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I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
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Now, how many times
have you heard that one?
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Over drinks, maybe, with friends,
or perhaps with family at Thanksgiving.
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It's everyone's favorite flaw,
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it's that now quite common response
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to the difficult, final question
at job interviews:
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"My biggest weakness?
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That's my perfectionism."
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You see, for something
that supposedly holds us back,
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it's quite remarkable how many of us
are quite happy to hold our hands up
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and say we're perfectionists.
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But there's an interesting
and serious point
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because our begrudging admiration
for perfection is so pervasive
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that we never really stop to question
that concept in its own terms.
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What does it say about us and our society
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that there is a kind
of celebration in perfection?
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We tend to hold perfectionism up
as an insignia of worth.
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The emblem of the successful.
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Yet, in my time studying perfectionism,
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I've seen limited evidence
that perfectionists are more successful.
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Quite the contrary --
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they feel discontented and dissatisfied
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amid a lingering sense
that they're never quite perfect enough.
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We know from clinician case reports
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that perfectionism conceals
a host of psychological difficulties,
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including things like depression,
anxiety, anorexia, bulimia
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and even suicide ideation.
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And what's more worrying
is that over the last 25 years,
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we have seen perfectionism rise
at an alarming rate.
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And at the same time,
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we have seen more mental illness
among young people than ever before.
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Rates of suicide in the US alone
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increased by 25 percent
across the last two decades.
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And we're beginning to see similar trends
emerge across Canada,
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and in my home country,
the United Kingdom.
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Now, our research is suggesting
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that perfectionism is rising
as society is changing.
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And a changed society reflects
a changed sense of personal identity
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and, with it, differences in the way
in which young people interact
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with each other and the world around them.
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And there are some unique characteristics
about our preeminent, market-based society
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that include things
like unrestricted choice
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and personal freedom,
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and these are characteristics
that we feel are contributing
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to almost epidemic levels of this problem.
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So let me give you an example.
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Young people today are more preoccupied
with the attainment of the perfect life
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and lifestyle.
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In terms of their image,
status and wealth.
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Data from Pew show that young people
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born in the US in the late 1980s
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are 20 percent more likely
to report being materially rich
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as among their most important life goals,
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relative to their parents
and their grandparents.
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Young people also borrow more heavily
than did older generations,
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and they spend a much greater proportion
of their income on image goods
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and status possessions.
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These possessions,
their lives and their lifestyles
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are now displayed in vivid detail
on the ubiquitous social media platforms
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of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat.
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In this new visual culture,
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the appearance of perfection
is far more important than the reality.
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If one side of the modern landscape
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that we have so lavishly
furnished for young people
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is this idea that there's
a perfectible life
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and that there's a perfectible lifestyle,
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then the other is surely work.
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Nothing is out of reach
for those who want it badly enough.
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Or so we're told.
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This is the idea at the heart
of the American dream.
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Opportunity, meritocracy,
the self-made person, hard work.
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The notion that hard work always pays off.
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And above all, the idea
that we're captains of our own destiny.
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These ideas, they connect
our wealth, our status
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and our image with our innate,
personal value.
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But it is, of course, complete fiction.
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Because even if there were
equality of opportunity,
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the idea that we are captains
of our own destiny
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disguises a much darker
reality for young people
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that they are subject to an almost
ongoing economic tribunal.
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Metrics, rankings, lead tables
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have emerged as the yardsticks
for which merit can be quantified
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and used to sort young people
into schools, classes and colleges.
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Education is the first arena
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where measurement
is so publicly played out
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and where metrics are being used
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as a tool to improve standards
and performance.
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And it starts young.
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Young people in America's
big city high schools
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take some 112 mandatory standardized tests
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between prekindergarten
and the end of 12th grade.
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No wonder young people report
a strong need to strive,
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perform and achieve
at the center of modern life.
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They've been conditioned
to define themselves
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in the strict and narrow terms
of grades, percentiles and lead tables.
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This is a society that preys
on their insecurities.
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Insecurities about
how they are performing
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and how they are appearing
to other people.
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This is a society that amplifies
their imperfections.
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Every flaw, every unforeseen setback
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increases a need to perform
more perfectly next time, or else,
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bluntly, you're a failure.
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That feeling of being flawed and deficient
is especially pervasive --
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just talk to young people.
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"How should I look, how should I behave?"
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"I should look like that model,
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I should have as many followers
as that Instagram influencer,
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I must do better in school."
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In my role as mentor to many young people,
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I see these lived effects
of perfectionism firsthand.
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And one student sticks out
in my mind very vividly.
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John, not his real name, was ambitious,
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hardworking and diligent
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and on the surface,
he was exceptionally high-achieving,
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often getting first-class
grades for his work.
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Yet, no matter how well John achieved,
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he always seemed to recast
his successes as abject failures,
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and in meetings with me,
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he would talk openly about
how he'd let himself and others down.
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John's justification was quite simple:
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How could he be a success
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when he was trying so much harder
than other people
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just to attain the same outcomes?
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See, John's perfectionism,
his unrelenting work ethic,
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was only serving to expose
what he saw as his inner weakness
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to himself and to others.
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Cases like John's speak
to the harmfulness of perfectionism
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as a way of being in the world.
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Contrary to popular belief,
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perfectionism is never about
perfecting things or perfecting tasks.
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It's not about striving for excellence.
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John's case highlights this vividly.
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At its root, perfectionism
is about perfecting the self.
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Or, more precisely,
perfecting an imperfect self.
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And you can think about it
like a mountain of achievement
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that perfectionism leads us
to imagine ourselves scaling.
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And we think to ourselves,
"Once I've reached that summit,
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then people will see I'm not flawed,
and I'll be worth something."
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But what perfectionism doesn't tell us
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is that soon after reaching that summit,
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we will be called down again to the fresh
lowlands of insecurity and shame,
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just to try and scale that peak again.
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This is the cycle of self-defeat.
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In the pursuit of unattainable perfection,
a perfectionist just cannot step off.
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And it's why it's so difficult to treat.
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Now, we've known for decades and decades
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that perfectionism contributes
to a host of psychological problems,
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but there was never
a good way to measure it.
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That was until the late 1980s
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when two Canadians,
Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett,
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came along and developed
a self-report measure of perfectionism.
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So that's right, folks,
you can measure this,
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and it essentially captures
three core elements of perfectionism.
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The first is self-oriented perfectionism,
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the irrational desire to be perfect:
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"I strive to be as perfect as I can be."
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The second is socially
prescribed perfectionism,
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the sense that the social environment
is excessively demanding:
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"I feel that others
are too demanding of me."
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And the third is
other-oriented perfectionism,
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the imposition of unrealistic
standards on other people:
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"If I ask somebody to do something,
I expect it to be done perfectly."
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Now, research shows that all
three elements of perfectionism
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associate with compromised mental health,
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including things
like heightened depression,
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heightened anxiety and suicide ideation.
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But, by far, the most problematic
element of perfectionism
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is socially prescribed perfectionism.
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That sense that everyone
expects me to be perfect.
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This element of perfectionism
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has a large correlation
with serious mental illness.
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And with today's emphasis on perfection
at the forefront of my mind,
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I was curious to see whether these
elements of perfectionism were changing.
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To date, research in this area
is focused on immediate family relations,
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but we wanted to look at it
at a broader level.
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So we took all of the data
that had ever been collected
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in the 27 years since Paul and Gordon
developed that perfectionism measure,
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and we isolated the data
in college students.
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This turned out to be
more than 40,000 young people
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from American, Canadian
and British colleges,
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and with so much data available,
we looked to see if there was a trend.
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And in all, it took us
more than three years
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to collate all of this information,
crunch the numbers,
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and write our report.
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But it was worth it because our analysis
uncovered something alarming.
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All three elements of perfectionism
have increased over time.
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But socially prescribed perfectionism
saw the largest increase, and by far.
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In 1989,
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just nine percent of young people
report clinically relevant levels
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of socially prescribed perfectionism.
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Those are levels that we might
typically see in clinical populations.
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By 2017, that figure
had doubled to 18 percent.
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And by 2050, projections
based on the models that we tested
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indicate that almost one
in three young people
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will report clinically relevant levels
of socially prescribed perfectionism.
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Remember, this is the element
of perfectionism
00:10:53
that has the largest correlation
with serious mental illness,
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and that's for good reason.
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Socially prescribed perfectionists
feel a unrelenting need
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to meet the expectations of other people.
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And even if they do meet
yesterday's expectation of perfection,
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they then raise the bar on themselves
to an even higher degree
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because these folks believe
that the better they do,
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the better that they're expected to do.
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This breeds a profound sense
of helplessness and, worse, hopelessness.
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But is there hope?
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Of course there's hope.
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Perfectionists can and should
hold on to certain things --
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they are typically bright, ambitious,
conscientious and hardworking.
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And yes, treatment is complex.
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But a little bit of self-compassion,
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going easy on ourselves
when things don't go well,
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can turn those qualities
into greater personal peace and success.
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And then there's what
we can do as caregivers.
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Perfectionism develops
in our formative years,
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and so young people are more vulnerable.
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Parents can help their children
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by supporting them unconditionally
when they've tried but failed.
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And Mom and Dad can resist
their understandable urge
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in today's highly competitive society
to helicopter-parent,
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as a lot of anxiety is communicated
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when parents take on their kids'
successes and failures as their own.
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But ultimately, our research
raises important questions
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about how we are structuring society
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and whether our society's heavy emphasis
on competition, evaluation and testing
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is benefiting young people.
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It's become commonplace
for public figures to say
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that young people just need
a little bit more resilience
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in the face of these new
and unprecedented pressures.
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But I believe that is us
washing our hands of the core issue
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because we have a shared responsibility
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to create a society and a culture
in which young people need less perfection
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in the first place.
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Let's not kid ourselves.
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Creating that kind of world
is an enormous challenge,
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and for a generation of young people
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that live their lives
in the 24/7 spotlight
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of metrics, lead tables and social media,
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perfectionism is inevitable,
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so long as they lack any purpose in life
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greater than how they are appearing
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or how they are performing
to other people.
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What can they do about it?
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Every time they are knocked down
from that mountaintop,
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they see no other option
but to try scaling that peak again.
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The ancient Greeks knew
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that this endless struggle
up and down the same mountain
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is not the road to happiness.
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Their image of hell
was a man called Sisyphus,
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doomed for eternity to keep rolling
the same boulder up a hill,
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only to see it roll back down
and have to start again.
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So long as we teach young people
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that there is nothing more real
or meaningful in their lives
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than this hopeless quest for perfection,
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then we are going to condemn
future generations
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to that same futility and despair.
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And so we're left with a question.
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When are we going to appreciate
00:13:53
that there is something
fundamentally inhuman
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about limitless perfection?
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No one is flawless.
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If we want to help our young people
escape the trap of perfectionism,
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then we will teach them
that in a chaotic world,
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life will often defeat us, but that's OK.
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Failure is not weakness.
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If we want to help our young people
outgrow this self-defeating snare
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of impossible perfection,
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then we will raise them in a society
that has outgrown that very same delusion.
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But most of all,
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if we want our young people
to enjoy mental, emotional
00:14:32
and psychological health,
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then we will invite them
to celebrate the joys
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and the beauties of imperfection
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as a normal and natural part
of everyday living and loving.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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