Latest / The Burnout Podcast with Fexingo: Workplace Exhaustion, Recovery, and Sustainable Careers / How Perfectionism Fuels Burnout at Work
Transcript
- Lucas: You know the person in your office who is never happy with their own work? The one who stays late to tweak the font size on a slide deck that nobody else will notice? Luna: Oh, I have a name for that person. Sometimes it's me. Lucas: Right. And that's the thing about perfectionism — it gets praised in performance reviews but it's quietly one of the fastest routes to burnout. There's actually a 2019 study of twelve hundred software engineers that found perfectionists take about forty percent longer to complete tasks and report seventy percent higher burnout symptoms than their non-perfectionist peers. Luna: Seventy percent higher? That's huge. And it's not just about working longer hours, is it? It's the internal pressure. Lucas: Exactly. The study distinguished between perfectionistic strivings — wanting to do a good job — and perfectionistic concerns — the fear of making mistakes and the harsh self-criticism when you do. It's the concerns dimension that really drives exhaustion. The striving part, that can be healthy. But when you tie your self-worth to flawless output, every task becomes a threat. Luna: So the classic 'I'll rest when it's perfect' mindset actually guarantees you never rest because perfect doesn't exist. Lucas: That's exactly it. I had a colleague at my first journalism job who was brilliant but would spend three hours on a four-hundred-word article. He'd rewrite the lede six times. He'd fact-check the same number twice. And he was proud of it — he thought that's what 'taking pride in your work' meant. Then he had a three-month medical leave for stress-related illness. Luna: And did the company ever question the culture that made him think that was necessary? Or did they just replace him with someone who worked faster? Lucas: A bit of both, honestly. They praised his standards but also complained about his turnaround time. The mixed message is part of the problem. On one hand, organizations reward perfectionism — they give raises to people who catch every typo. But they also reward speed. You can't optimize for both unless you accept that good enough is actually fine in many cases. Luna: So how do you untangle that? I think a lot of listeners who are perfectionists know it's a problem but don't know how to stop. Lucas: One practical tactic from the research is to set what they call a 'good enough threshold' before you start a task. Decide ahead of time what acceptable looks like. For a report, maybe it's 'all the key data points are correct and readable' rather than 'every chart uses the exact right shade of blue.' Luna: That's like a pre-commitment device. You set the bar before the anxiety kicks in. Lucas: Yeah. And then you need to practice stopping. Actually close the document and send it. The first few times it feels wrong. But the feedback from the world — spoiler — is usually positive. Nobody says 'this report would have been better if you'd spent two more hours on it.' Luna: That's such a good point. And it relates to something I read about self-compassion and burnout. There's a researcher, Kristin Neff, who found that people who practice self-compassion — treating themselves like they would a friend — have lower cortisol levels and recover faster from stress. Perfectionists are often their own harshest critics. Lucas: Totally. And the research shows that self-compassion isn't about lowering standards. It's about responding to failure with learning instead of self-flagellation. When you make a mistake, you ask 'what can I learn?' instead of 'what's wrong with me?' That shift changes the whole emotional cost of the job. Luna: I want to try that. But there's another layer — what about when your manager actually expects perfection? Like, if you work in an environment where one typo gets you called out in a meeting. Lucas: That's a different problem — that's organizational perfectionism. And it's toxic. The same study found that when people perceive their workplace demands perfection, burnout rates spike even higher. In that case, the individual tactics might not be enough. You might need to set boundaries or even look for a different culture. Luna: Or have a conversation with your manager about priorities. Say 'I can deliver this with ninety-five percent accuracy by Friday, or ninety-nine percent by next Tuesday. Which do you prefer?' Lucas: That's a great reframe. Give them the trade-off explicitly. Most managers will choose speed over perfection when you frame it that way. And if they don't, that tells you something about the culture. Luna: So the real skill here is learning to be strategic about where you apply your high standards. Not everything is a twenty-out-of-ten task. Lucas: Exactly. Save perfection for the things that truly matter — a client-facing deliverable, a safety-critical code review, maybe a job application. For everything else, aim for good enough and move on. Your energy is finite. Luna: You know, this conversation reminds me why I love these shows. A couple of dollars a month from listeners is genuinely what keeps them going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Lucas: Yeah, it makes a real difference. Keeps us independent and ad-free. Now back to perfectionism — one more thing I want to mention. There's a concept called 'error rumination' where perfectionists replay mistakes over and over. That mental loop is exhausting on its own, separate from the actual work. Luna: Right. So part of recovering from perfectionism is training yourself to let go. Maybe set a timer for five minutes to think about a mistake, then force yourself to move on. Lucas: That's actually a technique used in cognitive behavioral therapy. You schedule 'worry time.' You give yourself permission to obsess, but only within a defined window. After that, you redirect. It's surprisingly effective. Luna: I love that. So to wrap up: perfectionism is not a virtue when it leads to burnout. Set good enough thresholds, practice self-compassion, and talk to your manager about trade-offs. Lucas: And remember that your value as a professional isn't measured by the absence of errors. It's measured by what you create, what you learn, and how you collaborate. A few typos won't undo a career. Luna: Well said. That's all for this episode of The Burnout Podcast. We'll be back next week with another angle on making work more sustainable.