Wanting to do well is generally something we encourage in our young people. We want students to care about their learning, take pride in their work and strive to achieve their best.
But what happens when wanting to do well becomes needing to get it right?
Recent research published in Psychological Bulletin has highlighted a significant rise in perfectionism among young adults over recent decades. The research, which analysed more than 300 studies involving over 80,000 college students, found increases not only in the standards young people set for themselves, but particularly in what researchers describe as perfectionistic concerns – including fear of making mistakes, fear of negative judgement and doubts about their own actions.
Having worked with students for more than a decade, I can’t say these findings surprise me.
While I haven’t formally measured it, I would estimate that perfectionism now plays a role for at least one in three of the students we work with. When I first started working with students, it was something we encountered far less frequently.
What is perhaps even more interesting is that many of these students don’t realise they are perfectionists.
Perfectionism doesn’t always look like perfectionism 
When we think about a perfectionist, we might picture the highly organised student who spends hours making sure an assignment is flawless, wants top marks and is never satisfied with their work.
And yes, sometimes it looks exactly like that.
But often it doesn’t.
Perfectionism can also look like a student who:
- can’t get started on an assignment
- procrastinates until the last minute
- continually rewrites or edits their work
- spends far too long on relatively minor tasks
- constantly seeks reassurance
- struggles to make decisions
- becomes highly distressed by mistakes
- avoids asking questions because they don’t want to appear as though they don’t understand
- won’t submit work because it isn’t “good enough”
- runs out of time in tests and exams.
We have written before about some of the irrational rules and beliefs that can sit behind perfectionism in The Superstitious Flavour of Perfectionism. What we continue to see, however, is that perfectionism doesn’t always present in ways that parents, teachers – or even students themselves – might recognise.
Sometimes the presenting problem appears to be organisation or time management, when something quite different is sitting underneath it.
I worked with a Year 12 student last year who I had been supporting for almost two years. He was regularly running out of time when writing English essays, and initially this appeared to be a problem with writing speed and time management. It was only when I started asking much more detailed questions about exactly what he was doing while writing that we discovered something important. After writing every sentence, he was going back and rereading everything he had already written before allowing himself to continue. He wasn’t consciously thinking, I’m a perfectionist. He was trying to make sure everything was right. But in doing so, his need to get it right was actually preventing him from demonstrating what he knew.
Healthy striving or perfectionism?
There is an important difference between having high standards and perfectionistic thinking. A student with healthy high standards might think:
- I want to do well. I’ll prepare as best I can, give it a go, learn from the feedback and improve next time.
Perfectionistic thinking can sound more like:
- I have to get this right.
- What if I make a mistake?
- What if everyone else does better than me?
- What if my teacher thinks I’m not capable?
- If I can’t do it properly, what’s the point?
The difference matters. Learning requires students to take risks. It requires them to attempt things they don’t yet know how to do, make mistakes, receive feedback, change their approach and try again. If getting something wrong feels threatening, students can begin avoiding the very experiences they need in order to learn. This is where mindset becomes so important. A student who sees mistakes as evidence that they are not capable will approach learning very differently from a student who understands that mistakes, struggle and feedback are all part of getting better.
When perfectionism becomes self-sabotage
This is another aspect of perfectionism we are seeing regularly in our work with students. Sometimes the fear of not doing something well leads a student to behave in ways that actually make success less likely.
- They put off starting.
- They don’t prepare adequately.
- They spend so long planning that they don’t have enough time to actually do the work.
- They avoid submitting something.
- They set themselves an unrealistic study plan and then abandon it when they can’t keep up.
- Or they leave everything until the last minute.
From the outside, this can be incredibly frustrating. A parent or teacher might reasonably wonder:
- If they care so much about the result, why aren’t they doing the work?
But sometimes that behaviour is precisely because they care so much about the result.
For some students, not fully trying can even provide a form of protection. If they don’t achieve the result they wanted, they can attribute it to not having enough time or not preparing properly rather than confronting the much more uncomfortable possibility:
- What if I tried my hardest and it still wasn’t good enough?
A cycle can then develop:
High expectations → fear of not meeting them → avoidance or procrastination → lack of time → rushed or incomplete work → disappointing outcome → negative self-talk → even greater pressure next time.
Of course, not every student who procrastinates or avoids work is a perfectionist. Difficulties with task initiation, executive function, anxiety, motivation, understanding the task or feeling overwhelmed can all contribute. That’s exactly why we need to be curious about what is happening underneath the behaviour.
The impact goes well beyond schoolwork
Perfectionism isn’t simply about wanting an A instead of a B. The recent research is particularly important because perfectionism – especially perfectionistic concerns – is associated with poorer psychological wellbeing, including symptoms of anxiety and depression. We also see the impact it can have on students’ everyday academic lives. It can affect their ability to manage their time, begin tasks, make decisions, prioritise, ask for help, respond to feedback and recognise when something is “good enough”.
It can also be exhausting. A student who constantly feels they should be doing more, achieving more or doing things better rarely gets to experience the satisfaction of thinking:
- I’ve done enough for today.
And when every assessment feels like a judgement of their ability rather than another opportunity to learn, school can become an increasingly stressful place.
What messages are our students receiving?
The researchers behind the recent study suggest there is unlikely to be one simple explanation for the rise in perfectionism. Interestingly, the trend began well before social media became part of young people’s everyday lives. It raises broader questions about the messages young people receive about achievement and success. 
- Are we celebrating effort, improvement and learning – or primarily results?
- Do students feel safe getting things wrong?
- Do they understand that struggling with something is part of learning?
- Are we inadvertently reinforcing the idea that their results determine their ability – or even their worth?
- And perhaps most importantly, are we giving students enough opportunities to experience failure, reflect on it and discover that they can recover from it?
There is also another emerging consideration: the role of AI. For a student who is already worried that their own work isn’t good enough, having instant access to a tool that can rewrite, improve or produce a more polished response can be incredibly tempting.
But if AI becomes a way of avoiding the discomfort of getting started, making mistakes or producing an imperfect first attempt, are we potentially reinforcing the very perfectionistic thinking we are trying to help students overcome?
This connects with something I have written about previously in relation to AI and the “illusion of knowing” – the risk that students can feel as though they understand or have learnt something because AI has produced an answer for them, without necessarily having done the thinking and learning themselves.
AI can certainly be a useful learning tool. But perhaps we also need to be asking why a student is turning to it and what part of the learning process it may be replacing.
Looking beneath the behaviour
One of the biggest lessons I have learnt through working with students is the importance of continuing to ask questions. Sometimes a student genuinely doesn’t know why they are procrastinating, why an assignment takes them four hours when it should take one, why they can’t submit something or why they continually run out of time. And sometimes we don’t discover the answer straight away. It can take time, trust, observation and the right questions to uncover what is actually happening.
Rather than simply asking:
- “Why aren’t they doing the work?”
perhaps we also need to ask:
- “What is getting in the way of them doing the work?”
The answer may be organisation. It may be task initiation. It may be motivation, overwhelm or anxiety. And sometimes, sitting quietly underneath it all, is perfectionism.
The goal isn’t to stop students caring about the quality of their work or wanting to achieve highly. It is to help them develop a healthier relationship with achievement. That means helping students understand that mistakes are part of learning, feedback isn’t criticism, first attempts aren’t supposed to be perfect and sometimes “good enough” really is good enough. It means helping them recognise when the pursuit of perfection is no longer helping them succeed but is actually getting in their way.
Recognising perfectionism is an important first step, but students also need practical strategies to help them move forward. In Overcoming Perfectionism, we explore some of the strategies students can use to challenge perfectionistic thinking and develop healthier approaches to their work. Perhaps one of the most important messages we can give our young people is this:
Success isn’t about getting everything right. It is about being willing to start, make mistakes, learn, adjust and keep moving forward.
Because sometimes the greatest barrier to doing our best is believing that our best has to be perfect.
If perfectionism is getting in the way of your child’s learning, confidence or ability to manage their schoolwork, please get in touch to find out how we can support them.
