Are You an Undercover Perfectionist?
And how you might have missed it
You know that moment when you realise something about yourself that explains so much, that you’re kicking yourself that you hadn’t discovered it earlier?
That was me a few years ago when, with the help of my coach, I realised what was really underneath what I was struggling with at work.
As I traced back through my decisions, my burnout cycles, the stress, and the pressure - there it was.
Clear as day steering the ship.
Perfectionism.
Considering the years of therapy and self-reflection I’d already done, it felt blindsiding to realise.
But I’ve just finished reading The Perfection Trap (by psychology professor Thomas Curran), and am finally making sense of why so many of us are undercover perfectionists without even realising it.
1. You Think It’s a Personality Type (But Not Yours)
We usually think of perfectionism as a type of person.
The spreadsheet planner. The overachiever. The Monica from Friends.
So if you don’t match that stereotype it’s easy to count yourself out.
According to the book though, the research on perfectionism shows that it’s not really a personality or an identity because:
It’s not binary: It’s not you are or aren’t a perfectionist. It’s more of a spectrum. So the question is more how much, or how often am I being perfectionist?
It’s a lens: A worldview. A filter through which you see yourself and interpret the world around you, shaping your choices, lifestyle and how you move through the world.
It’s relational: It doesn’t just shape how you see yourself. It shapes how you show up with others like whether you hold back, overwork, or hide.
All of which mean it affects more of us than we think.
But is still easy to miss because of the kind of lens we assume it to be…
2. You Think It’s About High Standards
This is one of perfectionism’s biggest scams.
It cos-plays as a commitment to excellence, but just like that toxic colleague who takes the credit for all your work, a lot of what we attribute to and admire about perfectionism actually belongs to other traits like conscientiousness.
To show you what I mean, let’s imagine two people who are both prepping for a big presentation.
Leila’s conscientious.
She preps her slides, practices a few times, gets a good night’s rest. Maybe she’s a little nervous, but she trusts her work, and when it’s done, she moves on with her day.
Maya’s more perfectionist.
She rewrites her intro four times. Stays up late tweaking the slides.
During the talk, she’s scanning the room for signs she’s messing up.
After? She’s spiralling over every small thing she got “wrong.”
Because what we think perfectionism is:
An obsession with high standards.
And what it actually is:
An obsession with avoiding being seen as imperfect.
Are two very different things.
Conscientiousness is about doing things well.
Perfectionism is about avoiding the shame of getting it wrong.
And precisely the reason why it’s not as correlated with success as you might assume…
3. You Think It Makes People Successful
If I asked you to name a perfectionist, you might think of someone like Beyoncé or Serena Williams, both of whom are self-confessed perfectionists. Many of our favourite famous people talk about their struggles with perfectionism, so we assume that it’s just part of what it takes to succeed.
So if you don’t feel successful, or you’re feeling stuck or behind, it's tempting to overlook perfectionism as the reason why.
But here’s the part we don’t question enough:
What if they succeeded in spite of perfectionism rather than because of it?
Yes, Beyoncé and Serena might identify as perfectionists, but they also had other resources to act anyway through the fear: The talent. The confidence. The support.
Most people don’t act anyway. They stay stuck in it.
Without realising what is holding them back.
Because the truth is perfectionism isn’t about ambition.
It’s about protection.
Protection from:
Failure
Judgement
Disappointment
And the feeling that you might not be enough
All of which makes for a powerful survival strategy.
But a terrible success one.
Or as Virgil Abloh warned aspiring designers before he died:
“Perfectionism doesn’t advance anything, ironically.”
Looking back I can see how I was guilty of all three of these assumptions, and how they stopped me from being able to see the reality of how perfectionism was affecting me day to day.
It’s been an intentional effort, but bit by bit over the past few years, each day I’ve been practising remembering to take off the perfectionism tinted glasses and swap the lens.
And just like Virgil said, ironically, everything I was striving for has actually started to feel more possible.
Question For You
Think of something you said no last week - what you turned down, avoided, or procrastinated on.
What were you really trying to protect yourself from?