this keeps them locked into a fixed mindset which prevents growth because they see failure as a final verdict on their worthiness, and therefore don’t see any way to productively learn from it. Whether or not you’ve actually failed at something is actually irrelevant to how much you can learn from it, and that’s where perfectionists unwittingly miss out. Seeing failure as formative, however, means that no matter how “objective” the failed outcome is, there is something to be learned from the experience. 

There are so many ways to learn from failure, we learn about what behaviors work and don’t work, we learn about what we feel and think in certain experiences, we learn about others and how they respond to us, and we learn about the world. Looking for the lesson helps you stay in a growth-oriented mindset which keeps you moving instead of being stuck in self-doubt.

Connect with others to build empathy for yourself

You might be surprised that I’m recommending connecting with others so that you can have a more compassionate perspective on yourself, but hear me out. Perfectionists are often unaware of how normal it is to feel insecure or to struggle with imposter syndrome until they hear other people talk about it. Perfectionism is maintained, in part, by shame, which naturally makes us want to hide and isolate. By pushing yourself to just talk with others about your struggles, or even just listen to them talk about theirs, you will realize that everyone struggles with some degree of self-doubt, and this awareness will help you treat yourself a bit more gently. 

Summary and Sign Up For More Tips

In conclusion, working to put your perfectionism in check doesn’t have to come at the expense of quality work, but it does take commitment and practice. 

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