0:00

For the last few years, I've been hosting my podcast

0:02

on Spotify for podcasters. Not only

0:04

did it make it incredibly easy to keep

0:06

publishing episodes, allowing me to do everything

0:09

from recording to editing to publishing

0:12

all in one place and making sure that

0:14

it gets out to all of the different

0:16

platforms that it needs to go to, but it also

0:18

made monetization incredibly

0:21

easy. I used to have to cold email sponsors

0:23

and wait weeks until they got back to me

0:25

just for the deal to fall through, and with Spotify

0:28

for podcasters, they just match me with

0:29

the right sponsor and I get paid. Overall,

0:32

it's been a phenomenal experience, and if you're thinking

0:34

about starting a podcast, I couldn't recommend

0:37

them more. To get started, head over to

0:39

spotify.com slash podcasters

0:41

or download the Spotify for podcasters

0:44

app today. If you're a perfectionist, you need

0:46

to hear this. Perfectionism really

0:48

is about, at root, a

0:50

need and a desire to

0:52

prove

0:52

to everyone and all around me that

0:54

I'm good enough, that I'm worth something. That's

0:56

Thomas Curran. He's a professor of psychology and

0:58

the author of a landmark study that the BBC

1:01

hailed as the first to compare perfectionism

1:03

across generations. And in his brand new

1:05

book, The Perfection Trap, he lays out the

1:08

major problems with perfectionism, why

1:10

perfectionism is way more widespread

1:12

than we might think, and most importantly, how

1:14

to overcome it in your own life. And I had the opportunity

1:17

to sit down and talk to him. So the book is available

1:19

now wherever you get your books, but without further

1:21

ado, here's my conversation

1:22

with Thomas Curran. Thomas,

1:24

thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having

1:26

me, Greg. I always find it really interesting how

1:28

people land on the topics that they study.

1:31

So could you tell us a little bit more about why you

1:33

chose perfectionism and sort of how you

1:35

got to this point? I was putting a lot of pressure on myself

1:37

through university and graduate school.

1:40

I, you know, overcompensating,

1:42

I think, a little bit because I

1:45

grew up in a small town and

1:47

moving into sort of a more, I guess, middle class

1:50

world. I just saw everything and all

1:52

around me that people were so much better. They were

1:54

working so much harder. They were so much smarter. They

1:56

were so much brighter and I put a

1:58

lot of pressure on myself to try to.

1:59

compete eventually, I just burned

2:02

out. And when I reflected on that process,

2:04

it was really that kind of those kind of perfectionistic

2:06

beliefs, you know, must be perfect, must do better, must

2:08

always do more work harder that was creating

2:10

a lot of the psychological difficulties. So

2:13

I looked out into the field,

2:14

couldn't see much work in this area.

2:17

And what work there was didn't really take what

2:19

I believe to be like a big enough lens as

2:21

to say, looking in at more of a societal issue,

2:23

a societal problem. And

2:25

so I really started to delve into the topic in

2:28

a great deal of depth. And here I am 10 years

2:30

later. How do you go from this is a

2:32

problem I'm struggling with and, and,

2:35

uh, I'm recognizing in myself to

2:37

looking at the field, realizing not many people

2:40

are looking into it

2:41

to being the lead author

2:43

on the first major

2:45

study to, to really look at this across generations.

2:48

Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a long process.

2:50

Any, anything in psychological science

2:52

can be very granular, like tiny little building

2:54

blocks. So you do a lot of very intense

2:57

lab studies or maybe survey

2:59

based research, which look at a very specific

3:02

component of a very specific literature. And

3:05

that's the same for perfectionism. You know, we were really

3:07

in the weeds of this topic, looking at how

3:09

it impacts our mental health. What are the mechanisms

3:11

that lead it to, uh,

3:14

contribute things like depression, anxiety, burnout,

3:17

um, how do people perfectionists respond

3:19

to things like failure and setbacks. So all these great

3:22

studies and, and some fascinating

3:24

findings, but very minute, right? Very

3:27

in the kind of very weeds of this, of

3:29

the topic. And one of the things I was noticing in myself,

3:32

in my friendship groups, and also in the young

3:34

people that I interacted with on a daily

3:36

basis at university was that, you know, this

3:38

is a huge problem. Like, you know, everybody

3:42

around me seems to have some

3:44

kind of perfectionist tendencies, even if it's, you know, on

3:46

the lower end of the spectrum, but thinking

3:48

about how we look, how we appear, how we're performing.

3:51

And, you know, my students began to come

3:53

to me more and more with issues to do

3:56

with their mental health issues, to do

3:58

with the self-imposed pressures that were putting themselves. I was

4:00

under and trying to figure out how

4:02

they can manage those feelings. Really that was impetus

4:04

for me to be like, well, hold on a minute, like, yeah, we can

4:06

get into the weeds of this issue, but then there's something

4:09

going on here. And we need to take

4:11

a bigger picture, perspective

4:13

of this thing. So over the next

4:16

three or four years, I just set about a task just

4:18

collecting in my spare time, this wasn't

4:20

part of my day, even the weekends I

4:22

was just kind of looking at whether I can retrieve

4:24

as much data as I possibly could on

4:26

perfectionism. And then

4:28

to see what's happening over a period

4:31

of time. So can we detect any

4:33

changes in terms of

4:35

young people's reports of perfectionism? I

4:38

collected about 30 years worth of data. And

4:40

what we see is something remarkable. Perfectionism

4:43

is indeed increasing, this is kind of my hypothesis,

4:45

but it's a social element of perfectionism,

4:47

which is really, really spiking right now.

4:49

The sense that other people and everyone around

4:51

me expects me to be perfect. That's up about 40% since

4:53

the late 1980s. And that's

4:56

really concerning because socially prescribed perfectionism is

4:58

the element of perfectionism, most strongly

4:59

correlated with psychological

5:02

difficulties like depression, anxiety, self-harm,

5:04

et cetera. So that's really concerning.

5:07

And obviously that was, I guess that's what

5:09

brought a lot of media attention. That's why it's called a landmark

5:12

study. That's why I did the TED talk. And

5:14

ultimately that's why I wrote the book.

5:15

So I hear

5:17

that. And my immediate thought

5:20

would be that

5:22

perfectionism is on the rise, specifically socially

5:25

prescribed perfectionism, excuse me, perfectionism

5:28

is on the rise

5:30

as a result of social media. Have you found that that's

5:33

the cause primarily?

5:35

Yeah, this

5:37

is not a causal analysis that we did. It kind of

5:39

just looked at the trend. So, we

5:41

kind of definitively say if

5:44

it's one thing or the other, but certainly we do

5:46

believe that social media and other than social media

5:48

has had a huge impact on

5:50

young people's perceptions of

5:52

they need to be perfect. And

5:54

we kind of can make a reasonably

5:56

good guess that social media has a role to

5:58

play because it kind of...

5:59

starts to spike, it starts to really

6:02

curve upwards in about 2007 and that

6:04

kind of coincides with the advent of

6:06

iPhones and social media being transported

6:09

into our lives 24-7. So there's

6:11

definitely a role for that. But there are other pressures

6:13

out there, you know, schools have become more competitive,

6:15

colleges have become more competitive, the workplace

6:18

is more insecure, and it's become a lot

6:21

of self-imposed pressure for people to hustle and

6:23

grind. So, you know, parents

6:25

have also changed their behavior, parenting

6:28

behaviors and expecting a lot of young

6:30

people from an early age in response to those pressures

6:32

at school. So there's a whole collection of

6:34

things, but I think social media is probably

6:36

the primary driver. So

6:38

this is a good opportunity. One

6:40

of the things I loved about the TED Talk was it

6:42

kind of painted this larger picture of what perfectionism

6:46

even is for me. So

6:48

I've always viewed it as related

6:51

to specific tasks, right? So I might be

6:53

making a piece of content and if I'm a perfectionist,

6:56

I might struggle to get that thing out because I'm

6:58

looking at every single detail and trying to make

7:01

this perfect thing. But

7:03

something that you really sparked for me was

7:06

the connection.

7:07

One, it's much more insidious

7:11

than that. And two,

7:13

it's directly connected

7:15

to the systems that we've grown up

7:17

in. And so I look at

7:19

myself and I think of myself not as

7:21

a perfectionist. I don't really have a

7:23

problem putting something out that's 90%

7:26

of the way there instead of 100. But

7:29

when I think of perfectionism in the way that

7:31

you've painted it in the TED Talk and in your

7:33

book, I realize, oh, I

7:36

actually have a lot of perfectionist tendencies

7:38

that I didn't realize I had. So

7:40

could you walk us through kind of the differences

7:43

of how people tend to think about perfectionism

7:46

and what you found to actually be

7:48

the thing that people are dealing

7:50

with? For sure, yeah. So

7:53

there's a conventional wisdom that

7:55

perfectionism is about high standards, excessive

7:58

goals, and striving.

8:00

which is true, but actually

8:02

it's only half the story because perfectionism

8:05

really is about at root

8:08

a need and a desire to

8:10

prove to everyone and all around me that

8:12

I'm good enough, that I'm worth something, that

8:14

I matter. And so really

8:17

if we want to get into the root of this of

8:19

this issue we have to understand that it's perfectionism

8:21

is a form of deficit thinking,

8:23

it's a feeling that I'm not enough

8:25

and I'm not perfect enough. And

8:28

my whole

8:29

sense of self and being is really bound

8:31

up in this idea that I have to prove to other

8:34

people all the time that I'm worth

8:36

something, so I have to continually

8:38

get positive feedback, approval, validation

8:41

from others, that's a crucial component of the

8:43

perfectionist sense of self-esteem. And

8:46

so all of the effort, all of this striving, all

8:48

of these, you know, what we see on the surface,

8:51

this overwork and overachievement, is

8:53

really a

8:55

compensatory mechanism

8:57

for feelings of lack and feelings

8:59

of deficit. And that's why

9:02

it's important to differentiate perfectionism for

9:04

other things that look like perfectionism that aren't, things

9:06

like conscientiousness, meticulousness, diligence,

9:09

perseverance, all these really positive things that come from

9:11

a very active and optimistic desire

9:14

to grow and develop. Perfectionism

9:16

doesn't come from a very active and optimistic place, it

9:18

comes from a very defensive place, it comes from a

9:20

need to conceal and hide

9:23

the inner imperfections that we feel from the world around

9:25

us. That's the crucial distinction.

9:28

And you know, perfectionism isn't a black

9:30

or white thing, right? It's not a kind of, you're

9:33

not a perfectionist, right? It's very much

9:36

a spectrum. And so,

9:38

you know, some people score

9:40

high, some people are highly perfectionistic, like

9:42

they really worry about impression

9:44

management and concealing their imperfections

9:47

from others. Other people are less concerned

9:49

with doing those things, right? They're a bit low on the spectrum,

9:51

but they still have a little bit, right? And most

9:53

of us

9:54

are in the middle, kind of the average. And

9:57

what we're seeing in the data that we've

9:59

analyzed... is that that average is slowly creeping

10:01

up. So that more and more of us are becoming

10:03

more perfectionistic over time.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug

11:00

Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose,

11:03

treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

11:06

And you talk about, looking

11:09

at the larger systems attached to this, you

11:12

talk about the effects that, like, grading

11:14

culture in schools might have, or the

11:17

way that parents might interact

11:19

with their kids that may sort of, like, lead to some of these

11:21

things. Could you dive a little bit into,

11:24

just the larger societal factors that

11:27

lead to this sense of, I'm not

11:30

good enough, and I need to keep

11:32

sort of striving? But then attached

11:34

to that is the larger

11:37

view in society of,

11:39

like, how we define success, like how we

11:41

typically look at a person and say,

11:43

they're successful versus someone who's not.

11:46

Could you dive a little bit into that?

11:48

Absolutely. So this is kind of where

11:50

I landed, really, in my thinking when I was writing the book.

11:55

We can really look at all these different areas

11:57

of life, right, modern life, social media.

12:00

parenting, workplace,

12:03

schools, colleges. But

12:06

I think what we're missing when we look at each, take each of those

12:08

components individually is kind of

12:11

what binds them together. And what binds

12:13

them together is that we live inside a system

12:16

that needs us to

12:18

keep consuming, keep producing,

12:20

keep working more than it needs us to be

12:22

content. Now, why is that? Well,

12:25

because if we didn't consume, we didn't work, we

12:27

didn't produce, then our

12:29

economy would

12:31

disintegrate. It would spiral

12:33

into a recession, right? Because, you know, consumption's

12:36

down, jobs are lost, jobs are lost

12:38

means businesses close,

12:40

businesses close means more jobs are lost and all the rest

12:42

of it. So in a sense,

12:44

our whole economy really spins on an axis

12:47

of discontent, in the sense that

12:49

we need to continually update our existing

12:51

life circumstances in the search for something more,

12:53

right?

12:54

That's the kind of, that's the linchpin of

12:57

this whole economic system. Now,

13:00

don't get me wrong, this system has

13:02

worked for many, many decades and

13:04

brought us up to a period of abundance

13:07

where, you know, elevated

13:10

Western economies to a point which

13:12

we really enjoy now, the trappings

13:14

of abundance. We kind of solve the issue of scarcity,

13:16

I suppose, right? Life expectancy is

13:19

high, infant mortality is low. It's kind of brought

13:21

us out of a period

13:23

of economic

13:24

underdevelopment. However, unfortunately,

13:27

we aren't able to stop there. We have

13:29

to continually search for more, continually

13:31

do more, do better. And that means that

13:33

schools are competitive.

13:35

That means that colleges are competitive. That means

13:37

that advertising has become even more vociferous

13:40

and aggressive and

13:42

targeted, right? Through

13:44

not just analog advertising, but social media,

13:47

which is essentially an advertising device, you know? It

13:49

sells us these kind of images of perfect life, perfect

13:52

lifestyle, the car, the house, the family,

13:54

all the rest of it. And then

13:56

targeted us with ads so

13:58

that we try to improve and always up.

13:59

day. It's the same for the workplace.

14:02

There's a grind and hustle

14:04

culture where the impetus is on the individual, on

14:06

you to continue to work, to do more,

14:09

to lift yourself, to make something of

14:11

yourself in the world.

14:13

And all of this pressure, all of these pressures really

14:15

are weighing on young people

14:17

in particular, everybody, but young people certainly in particular.

14:20

And they're internalizing those pressures and

14:23

those expectations. It's precious to be perfect.

14:25

And I think that's what we're seeing in the rise of perfectionism.

14:28

I know you're a professor, so forgive me for trying to get some

14:30

free lessons here. But I want to

14:32

jump back to something you just said,

14:34

which honestly, sits

14:36

so perfectly in something

14:38

I've been personally struggling with. So you

14:40

said our whole economy spins on an axis

14:42

of discontent.

14:45

That is something I've

14:47

been coming to terms with more and more over

14:50

the last seven and a half years of doing this podcast.

14:52

Because one of my original goals was, let's

14:55

try to simplify the process

14:57

of living a better life and make

14:59

that as accessible both from a time

15:02

perspective, a cost perspective, and

15:04

from like a knowledge perspective as possible.

15:07

But I realized over the last

15:09

few years that there is only a demand

15:12

for this show, like this show is only

15:14

successful and only has listeners, because

15:17

there is a lack, because

15:19

the person listening to it needs

15:21

something because they're in a position that is

15:24

not as ideal as it could be. And

15:27

also because they have that sort of built

15:29

in desire and motivation to try to change

15:32

that.

15:32

How do you think of that

15:35

where your

15:37

book, the TED Talk, the work that

15:41

outside of academia, the work that you're doing

15:44

exists and is valuable because

15:48

there is a problem that needs to be solved,

15:51

meaning people are

15:53

suffering with this and people are in a system

15:55

that reinforces this.

15:58

And yes, that's great.

15:59

get to write a book, you get to do all

16:02

of these things and hopefully help in some ways.

16:05

But

16:06

in an ideal world, there would be no place

16:08

for your book.

16:09

How do you navigate that? This is

16:11

the whole

16:13

really, I guess, key message

16:15

of the book. There is no perfect, there is no

16:17

ideal world or

16:19

universe that we all exist in. We can

16:22

think about ways to improve the system.

16:23

We can think about ways in which we can curb

16:26

its excesses. And that's, by the way, what

16:28

used to happen throughout the 50s, 60s and

16:30

70s, there were many, many problems in those areas,

16:32

don't get me wrong, but we had this government

16:34

that was large and that was able to curb the excesses

16:38

of an economic system,

16:40

which left untreated, can lead

16:42

to all sorts of problematic

16:44

outcomes, in particular, wide

16:46

and gaping inequalities, which have massive

16:49

impacts on the quality of life for people lower

16:51

down the social hierarchy.

16:53

And I think

16:55

that's the best way to look at these problems

16:57

is not to try to search for what's the ideal

16:59

solution, but how are we able to navigate

17:03

what is a very

17:05

successful and useful economic system, but

17:07

manage it in ways that

17:10

it can help improve the lives of everybody. And

17:13

thinking, let's take technology, for instance,

17:15

because technology is coming through the pipeline now.

17:18

This is a very useful experiment because technology

17:22

could be used in two ways. It could be used to maximize

17:24

shareholder

17:25

return.

17:26

That's to say, you can put people out of work

17:28

because the productivity gains

17:31

that we get from technology means that the work of

17:34

people is not needed.

17:35

And we can take those productivity savings,

17:38

those economic savings and

17:40

siphon them up to the top. Or

17:42

we can actually use technology in a very different way. We

17:44

could use it to liberate ourselves from the drudgery

17:47

of work. That's to say that we can take the

17:49

productivity gains and give them to the people

17:52

who are going to benefit from that

17:54

work being taken away, give them more leisure, give

17:56

them time in their communities. So,

17:59

you know, it's not

17:59

really searching for a utopia, but it's about

18:02

trying to understand how we can use the

18:04

proceeds

18:05

of

18:08

growth in ways that improve

18:10

the lives of everybody. And I think one

18:13

of the key messages in my book

18:15

really is for us to accept

18:17

and understand that these feelings have a broader

18:19

context. So this is

18:21

not your fault. I think that's the first thing, to take the

18:23

way to personal responsibility away from these feelings.

18:26

Why can't you snap out of that feeling of never enough, where

18:28

you're supposed to feel never enough? That's just

18:31

how the system works. Just

18:33

understanding that is a lot of power. There's

18:35

a kind of liberation in

18:38

that discovery. And from there,

18:40

to try to manage our

18:43

perfectionism, to try to, within

18:45

that system,

18:46

try and let go, find more contentment,

18:49

as to say, accept ourselves, be more

18:51

self-compassionate. But also

18:53

additionally,

18:55

advocate for political

18:59

movements and changes that will

19:01

help use all of this abundance

19:04

of all this wonderful

19:06

society

19:08

that we do live in. And that does have its problems,

19:11

but we do technological innovation. We

19:14

live in life expectancy is high,

19:16

disease is low.

19:18

We do live in

19:20

a very advanced economy and society,

19:23

but we just need to find ways to

19:25

manage that economy

19:28

in ways that will improve the lives of everybody. And

19:30

I think there's no perfect solution, but

19:32

I think that's really the key message.

19:34

So something I love that you just touched

19:37

on, and is

19:39

becoming a larger part of my message

19:41

as well, is the conversation

19:44

around it's not your fault.

19:47

There is, I think, in personal

19:49

development as

19:51

an industry,

19:53

there is a need for that

19:55

industry to continue existing to paint.

19:59

the person who purchases

20:02

whatever coaching program or whatever it is, if

20:05

that doesn't work, it's because that

20:08

person didn't try hard enough or

20:10

because they didn't want it bad enough or whatever

20:14

list of reasons that it ultimately

20:16

boils down to, it's your fault and this

20:18

worked for other people.

20:21

And I find that there has been

20:23

a lot of healing

20:26

amongst my audience once I started

20:28

switching to a message

20:31

of like self, I call

20:33

it self-empathy. I think in your TED

20:35

talk you called it self-compassion, but

20:38

a message of like being

20:40

kinder to yourself at the end of the day, recognizing

20:44

that the system is kind of stacked against

20:46

you and you can do

20:49

what you can do, but there's going

20:51

to be an enormous

20:53

amount of sort of obstacles on your path to

20:56

try to be

20:57

better or do more,

20:59

whatever it is your specific goals are.

21:02

Could you talk to us a little bit about

21:05

how you've seen self-compassion

21:07

help

21:08

in this conversation of like being a perfectionist

21:11

and constantly striving for better,

21:13

more, greater, whatever

21:16

it might be? Yeah, I think the biggest thing for

21:18

perfectionists is that there's a sense and a need to

21:20

control everything, to perfect everything,

21:23

to constantly happen in the world. And

21:25

as you've just explained very eloquently, that

21:27

isn't the way the world works. The

21:30

world is

21:32

chaotic, it's unpredictable.

21:35

There are going to be things that come out of heartbreak,

21:37

grief, health scares. A global

21:40

pandemic

21:41

could come in and screw everything up and this has got absolutely

21:43

nothing you can do about these things, right? That's

21:46

just fate

21:48

and fate is nothing personal.

21:50

However, for the perfectionists,

21:52

there's a really difficult message to take because

21:55

they take everything personally, no matter what's

21:57

going on in the other world. Somehow it's their

21:59

fault.

21:59

and that's their responsibility to fix. And

22:03

I think for me, my own rehabilitation for perfectionism,

22:05

the biggest turning point was when I understood

22:07

that actually I can't control everything. And

22:10

that life is almost like trying to ride

22:12

a sailboat over the waves, right? You

22:14

have a general sense of where you're gonna go,

22:17

the direction you need to travel, but

22:19

conditions are gonna dictate how fast you get

22:21

there. And at what speed, and

22:24

there are gonna be days at

22:26

which you don't go anywhere because there's no wind

22:28

to take you. There are gonna be days when you're fighting

22:31

against that headwind so hard, you

22:33

feel like you're just gonna collapse. And then there are

22:35

gonna be some times when a tailwind comes and

22:37

pushes you merrily on your way.

22:40

And that's just the way that life is. And

22:42

I think sometimes being able to accept,

22:45

like you say, being pathetic when things don't go

22:47

quite to plan, knowing that that's just part and parcel

22:50

of the journey, is

22:53

almost like taking a sledgehammer to perfectionism. Like

22:55

this idea that we don't constantly have to happen and

22:57

control and perfect things all the time. And

23:00

we can let things go and they haven't gone quite so well,

23:03

is really, really therapeutic. So that

23:05

message of empathy, that message of compassion is

23:08

so crucial. So how have you gotten that to stick

23:10

for yourself? Because you used

23:13

the language just now

23:15

in your sort of recovery from

23:17

perfectionism. Something that strikes

23:19

me is this is such a societal

23:21

problem. This

23:24

is such a, it's almost something that starts

23:27

outside of the individual and then gets infused

23:29

into them as they navigate the world. So

23:31

when you have all of these external

23:35

influences that are driving you

23:37

towards thinking in this

23:39

way,

23:40

how do you get that message to stick

23:43

for you? That it isn't your job

23:45

to fix everything? That you don't need to constantly

23:48

strive for better and so on and so forth?

23:51

How do you get that to actually stick with you? Well, it's really

23:53

tough, but for the exact reason you've

23:55

just stated, because you live in a world

23:57

which makes that the almost the most

23:59

different.

25:59

situation, you become more involved and you become more confident

26:02

and you feel that that need to impression manage all the

26:04

time starts to slip away. And finally,

26:07

the final one is failure because our

26:09

relationship with failure in this society

26:11

is kind of screwed up really. We

26:13

recoil from it all the time

26:16

and we try to recycle

26:18

it all the time into things like growth or excellence,

26:20

right? Like, you know, if I fail, I've got to recycle

26:22

into growth. What can I learn? How can I develop? Which is good,

26:25

but it doesn't have to be the case all the time. And

26:27

I think if we can see failure not as

26:29

something to be challenged or removed,

26:32

but as something to be embraced as an important

26:34

part of our humanity, you

26:36

know, being a fallible human being, that's what it means

26:38

to fail. Then also, I think that that

26:41

shift in relationship is also really, really helpful.

26:44

But yes, it's an individual,

26:46

but it's also a societal problem to solve.

26:49

I really like that idea that failure doesn't

26:51

actually have to be a lesson. I think

26:54

that that's another thing that

26:56

in this industry, as you do, you read

26:59

the books and so on and so forth.

27:01

That's almost like the first thing they

27:03

say, right? It's like failure is

27:05

not failure as long as you learn from it. As long

27:07

as

27:09

it still has value for you,

27:11

as long as you choose to think

27:13

of it in a certain way.

27:15

And I kind of like the idea

27:17

of like,

27:18

it's just a thing. It doesn't

27:21

have to be a lesson. It doesn't have to mean

27:23

you stop. It doesn't have to really mean anything

27:26

other than in this moment.

27:29

I think, you know, they're so, so important.

27:32

And as my thinking

27:35

matured, as I move towards the end of the book, I do

27:37

put a sort of asterisk

27:40

by the growth mindset and this idea

27:42

that, you know, we always have to learn and develop from

27:44

our failures. I think often

27:46

in failure, actually, there's nothing to learn.

27:49

Like, you know, you did the right thing. You did everything

27:51

right. You repaired,

27:52

but you just had a bad night's sleep. Or you

27:55

came up against someone just more privileged,

27:57

you know, like this had.

27:59

more training, more money

28:02

spent, whatever. These are the things that you can't control.

28:04

Like as

28:06

a kid, I was a young athlete, but I was a very

28:08

late maturer.

28:10

So I didn't make it through the selection

28:12

process because kids who came

28:14

through, who were developing and maturing early,

28:16

were stronger fit, they struck faster.

28:20

Not my fault, nothing I could have done with that. I was

28:22

born with that in my G. Just

28:26

one of those things. Again, that's fate. And

28:29

fate's nothing personal, and that's really important. So

28:31

if we're constantly trying to turn

28:33

our failures into learning opportunities, growth

28:36

opportunities, then that doesn't

28:38

allow us a psychological space to

28:40

embrace that failure just part and parcel

28:42

of what it means to be a human being, as

28:45

part and parcel of what it means

28:47

to exist. You're gonna fail, I

28:49

think it's

28:50

the thing, you're gonna fail way more than you're

28:52

gonna succeed. Like 250 of the 251

28:54

riders in the Tour de France are

28:57

not gonna win the general classification.

29:00

49 of

29:02

the 50 people who start Wimbledon are not

29:04

gonna be the champion. We're

29:06

gonna fail way, way more than we're gonna

29:09

succeed. And I think understanding that

29:11

that's just part, that's what, that's so,

29:13

that failure is so intimately revealing of what it means

29:15

to be a human being is a really

29:17

good philosophy to take with you through life. And

29:20

that doesn't mean you can't learn from it. That

29:22

doesn't mean you don't wanna grow and develop, but

29:24

that just means that you don't have to do those things all the

29:26

time.

29:27

I think there's a part of this conversation

29:29

that in my mind,

29:31

we're kind of like floating around,

29:34

that when I think about

29:37

the industry that

29:39

I'm in and the people that are listening

29:41

to this show that are probably consuming

29:44

three other podcasts have read 15 different

29:47

books. So perfectionism, we talked

29:49

about how it's related to the task,

29:51

we talked about how it's a general sense of

29:53

like, I'm not good enough, I need to do

29:55

more and be more and win

29:58

sort of like recognition from all. others and

30:00

that validation.

30:03

But there is this

30:05

like conversation here

30:08

of what, like, how

30:10

do we pursue better

30:15

without it being a

30:17

symptom of perfectionism, I guess

30:19

is what I'm trying to ask. There's no problem

30:21

at all. You know, I think one

30:23

of the things we're trying to impress in my book is that, you

30:25

know, obviously, the biggest message is let's try and

30:28

slow down. Let's not try and

30:30

maximize. Let's accept that sometimes

30:32

good enough is good enough. But that doesn't

30:35

mean to say that you can't be ambitious.

30:37

That doesn't mean to say that you can't have goals for

30:39

yourself. That's just to say that you've got to understand

30:41

that you're not going to get there overnight.

30:43

And that, you know, it might take you longer than you

30:45

originally anticipate. And that's okay. And

30:47

you might hit setbacks and periods where

30:49

you actually feel like you're going backwards. And that's

30:51

also okay. You know, there's nothing

30:54

wrong with the with

30:56

the out, you know, having an outcome of God, and

30:58

even an aspiration or even a lofty goal, nothing

31:00

wrong with that whatsoever.

31:02

But I think we just got to engage in

31:04

the embrace of that goal that the

31:07

shooting for that goal in a much healthier way than

31:09

the perfectionist would, which is to put everything and

31:12

all of themselves into it and go in on

31:14

themselves and things don't go go to plan.

31:17

So as I said earlier, you know, this idea that being

31:19

conscientious, being diligent, being meticulous,

31:21

persevering, these are all really

31:24

positive, healthy ways to strive, because

31:26

they come from that active and very optimistic sense

31:28

of, you know, the the the the

31:30

journey, the process, it's the most important thing.

31:33

And you can let it go when it hasn't

31:35

gone quite the plan, knowing that it's just one

31:37

setback on a on a broader

31:40

journey, conscientious people are exceptionally good

31:42

at being able to

31:43

know when the line is, stop,

31:47

send something off, put it in, don't

31:49

procrastinate, don't worry, don't forensically

31:52

tinker, but just know, okay, I

31:55

worked hard, but the effort in I've produced

31:57

something, let's get it sent off and then to

31:59

the next thing in

31:59

So, you know, there are way healthier

32:02

ways of striving of perfectionism. And as I say, I think conscientiousness

32:04

being conscientious is wonderful. And

32:07

I think that that's the probably going

32:09

to be the hardest part of this for people listening

32:12

is getting from, or

32:14

rather better understanding

32:16

the line between this

32:18

is healthy ambition and drive

32:21

that's serving me in some way versus

32:24

this is actually doing damage

32:27

because I'm holding on to these things that are really important. And it sounds

32:29

like it's, it's just like everything

32:31

else

32:32

in life. Unfortunately,

32:35

a long process to learn how to do that for yourself and

32:38

to learn how to recognize that. I think

32:40

that the biggest lesson and this is important for young

32:42

people, but I'm going for everyone,

32:44

but probably kids and young people is to always

32:47

tell tell them straight up. This is going to suck. And

32:49

you're going to suck it is like when you

32:52

first try something new, because that's the whole

32:54

point. When you first

32:56

try something new, because that's the whole point

32:59

of the process of learning like you're not going

33:01

to pick something you're going to

33:02

pick up a guitar, but like Hotel California straight

33:04

off the bus, it's not going to happen. It's

33:06

going to be years and years of arduous

33:10

deliberate practice.

33:11

And if you're up front about that straight out the gate,

33:14

then that is the most important thing you can

33:16

be because that instantly kind of

33:18

makes people feel that it's normal

33:21

and natural to struggle that there

33:23

is they're not going to be the, you know, it's

33:25

kind of person they see or idolize straight

33:27

away. It's going to take time. So,

33:31

you know, I think that's I think that's super, super

33:33

important message for people

33:35

to know and not to get put off by that

33:38

not to get, you know, not, not

33:40

to get disenfranchised by the process

33:41

actually embrace the process. See

33:44

the process is actually the, you

33:46

know, the enjoyable purpose

33:48

filled part of

33:50

just learning something new. So,

33:53

yeah, I think that's that would.

33:55

That's a good way to look at.

33:56

So this makes me think of a

33:59

I'm sure everyone listening

34:02

to this has seen it by now. It's a very old

34:04

clip. I believe it's from Ira Glass

34:07

when he talks about the

34:09

gap between when you're

34:11

starting something creative and you have, I

34:15

think he uses the term taste, but you have like

34:17

a sense of like what it should be and

34:19

how it could be and you have a good

34:21

vision for it. But there's a gap between

34:25

your vision and what you want to execute

34:27

versus the actual skills that you currently

34:29

have and where most people

34:31

end up giving up is in that gap because

34:34

have the vision, you want to execute this specific

34:37

thing and you just don't have the like technical

34:39

capability to do it yet.

34:41

But it's kind of a similar message

34:44

where if you're honest with people

34:46

like, hey, this is going to suck. Here's

34:48

what you need to do. But this is this is really

34:50

going to suck along the way. And they

34:52

start to walk into that with

34:55

the expectation of like, oh,

34:57

this is the suck that they warned me

34:59

about.

35:00

I feel like it almost makes it easier to

35:02

get through that part of it. And

35:04

again, like this goes back to the world, you know, we're

35:06

just bombarded with all of these kind

35:09

of images of people are super talented, super

35:11

skilled. And what we don't see, what we're not shown

35:13

is like the

35:15

process to get there, which

35:18

is just, you know, could be really,

35:20

really tough and is really, really tough. You

35:23

know, yeah, yeah. Okay, some people are really naturally talented,

35:25

of course. But nevertheless,

35:27

for most people, when you see them

35:30

doing these amazing things, you

35:32

know, and if there's an important, there's an instinct

35:34

to think, oh, that must be like, really,

35:37

you know, that's that looks cool. I want to do that. And,

35:39

you know, you get a couple of days in and you're like, oh,

35:41

this is just sucks. So I think

35:43

also we just have to be open and honest about

35:46

and I think that's happening actually in modern culture, you

35:48

know, people are opening up about the struggle,

35:50

they are talking more candidly

35:53

about how hard it is to be a content creator

35:56

to be an athlete to be a musician,

35:58

you know, these things.

35:59

don't just happen overnight, but it does take

36:02

time. And I think we just need to keep hammering home that message.

36:05

I think if I could just quickly go back

36:07

to something that you brought up earlier, and I think it's really important

36:09

when you say, where's the line? I

36:12

think it just got me thinking,

36:15

we often also don't talk about the reverse side of this

36:17

equation too, that when we go on that journey and we do

36:20

hit those moments of success, right? Because

36:22

we are gonna hit moments of success.

36:25

The key, if you wanna

36:27

really get into whether you're a perfectionist or not, the

36:29

key to it is how do you respond to those successes?

36:32

Because if you respond to that success with relief,

36:34

that's to say, thank God I

36:36

didn't screw up this time. Like I performed

36:38

how I was expected to

36:41

perform.

36:42

Then really as a telltale sign, you're a perfectionistic

36:44

person, because they just cannot

36:46

enjoy the wins that they have. There's always

36:48

something more. That's kind of the baseline they

36:50

set for themselves. So that's how they expect it

36:52

to. So essentially there's no kind of pride. There's

36:55

no like, amazing, this is great. Look

36:57

at how far I've come. It's like, okay, yeah, fine.

36:59

That's how I should have behaved or should have performed.

37:02

I need to keep going. And thank goodness I didn't screw up.

37:04

So I think that's also a good

37:06

barometer of the line here between the perfectionist

37:09

and also someone that has a healthy way to

37:11

strive that when they do have those successes, make

37:14

sure you go overboard with praise

37:16

for yourself, just as you would be compassionate

37:18

with yourself when you fail, like amazing,

37:20

this is great. This is a milestone. Reward

37:23

yourself and don't be afraid to do that and

37:26

enjoy it. Really, really embrace it because

37:29

your perfectionism will tell you all the time that you

37:31

should enjoy those things. Satisfaction

37:33

is fleeting and there's always the next thing. But

37:36

just take a moment to enjoy that moment

37:38

because it's just as important

37:41

as being self-compassionately.

37:42

I just wanna say I feel personally attacked

37:45

because that idea

37:48

of I succeed

37:50

at something and in my mind it's,

37:53

well, yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do. That

37:55

this is where I should have been the whole time. So

37:57

it's not something worth celebrating. It's not something.

38:00

worth even stopping to recognize, but

38:02

then being so incredibly hard

38:04

on myself when I don't meet that artificial

38:07

bar. That

38:09

has been the definition of my career

38:11

so far. So definitely

38:13

need to take that advice myself. Something

38:16

I really love as well as this concept,

38:19

and

38:20

maybe it's not even a concept, but the way that you just

38:22

described it, of viewing success

38:24

and failure as moments.

38:27

So moments of success, moments

38:29

of failure, something about that

38:32

phrasing makes both feel

38:36

ephemeral in a way.

38:40

They're going to pass, whether it's success

38:42

and we're happy or failure and we're sad, both

38:45

are going to pass. Something

38:48

about that feels really freeing to me.

38:50

Yeah. There's something

38:52

very liberating, actually, again, with letting

38:55

the flow of life wash over you

38:57

and ensure, making sure that,

39:00

as I said, when those moments of success come

39:02

into your life, that you really

39:04

grasp them

39:05

and you relish them. And again,

39:07

when those moments of setback and failure come into your life,

39:09

that again, you're able to

39:12

see the joy,

39:15

but certainly the satisfaction

39:20

of being on the journey and knowing

39:22

that that failure means that you've actually pushed yourself

39:25

out there, that you've actually tried to do something. And

39:27

even though it hasn't gone well on that occasion, that's

39:29

still a reinforcement of

39:31

the journey that you're on. So again,

39:34

these are moments and they will come and

39:36

go, but it's so, so important in

39:38

those moments to recognize that how we psychologically

39:42

respond to them has a massive

39:45

impact on our wellbeing and our

39:47

sense of purpose. And

39:49

as we've discussed, it's so important to

39:51

deal with them in healthy ways.

39:54

Let's dive back into the

39:58

sort of like your research on...

39:59

perfectionism, you break it up into three

40:02

elements. So we've been talking a lot about socially

40:05

prescribed. The other two are self oriented

40:07

and other oriented. Could you explain

40:09

what those are? And and how

40:12

you sort of see them playing out in day to day life? Yeah,

40:15

so self oriented is what most people

40:18

would conjure up in their minds. I when they think about

40:20

perfectionism, the kind of quintessential over

40:22

striver, perfectionism comes from within.

40:24

So I need to be perfect and

40:26

nothing but perfect. And when I haven't met

40:29

that excessive

40:29

standard, I'm very harshly self critical of

40:32

myself. Other oriented perfectionism

40:34

is perfectionism is turned outwards

40:36

onto other people. So that, you know, I

40:39

expect you to be perfect. And if you're

40:41

not perfect, then I'm very punitive and very

40:43

judgmental. And I'm going to let you know. And

40:47

combined alongside socially prescribed, which

40:49

is the sense of other people expect me to be perfect.

40:52

This is kind of broad in

40:54

its most broadest sense, our understanding what

40:56

perfectionistic,

40:58

perfectionistic people experience, you know,

41:00

experience thoughts and feelings associated with self, social

41:03

and other. They

41:05

expect experience emotions and thought

41:08

process that are associated with those three elements

41:10

of perfectionism. And so the kind

41:13

of big breakthrough with this model is really to

41:15

move us away from seeing perfectionism

41:17

as just an individual characteristic that

41:20

you know, we suffer, we manage

41:24

with from within us. And that actually,

41:26

you know, there's a much broader context of perfectionism,

41:28

which has elements related to

41:31

how we interact with other people. So those other

41:33

related in perfectionism, that's socially

41:35

prescribed. So that was

41:37

kind of the big breakthrough this model. And it's a really

41:40

super useful model. Because if you talk to people,

41:42

they won't just say, Oh, you know, I expect

41:44

myself to be perfect, they will also tell you that

41:46

they expect other people to be perfect, but also that the

41:49

world around them expects you to be perfect.

41:51

So there's a much broader. So much

41:53

broader personality than just coming from within. So

41:56

do you find that people tend

41:58

to have elements of involve three

42:01

or is it sort of like a

42:03

spectrum where you're maybe 60%

42:05

self-oriented, 75% socially

42:08

prescribed? Like how have you found this playing out?

42:11

Yeah. So as I mentioned, the

42:13

elements of perfectionism really exist on a spectrum. So they're

42:16

not kind of a perfectionist, a non-perfectionist, but like,

42:18

you know, there's a kind of mean and some people

42:20

saw those, some people got high. And that's also, that's

42:22

a really interesting about perfectionism actually. There's no one size

42:24

fits all, right? So you could be high in self,

42:27

low on social, maybe a little bit in the middle

42:29

of other, but you could be another constellation

42:31

of those three things. You know, every, every

42:33

perfectionist person has a slightly different constellation

42:35

of, you know, factors. I myself would probably

42:38

score very high in social, moderate

42:41

on self and not very high on other. I'm

42:44

sure

42:45

your listeners could probably place themselves

42:47

on,

42:48

you know, where they, where they feel they might be on the spectrum

42:50

of, of their own kind of perfectionism.

42:53

So yeah, I mean,

42:55

it's, it's, it's a useful framework. We,

42:58

with that framework, we can begin to then examine relationships

43:00

with seeing these three elements and other things like,

43:03

you know, depression, anxiety,

43:06

rumination, all of these kind of outcomes

43:08

that we might think are related to perfectionism. So

43:12

it's not just a tool that, you know, allows us to measure

43:14

where we are ourselves, but also allows us

43:16

to do really cool research looking at what it predicts.

43:19

And so once we, which

43:21

I really love this framework. And

43:23

prior to this call, I sat down and was just sort

43:25

of honestly thinking about sort of where

43:28

I fit into it.

43:30

And I definitely have a very high sort

43:32

of self oriented. I'm

43:35

not, I think the socially prescribed

43:37

is the part that I'm most surprised

43:39

about because I wouldn't have thought

43:43

that I, I had a very

43:45

high degree of that. But after listening

43:47

to the TED talk, going through the book, like I

43:49

definitely think that I do. And

43:52

similar to you, like I think I'm pretty low on

43:54

sort of other oriented.

43:56

But

43:58

I have been thinking a lot of. about

44:00

how that affects, like, okay, I've

44:02

mapped myself, mapped myself

44:05

in this framework,

44:07

and I'm recognizing how

44:10

I might be more of a perfectionist. And

44:12

I think I am, I have these tendencies, and it

44:15

might come from these places. Like I'm doing this

44:17

work to think about how I function

44:20

in this way. How does

44:22

that affect my

44:24

ability to perform on a day-to-day

44:26

basis? How does that affect my

44:29

productivity? How does it affect my procrastination,

44:32

my relationship to procrastination? These

44:34

are all topics I've been thinking about and talking a lot

44:37

more about on the podcast, but I'd love to hear your

44:39

take on it.

44:40

Yeah, so that's the cool thing about

44:43

being able to measure perfection in this way, is as I said,

44:45

we can really look at those relationships. We

44:47

can look at how it interacts with

44:50

procrastination, mental health,

44:53

elements of performance, for instance.

44:59

And what we find in that research is some

45:02

unbelievably curious stuff, which

45:04

you wouldn't necessarily expect when

45:06

you think about perfectionism. So let's take

45:09

performance, right? Like when

45:11

we look at the data between perfection and performance, we find

45:14

that socially prescribed self-oriented and over-oriented

45:17

perfectionism have very weak relationships,

45:19

and in some cases, no relationship with performance.

45:22

And that's kind of like really curious because

45:25

you'd think, wouldn't you, that at the very least, perfectionism

45:28

would help us be more successful, right? Yeah, we know it

45:30

has this emotional baggage and all the rest of it, but

45:33

shouldn't it push us to do

45:36

great things? All that work or that

45:38

effort? And we don't see that in the data.

45:41

And the reason is twofold. One, because when

45:43

we look at the research, we find that perfection is highly correlated

45:45

with burnout. Right, so perfectionists

45:47

push themselves really hard with the push themselves too

45:49

hard. So that impacts on their performance, clearly.

45:52

But the second reason, and going back to this

45:55

idea of procrastination that you mentioned,

45:57

is that we also see in the literature perfectionist

46:00

of world-class self-sabotages.

46:03

So if you put perfectionist

46:05

in a lab and you say, okay, here's a task, let's

46:07

say you give them a cycling task. You say,

46:09

you've got to cover this amount of distance at this amount of

46:11

time, go. You should be able to do it based on your

46:13

fitness, go. They try really, really hard

46:15

to meet the goal. And then

46:18

you tell them no matter how well they did at the end, you failed,

46:20

or you didn't make the goal. You just

46:22

fought slightly short.

46:25

And then you say, but don't worry, you

46:27

had a second chance. So let's try again.

46:30

Now, something extraordinary

46:33

happens at that moment, because what perfectionists

46:35

do after the first failure

46:37

is on the second attempt, they just withhold their

46:39

effort. They just say, no, I'm

46:41

out. Like,

46:43

I'm not gonna try, because you can't fail at something you

46:45

didn't try. And remember, perfectionists,

46:48

you know, intimately responsive

46:50

to failure. You know, failure

46:52

is what

46:53

really unveils their inner flaws

46:56

and deficiencies that they're trying to conceal. So

46:58

that shame, that guilt, that embarrassment they feel is

47:00

so fierce that if

47:03

they think they're gonna fail, they will

47:05

hold their efforts. Now, non-perfectionistic

47:07

people do the opposite. Their

47:10

effort doesn't change at all. If anything, it goes

47:12

slightly higher on the second attempt. And

47:15

so what we think is happening here is

47:17

that perfectionism, just like that relationship

47:19

with Bernard,

47:20

we see strong relationships, things like

47:22

avoidant behaviors, procrastination, self-sabotaging

47:25

behaviors, we're kind of trying to avoid feeling

47:28

those really intense emotions. But of course, they're

47:30

just damaged by the passage of time. Things

47:33

come in late, things are sloppier than they would have been

47:35

if they're giving themselves time on task. And

47:37

that compromises their performance. So

47:40

this is the really core thing about this framework.

47:43

I started this talk by saying

47:45

how much I was interested in the bigger picture. But

47:47

actually, when you get into the weeds of this topic, there's also some

47:49

fascinating stuff. And you see perfectionism

47:52

has some really interesting relation of burnout, procrastination,

47:54

avoidant behaviors, which means they're no

47:57

more likely to succeed.

47:59

So it's all pain basically for no real

48:02

gain.

48:03

There's

48:06

so much that I've been thinking about in my own personal

48:09

work life that this

48:12

is crossing over with. But

48:16

something I've noticed about myself, and I think this is probably

48:18

true for many of my listeners, is

48:21

that I am very, I've

48:24

been using the word strategic.

48:26

So I try to understand

48:28

the situation as much as possible before jumping

48:31

in. I try to do as much research

48:33

as I can before jumping in. And

48:36

picturing myself in that

48:38

lab situation that you just outlined, I

48:41

think my initial response would

48:43

probably be to withhold effort, but

48:46

in the sense of trying

48:48

to figure out what was the metric that led

48:50

to failure. And if that

48:53

information isn't disclosed,

48:55

then

48:56

sort of just being frustrated and to your

48:58

point, not trying as hard.

49:01

I have a friend, someone I'm really

49:03

envious of in a lot of ways that I look up

49:05

to in a lot of ways, who I

49:07

describe as being incredibly intuitive.

49:11

So almost polar opposite of me,

49:13

just kind of jumps into things and

49:16

it tends to work out really well

49:18

most of the time. And obviously these aren't

49:20

extremely high stakes things, but there

49:23

is something to, okay, I have

49:25

this much more strategic personality, how

49:28

do I start to lean more into

49:30

the intuitive side and stop

49:32

over analyzing things as much as

49:35

I currently do, but still get the benefit

49:37

of, like there's obviously value in

49:40

looking at

49:40

what happened, how things learning

49:43

from it, so on and so forth. So how do I like balance

49:45

that? Well, it's really interesting

49:47

you bring up overthinking because overthinking

49:50

is really such

49:52

a,

49:52

it consumes

49:54

perfectionist people, and again,

49:58

I myself am a perfectionist. When I was...

49:59

preparing for the TED talk that I did,

50:02

I just kept overthinking it all the time.

50:05

It wouldn't leave my mind when I was in the bath,

50:07

when I was going to bed,

50:09

when I was at work, I just could not stop thinking

50:12

about this talk that was coming up because I was

50:15

so scared about screwing

50:17

up,

50:18

right? And this is why we overthink, because

50:21

we think it's the most fail safe method

50:24

of making sure that everything goes to plan, right?

50:26

But if we dot every

50:29

I, cross every T, if we cover absolutely

50:32

all bases, then we

50:34

will not screw up, right? And

50:36

I have to say, I have

50:39

never absolutely bombed a massive presentation

50:41

using the overthinking method,

50:44

but I've never nailed one either.

50:46

And this is the thing about

50:48

overthinking. Yes, it can help us to a certain

50:50

extent,

50:52

make sure that we're not complacent

50:55

and that we don't forget our lines and all the rest of it, all

50:57

those things that we worry about in our mind's eye,

50:59

but it stifles the creativity

51:02

at the same time. And that kind of

51:04

really genuine sense of openness,

51:07

being ourselves, assuming our

51:09

true personality is on the stage. I'm

51:12

giving the example of a talk here, but it could apply

51:14

to any area of our life. And

51:17

so really, again, it's about trying to strike

51:19

that balance between preparing,

51:21

but also allowing ourselves psychological

51:24

flexibility to go

51:26

with the flow of

51:27

what's happening around us and

51:29

to be ourselves, essentially. And

51:33

so, again, it goes back to

51:35

this kind of

51:36

process that we've been talking about, trying to just

51:39

let life in a little bit, let things

51:41

happen, that the flow of life kind of surround

51:43

us,

51:44

go through us,

51:45

and almost embrace that unpredictability,

51:48

because that's where I think we find

51:50

ourselves in a zone where we feel most

51:53

human

51:53

and that we're able to flourish and

51:55

thrive. So

51:58

overthinking is not always bad.

51:59

but we also have to leave space for

52:02

our creativity to come into.

52:04

So as we wrap up,

52:07

so we've been mentioning a lot the 2018 TED

52:10

Talk. That was, as I said,

52:12

really eye-opening for me. And

52:15

it led to, or maybe didn't lead

52:17

to, but it

52:18

occurred before the book. So you've

52:20

since written a book, it's publishing next

52:23

month, or rather,

52:25

excuse me, it's publishing today.

52:29

What changed between the

52:31

two?

52:32

So you did the TED Talk. I

52:34

don't know how much time was between the TED

52:36

Talk and you starting writing, but like what

52:39

have you seen that's shifted either in

52:41

the data or just in your thinking on

52:43

it?

52:44

Well, the data has shifted

52:46

markedly. So I did

52:49

that talk on the basis of my research

52:51

paper. We're

52:53

four or five years down the line now since that paper's

52:56

published and I updated the data for the book.

52:58

And we are seeing socially-prescribed

53:00

perfectionism really start to skyrocket now. So,

53:03

you know, this book is even more important, I

53:05

think, than it was then. But

53:07

I've also learned a lot.

53:09

And one of the things, if I can critique

53:11

my own work, one of the things that I would critique

53:13

is that I put a little bit too much emphasis in that talk

53:15

on our obsession with perfectionism, when

53:18

I think it's really a societal obsession

53:20

that's transmitted through our own behaviors. And

53:23

so the book really is a kind of a maturation

53:25

of that thinking that focuses

53:27

more heavily on the society

53:30

and how society works and why

53:32

it is that society makes us feel like we need to

53:34

be perfect. And from there,

53:37

following that through to its logical

53:40

conclusion, right, because many people talk about society

53:43

and pressures in the outside world, and

53:45

then they pivot to personal accountability and

53:47

personal responsibility.

53:50

I wanted to follow the social critique

53:52

through to its logical conclusion, which is

53:54

to say, yes, there are things we can do as individuals,

53:57

but

53:57

there are also things we must do as a society.

54:00

because we're only going to really

54:01

solve our shared tension if we

54:03

act collectively. And so

54:06

really that was a kind of crystallization

54:08

of the way I've been thinking in the last few years as

54:10

I wanted to write a book that really gives

54:13

us, is compassionate

54:15

and gives us permission

54:17

to embrace and accept ourselves knowing that

54:19

this is not our fault, that there's broader context

54:22

he's feeling. So that's basically

54:24

where we are with it. So the book is called The

54:26

Perfection Trap, embracing the power

54:28

of good enough. It's available now wherever

54:31

you get your books and of course links to

54:34

commonly used links are in the description

54:36

of this episode. Is there anything I didn't

54:39

ask you that you feel you want

54:41

to share before we go? Greg, no, that was great.

54:43

We've covered a little bit ground there. Well, thank you

54:46

so much for taking the time.

54:47

If it's all right with you, I'm also

54:49

going to include some links to connect

54:52

with you directly, whether that's your website or social media

54:54

or whatever it might be. But everything

54:56

is in the description of this episode. So

54:58

Thomas, thank you so, so much for spending time

55:00

today. This was an incredible conversation. I

55:03

had a great time, Greg. Thank you. And I can

55:05

just say you have a very, very,

55:07

very good interview style. That was very relaxed,

55:10

very direct questioning, very clear.

55:13

So I just wanted to say I really enjoyed

55:15

that discussion. I appreciate that. Thank you. So

55:17

Thomas's book, The Perfection Trap is available

55:19

now wherever you get your books. Or of course, you can

55:21

just click the link in the description of this episode.

55:23

But I want to hear from you. Leave a comment before

55:25

you go. Let me know what your experience with perfectionism

55:27

has been. Now that you've heard the episode, do you consider yourself

55:29

a perfectionist? I want to hear. Leave a comment before

55:31

you go. And with that said, remember that

55:34

all big changes come from the tiny

55:36

leaps you take

55:37

every day.