Could depression and low self-esteem be partly due to our quest for perfection?

On the surface, striving for perfection sounds like a worthy goal: working hard, aiming for efficiency, pursuing excellence and being organised are all ideals to be applauded, in many areas of life. However, if you delve deeper into whether perfection actually exists, or whether it is an attainable goal, you may start to realise that aiming for it may be problematic.

While having high standards can be a good thing, an excess of perfectionist thoughts and behaviour can cause high levels of pressure and stress. This pressure can negatively affect self-esteem, and can in some cases even lead to increased anxiety and depression.

Case study

Being a perfectionist was important for Caleb*, and it had often served him well. As a fly-half in his school’s rugby team, being a talented kicker made him an invaluable player. His accurate kicks and high success rate in conversions got him noticed by a coach, and he was picked to train with a professional league.

Many things were going well for Caleb. As well as achieving on the field, he was used to attaining high grades in his academic subjects. His parents were incredibly proud of him, and often rewarded him with expensive gifts and holiday experiences. He was popular at school, had a lot of friends, and enjoyed socialising at parties over the weekend.

With all these great things happening for Caleb, I had to wonder what had lead him to seek out a counsellor. Slowly, things became a bit clearer. Firstly, Caleb told me he had been having trouble sleeping. We explored what had changed for him, seeing as he said he used to easily get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. Caleb explained that he often had mental lists of things that he needed to do, and these would swirl incessantly around in his mind, stopping him from getting rest when he most needed it. He would often write lists during the day – detailing how many hours he should dedicate to rugby training and what skills he needed working on, or what schoolwork to prioritise each day.

Secondly, Caleb explained how he felt he was leaving some assignments until the last minute, which was causing him a lot of stress and panic. He said he used to be very organised, and would tend to finish homework well in advance of its due date, but recently he was struggling to even get started on projects. He found it surprising that someone who saw themselves as a perfectionist was becoming such a procrastinator, and Caleb felt he didn’t recognise himself in this pattern of behaviour.