How to Break Free from Perfectionism

Stop procrastinating and start living your values

Hi friends! This week we dived into our thoughts about Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and that didn’t feel like it warranted a full post on it. Listen here if you haven’t!

So instead, we are making a mental health guide about PERFECTIONISM.

Someone reached out after hearing me mention this topic in our "mental health advice that changed our lives" episode, asking if we could dive deeper. So here we are.

The internet is full of "just start before you're ready" advice. But when it comes to perfectionism, most posts miss the deeper psychological complexity. While "done is better than perfect" sounds nice, the reality of breaking free from perfectionist patterns is much more nuanced.

Below I'm going to share the highlights from our conversation. For the full experience, including more personal stories and practical tips that go beyond what we covered in the episode, upgrade your subscription as our mental health guides are for paid subscribers only.

Luckily, we are running a sale right now. For the next month if you pay for a year you get 25% off!

Perfectionism 101: Is This You?

Before we dive deep, let's start with the basics. You might not even realize you're dealing with perfectionism—it's sneaky like that.

When Sam and I were preparing for this episode, we realized how many people don't recognize their own perfectionism because they think it means being good at everything. But here's what it actually looks like in real life…

• You spend way more time planning than actually doing things, like researching workout routines for weeks but never actually working out, or bookmarking 47 articles about starting a business but never taking a single business step.

• You get stuck in this "waiting to feel ready" trap. Your resume sits untouched because you need to figure out the perfect format first. You haven't applied to jobs because you want to improve your skills more. You're essentially waiting to feel confident before you begin, which keeps you in endless preparation mode.

And when we do mess up? It feels catastrophic. A typo in an email ruins your whole day. Getting constructive feedback feels like a personal attack. Small mistakes snowball into evidence that we're terrible at everything.

Here's another pattern we see constantly… all-or-nothing thinking. You’re either doing things "all the way" or not at all. You're either meal prepping perfectly for weeks or eating takeout every night. You're either working out every single day or completely sedentary. There's no middle ground.

If you're reading this thinking "Okay, some of this sounds like me, but I'm not a perfectionist because I'm messy/lazy/disorganized," I have (maybe?) unfortunate news for you—perfectionism often looks like procrastination or avoidance, not actually being perfect at everything.

Not everyone is a Martha Stewart type of perfectionist

The Hidden Truth About Perfectionism