Why "Not Good Enough" Might be a Trauma Response

When I was 25, I ran my first and last marathon.

At the time, I was a Peace Corps volunteer living in Peru. I was fresh out of college, had no idea what emotions were, and was struggling abysmally. I didn’t really know what to do with myself, so I jumped on the marathon bandwagon with some of the other volunteers who were actual runners. I was training at 8,500 feet, and most of my runs were on the side of the only major road through the valley where runaway buses and dogs hungry for the taste of Gringa blood were common occurrences. 

I ran the marathon. I finished the marathon. And I felt…nothing. No sense of pride, no “hey, good job,” pat on the back. 

Years later, in a context I’ve now forgotten, I learned about perfectionism and how it actually looks in most women. I thought back to training for—and finishing—a marathon during what was arguably the most challenging two years of my life. “Huh,” I thought to myself. “I might be a perfectionist.” 

Most perfectionists don’t think they’re perfectionists

If you’re like most perfectionists, I might have just lost you—because most perfectionists don’t think the term applies to them. When I bring up perfectionism with my clients, they often look at me as if I’ve grown an extra head. After all, they’ve just been telling me how much they’re failing, or how little they’ve accomplished, or how disappointed they are in themselves. Their response goes something like: “If I were a perfectionist, I wouldn’t be sucking so much at everything,” or “I’m not a perfectionist, I just want to do a good job.” 

Perfectionism is a bit of a Catch-22 in that way. It usually arises as a way to protect a wounded sense of self. Because your sense of self is wounded, you don’t feel good about yourself. Because you don’t feel good about yourself, you can’t possibly be a perfectionist, because perfectionists look and feel…well, perfect.

So what is perfectionism? 

Because the word perfectionism doesn’t land super well with most perfectionists, it can be a hard thing to define and recognize. Here are some of the characteristics of perfectionism based on my own experience and the experiences of many of the women I’ve worked with:

Perfectionism is connected deeply to self-worth. 

When you’re a perfectionist, your self-worth isn't inherent. Instead, you have to earn your self-worth through achievement. And when perfectionism is at play, self-worth is ephemeral—it has to be re-earned through yet more achievement.

Perfectionism is about always raising the goalpost. 

Perfectionists set a goal, achieve it, and then skip the celebration, moving quickly on to the next thing that needs to be accomplished—just like I did when I didn’t pause to celebrate post-marathon. Perfectionists constantly raise the bar on themselves, and no amount of success is good enough. 

Perfectionism and “laziness” are flip sides of the same coin. 

Many women I work with don’t see themselves as perfectionists—they’re more likely to call themselves lazy, or say they just need to get their s**t together or work harder. But perfectionism and what our culture has labeled as laziness are often flip sides of the same coin. Perfectionists struggle to start things because they are afraid of the end product not being 100%. 

Minimizing is a type of perfectionism. 

Perfectionists often downplay their wins or achievements. Wins are written off as luck or circumstance, not as hard work and effort. Perfectionists often find it difficult to give themselves credit, instead saying “I could have worked harder,” or “that actually went well because of [whatever external factor is handiest].” 

Perfectionism and Trauma 

There’s usually a pretty strong connection between perfectionism and trauma. Perfectionistic tendencies often sprout in the soil of families where love, safety, and belonging are conditional. You received love and praise if you got straight A’s on your report card, but anything less and you were punished in some way. The punishment may have been outright, like being grounded, or more subtle, like a sense of love or approval withheld. 

Family systems that were unpredictable, critical, or emotionally unavailable are also a breeding ground for perfectionism. Since you were unable to control your environment, you learned to make your outsides look good in order to feel okay on the inside. Maybe it was falling into the role of the good student or the star athlete, or maybe you became exceptionally well-organized and tidy. This gave you a sense of stability in an unstable environment.

Perfectionism worked really well as a coping strategy in families where worth was not inherent. And perfectionism probably continues to work pretty well in some aspects of your life—it gets you that promotion you want, or helps you win the bike race, or snags that person you’ve been admiring. 

But you know as well as I do that there’s a cost to perfectionism. One of the main costs is the stability of your sense of self. If your sense of self is only as sturdy as your last success, you’re always going to be standing on an unsteady foundation. 

I still don’t think I’m a perfectionist

You’re probably still unconvinced, and that’s okay. Perfectionism can be very difficult to see in yourself. That’s part of its nature—it’s rewarded in our culture, and you’ve been rewarded your whole life for the accomplishments perfectionism has helped you attain. 

Perfectionism doesn’t feel like a wound based in a traumatic or difficult past. Instead it feels like a work ethic, or a “have to,” or something that would be impossible and terrifying to put down. 

Perfectionists often start sentences with “if only.” If only I work harder, push myself more, accomplish the next thing, then I’ll feel safe, and secure, and good enough. If that’s how your inner dialogue sounds, perfectionism might be a bigger part of your life than you previously thought. 

Ok, I might be a perfectionist. Now what? 

Like with so many things, the first step is noticing the pattern of perfectionism without judgment, and getting curious about how your particular flavor of perfectionism works. Here are a few questions you might ask yourself as you’re exploring:

• What are some of the thoughts that go along with perfectionism?
  
  
• If you’re not perfect, or if you make a mistake, what do you then believe about yourself? 
  
  
• Is your behavior motivated by your values, or is it motivated by a shaky sense of self-worth?  
  
  
• If you weren’t spending so much energy worrying about doing it wrong, what would you be doing instead? 

Exploring some of these questions with openness and curiosity is a gentle way to understand how perfectionism shows up for you, and to begin to separate perfectionism from values like hard work and mastery. This is also a way to bring self-compassion to the perfectionistic tendencies that are causing you suffering. 

When I see women struggling with perfectionism, the main thing I see is how much pain they are in, and how mean they are to themselves. Self-compassion is another big part of healing from perfectionism, but can feel like a huge reach for women who have spent their whole lives motivated by the stick instead of the carrot. This is where therapy can be really helpful in healing from perfectionism—sometimes, you need an outside perspective to start seeing yourself more clearly. 

Perfectionism Makes Sense as a Trauma Response

It makes sense that perfectionism is connected to trauma. It showed up as a way to keep you safe and give you a sense of worth and value when you weren’t getting that from the people around you. 

Once you have awareness of the link between trauma, worth, and perfectionism, those old defensive mechanisms that no longer serve you can start to shift. You’ll start to have more room for what really matters to you, whether that be running a marathon, or taking the less distinguished job because you love it, or giving yourself a much-deserved rest. 

If you want to start shifting away from perfectionism and toward values, I offer a free 15 minute phone call to women across Colorado who are interested in working with me. You can schedule your call on my website, and we can have a very imperfect conversation about perfectionism.