The American Psychological Association define perfectionism as ‘the tendency to demand of others or of oneself an extremely high or even flawless level of performance, in excess of what is required by the situation’. If you take a look at my school reports from when I was a child, you’ll likely notice a common theme. Time and time again, my conscientiousness and perfectionism were highlighted as commendable traits – in fact, it’s hard to look through my reports and not find the word ‘conscientious’ repeated throughout. The standards I set myself were always much higher than those that I expected of others, I was not happy with ‘good enough’, I wanted to excel. Rightly or wrongly we often get pigeonholed as a certain ‘type’ of student at school. I was a ‘good’ kid, always polite, hardworking, and reliably consistent. When you hear these things often enough, you start to take it in as your own identity. 

During high school, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness (CFS/ME) and missed a lot of school, which disrupted my education. I was really determined to meet my goal of university though, and so continued to study from home. At one point, I took online classes so that I could keep up, even I wasn’t well enough to go into school. I find it interesting that I’m often called resilient for this, but I sometimes see it as me trying to cling on to my identity. I was told that I was a determined, conscientious, perfectionist and so that’s what I was. 

At university this behaviour continued. Throughout my degree I got involved with everything that I could to try and make the most of my experience and I worked as hard as I possibly could. I was working hard to live up to my conscientious overachiever label. This felt like it paid off when I was offered a 1+3 studentship which meant that I was given a funded Masters and PhD place. I knew how competitive these studentships can be, so I felt like I needed to succeed in order to prove that I deserved it. 

The problem is though, the more that you do, the harder it is to beat perfectionism. From the outside, it seems like a beneficial trait that can encourage personal success, but in reality, it can put you in competition with yourself. Almost like an addiction, you find yourself chasing the next “high” of a job well done and a pat on the back from those around you. At this point it feels like it doesn’t matter just how much energy you’re putting into ‘keeping up’. When people ask how you manage to do it all, you just laugh it off with a smile and a noncommittal response. Slowly the imposter syndrome begins to creep in and you start to think about how everyone will think you’re a failure if you start to slow down and can’t keep up.

The perfectionist mindset in academia is setting us up to fail. No matter how much we do, there will always be more that we could have done. In my experience, academic success seems to be scored on your research impact, number of citations, number of (and value of) grants, how many papers you can pump out, or how many awards you’ve won. We’re constantly pushing each other to work harder and celebrating overwork without necessarily considering the negative consequences. If your idea of becoming a ‘perfect’ academic is to constantly be working hard and achieving at the highest level, the goalposts are suddenly shifted when overwork becomes the norm. It makes this idea of reaching perfection even more unattainable. Now here’s the big secret: It’s not possible to run at 100% forever. 

It took me a long time to realise this and it’s not been easy. I found it scary to admit that I’m only human, and I worried that people would think less of me if I started saying no to opportunities. I felt anxiety about saying no or talking about my limits, to the point where I would repeatedly work myself to burnout, take a forced break, and then start again. When I did finally start saying no more often, I’d start experiencing major FOMO (fear of missing out) and I’d end up saying yes anyway. I decided, instead, to start with a couple of smaller things.

Strategies to Reduce Perfectionism 

I started by printing ‘aim for progression not perfection’ signs and stuck them up around my office during my PhD. I found this a good reminder that all progress is important – after all, you can’t write a thesis chapter until you’ve written the first couple of lines. It helped remind me to be kinder to myself, particularly on days where I felt like I wasn’t getting anywhere! 

I also kept a little plushie Wonder Woman toy on my desk, inspired by a lecturer who once lent me hers during a rough time. At first I took this as a sign that I can do anything I set my mind to, but over time it has evolved so that when I look at her on my desk I remember that I’m only human and I don’t need to be Wonder Woman – thank goodness, that would be exhausting!

While these things helped, it did sometimes feel like they were only superficial steps to overcoming my perfectionism. The biggest game changer for me was working through some Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) with a clinical psychologist. This was primarily to deal with some difficulties I was experiencing with health conditions but my approach to work was something that came up often. My psychologist challenged me to think about my personal values and whether I work towards values-based goals or against them. 

One of the key moments was when she asked me to think about how I would like to be remembered when I’m older. Do I want people to remember me for working all hours of the day, or do I want to be remembered as a kind, friendly person who cares about animals and loves exploring the beach? If I ask someone to describe me, do I want them to describe my work, or do I want them to talk about how I think I’m hilarious, that I love baking, and that I can quote most of Independence Day?  It was a huge moment and helped me realise that my priorities needed to change and I needed to be okay with ‘good enough’. 

Conclusion

Reducing my perfectionism hasn’t been easy and it’s something that I still need to actively work on, but I think I’m finally realising that striving for perfection isn’t sustainable. It can be hard when I find myself falling into old cycles of ‘Well I’ll just do one more thing tonight’ or ‘I’ll say yes to this extra thing this time, and next time I’ll say no’, but I am determined to keep challenging these thoughts.

I also believe we need to see more systemic changes throughout academia, and I think that line managers can play an important role here. Personally, I feel lucky that I’m seeing a different perspective at my institution. Recently I had my six-month probationary review and I was pleasantly surprised to read, ‘I am especially pleased to see Ashleigh taking more rest time too, in order to protect her wellbeing.’ It was unexpected to see my attempts to work on prioritising my wellbeing being raised as a point of strength by my line manager, but it felt good. Additionally, being around people who encourage you to think about your capacity (and limits) rather than blindly taking on more work and projects can make a big difference. It feels like these are good starting points for change and I’d love for them to be seen more widely in academia. We’ve likely still got a long way to go until the culture of overwork and perfectionism in academia changes but I have hopes that we will get there!

Dr Ashleigh Johnstone is a Lecturer in Psychology at Arden University, where she teaches cognitive psychology and research methods. Ashleigh is an advocate for inclusive and accessible teaching, and works to reduce barriers to higher education. Outside of work, she particularly enjoys playing with her dog on the sunny beaches of North Wales and finding new recipes to try out in her air fryer. 

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