Life Kit - Your perfectionism isn't a problem -- if you know how to use it

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Are you a 'Parisian perfectionist'? How about a 'messy perfectionist'? Psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schafler believes there are 5 kinds of perfectionists in the world. Find out which one you are with our quiz. This episode originally published January 30, 2023.Follow us on Instagram: @nprlifekitSign up for our newsletter here.Have an episode idea or feedback you want to share? Email us at [e-mail] public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening and convenient playlists of popular help topics like personal finance, getting healthy, and more. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Would you call yourself a perfectionist? Eh, it depends what we're talking about, you know? It takes me a thousand years to write things. And I don't ever want to show you my car. My car is a hazard. Oh, that's funny. So like opposite extremes. Yes, yeah.

It depends. It depends is the answer. What about you? No, I definitely feel like I am one, have always been one. And I'm trying to get better at that, which is kind of funny, right? Because I'm even a perfectionist about being a perfectionist. you're trying to get better at it. Yeah, like it's like there's something wrong with it.

People talk about perfectionism like it's a character flaw or something you need to be cured of. And I guess I've I've taken that on myself. I've absorbed that idea. You feel like it's a bad thing. Hmm. I think when you hear the word perfectionist, there's like this one image that pops into your head, right? Like maybe someone who likes to get things done in a certain way or like needs everything to be just so. But what I learned reporting this episode is that perfectionism doesn't have to be a negative trait.

And it's something that you can harness. See, I like that. That makes me feel better about myself. It makes me feel better, too. You're listening to Life Kit. I'm Mariel Segarra. And I'm talking with Life Kit reporter Andy Tagle, who interviewed psychotherapist and author Catherine Morgan Schaffler in 2023. She wrote a book called The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, A Path to Peace of Peace, And power. So she wrote this book after spending years in private practice on Wall Street, which is a location that attracts a lot of high-powered, high-achieving women with careers and things like big law and finance. So many of those clients, perhaps unsurprisingly, are perfectionists.

Right. Yeah. And what she found through that work is that there are actually five different types of perfectionists. Yeah. When I hear that, I immediately want to take a quiz. Which type I am. I'm like, which spice girl are you, you know? Which spice girl are you? I think that I always wanted to be Jerry, but I was actually baby. And now as a younger lass, and now I'm sporty. Okay. You were a baby son and a Jerry moon.

Yeah, sporty rising sign, I guess. We can move on, but I want to unpack that someday. Yeah, we need to. We need to. So perfectionist can be type A. Like intense and rigid and meticulous. But they can also be messy or forgetful or laissez-faire. They can procrastinate or up and quit whole projects entirely.

But what all these different kinds of personalities have in common is potential. So perfectionists see how the world around them can be better. And that's why perfectionism, when used in a healthy way, can be a really powerful force for change. A sort of superpower. Absolutely. Well, on this episode of Life Kit, Andy is going to talk to Catherine about all the different ways perfectionism can show up and how we can harness it. Catherine, in the book, you say a lot of messaging around perfectionism is gendered. Let's start there.

Yes. Well, you know, I think language really helps control the way that we think about whether something is good or bad and in turn whether we are good or bad. and it kind of has this regulatory function where it teaches us like how to be more of what we're quote unquote supposed to be in the same way that the word bossy for example regulates authoritative qualities and girls and women and why there's no you know there's no male version for the word bossy that's kind of what perfectionism is turning into and so i wanted to write this book to nip that in the bud And just to say, before this becomes, you know, something that floats around for the next five or 10 years without us realizing what we're doing, which is quelling the ambition and expressions of power in women by pathologizing perfectionism ad nauseum and then telling women to find balance, which is a directive that is given to women so much all over the place in advertising, in food, in podcasts, and in, mommy blogs, just everywhere.

Catherine, what's wrong with the messaging about just finding balance? Well, balance in its original definition of energetic equilibrium is healthy. But balance as it has come to mean now is just being good at being busy. To say that a woman is balanced is not to say that she's hit her sweet spot of energetic equilibrium. It is to say that she can juggle so many tasks and give her another thing and she won't drop the ball. Look at her go. And that has nothing to do with health. And what kind of balance we're offering to women is elusive.

It never comes. And we don't notice that it's not here and that it's not real because we're too busy blaming ourselves that it's not here yet because we're constantly getting the message of like, If you just had an Instapot, you could be balanced. If you just had this app, you could be balanced. If you just, you know, woke up one hour earlier, you could be balanced. And I think perfectionists are people who are not balanced and who are constantly told, you know, slow down. You're doing too much.

You need to be balanced as if we're, you know, as if balanced means health when it doesn't anymore. Yeah, absolutely. Just find balance. That's all you need to do. Just find balance. Takeaway one, perfectionism isn't a bad word or a slight. It's a neutral quality, a tool that when used correctly, can be powerful. So I think of perfectionism as a natural human impulse, one that is healthy. And perfectionists, the way I define and understand the term, are people who more often than not see the gap between the reality and the ideal and long to bridge the gap. And not only long to bridge that gap,

but feel actively compelled to do so. And how you pursue the ideal and why you pursue the ideal, those are the factors that determine whether your perfectionism is healthy or not. If we go to the how, are you pursuing the ideal in a way that hurts you? you or exploits or hurts other people around you. And if we go to the why, are you pursuing the ideal because you think achieving, you know, one goal after the next is going to certify your belonging into some group or some sense of self-worth or some kind of external validation. And there are healthy reasons to pursue the ideal. And I think it's actually, you know, one of the forces that make the world go around.

Next up, takeaway two. People chase their version of perfect in a lot of different ways. There's nothing wrong with longing to bridge the gap between your reality and your ideal. But be wary of how and why you pursue perfection. Because there are pros and cons for every type of perfectionist. Yes, so the classic perfectionist is what comes to mind when we all think about the perfectionist. So this is somebody who is highly organized, buttoned up, and they are going to do what they said they're going to do when they said they would do it in the way that they said that they would do it.

And each type of perfectionist has pros and cons. And the pros of classic perfectionists is that they're highly reliable and they add structure to any environment they enter. The cons are that they can sometimes not be as spontaneous or welcome collaboration. And those are qualities which tend to engender connection. And so being with a classic perfectionist, whether it's in a family system or a work system, can sometimes end up feeling more transactional. And this hurts both the people around the perfectionist and the perfectionist themselves,

because classic perfectionists can tend to feel undervalued for all that they do. Then there's the procrastinator perfectionist, and the procrastinator perfectionist waits for the conditions to be perfect before they start. And of course, that never happens. So procrastinator perfectionists tend to ruminate, and that's part of the negative qualities of this type. And on the positive side, They can prepare so well, they can see things from a 360 degree angle. They can really understand

all the different legs of decisions, and they are not impulsive, which can be a real asset. But of course, they have real challenges around getting projects off the ground because they just encounter so much anxiety around beginnings. What about messy perfectionists? The messy perfectionist is in love with beginnings. They can start anything effortlessly, just breeze through all the anxiety that a procrastinated perfectionist might. But the problem with messy perfectionists is that when they hit the middle of a process

and the TDM that is involved in staying committed to goals and carrying out those goals, they can kind of lose interest and lose energy because the middle isn't perfect. It doesn't match the perfect romanticized energy around starting. And I want to make a side note to say that all of these types of perfectionists can be expressed in lots of different contexts. So you can be a messy perfectionist when it comes to dating and love going on the first date, love the second date. And then the third date, you're like, this person is chewing really loudly. And I don't like this. And I don't know where this conversation is going and this and that and whatever.

Okay. How about intense perfectionist? This is the perfectionist that's kind of, I think publicly we think of someone like Steve Jobs or Gordon Ramsey on a wind tour as intense perfectionist. They have razor sharp focus. They are really great at generating outcomes. Sometimes they can prize the outcome so much that they lose the sense of team building, for example, or relationship building in the process. And they get the outcome at the great expense and opportunity cost of everyone around them's satisfaction and sometimes even, you know, level of comfort or safety, depending on whether they're having outbursts or not. Okay. And then finally, Parisian perfectionists. So the Parisian perfectionist, the easiest way to describe it is that they want to be perfectly liked. And that is how this perfectionism manifests on a surface level, but on a deeper level, it's about wanting perfect connection. Wanting perfect connection to themselves, to their community, to their partners, maladaptively expressed. Parisian perfectionism looks like people pleasing at the expense of sacrifice.

sacrificing one's own sense of identity and pleasure. But on the pro's side, Parisian perfectionists are genuinely warm people who focus on inclusion, collaborate well, love working with others, and they're effortlessly inviting all of those things in. Think you know what kind of perfectionist you are? We'll get into what to do next after the break. Well, Catherine, your book taught me that I am mostly a Parisian perfectionist. And I feel both seen and attacked by this information. How is knowing your category helpful? Yeah, that's such a great question. I offer all of these categorizations as perspectives and not the truth. I really offer these as starting places to begin to understand patterns and to say, what do I like about this pattern?

What do I want to continue about? How does this show up, again, in all of these different ways, with my parenting, with my friendships, with dating, with work, with my family, in my own relationship to myself. And it's just a starting place to begin to ask and answer those questions. Takeaway three. Understanding your particular brand of perfectionism can help you better see yourself and use that information to your advantage. For example, Catherine, you have a lot of tools in the book about ways to work with and reframe our type of perfectionism. One of those was a understanding the difference between explaining and expressing something. Could you walk us through that idea? So explaining is saying what's happening, right? So I am leaving work early. Expressing is saying

what's happening and what you feel about what is happening. I am leaving work early because I am feeling stressed. And when you only explain, you know, I need this by tomorrow, and you don't express, I need this by tomorrow because I had a conversation with the client today and I'm starting to feel anxious about whether they're going to back out. When you only explain, it emphasizes this transactional, no team, no collaboration, no sense of actually knowing or connecting to the person, all that matters is the outcome, and we just need to get it done. And it really makes people around you feel disconnected, and it can make you feel disconnected to yourself. And if you only, on the other hand, express, which is what a lot of messy perfectionists and Parisian perfectionists tend to overindex on,

then you're talking a lot about how you feel and what the experience of being you is like, but you're not actually asserting your wants or needs. And so you might say, I'm feeling really burnt out. Okay, well, why don't you explain that you're feeling really burnt out because you have been covering for someone who's been sick for three weeks and you can no longer do that. You've realized that that's not tenable, right? And so I think that part of our communication patterns, in some of these personality types can pop up and they're not necessarily bad.

We don't need to subtract anything. We don't need to get rid of parts of who you are. We just need to add to help you connect more with yourself and others and help you understand yourself and help others understand you better too. And finally, takeaway four, to better know when your perfectionism is healthy or getting away from you, learn the difference between control and power. So control and power, like lust and love, look very similar.

They're not the same thing. Control is about manipulating. Power is about influencing. Control is myopic. You have to plan everything one step at a time because what you do next depends on all the factors that you are aware of and have information for. Whereas power is really visionary. It allows you to take the luxury of taking great leaps of faith and being able to say, no matter what happens with the outcome, I know who I am and what's important to me and I trust myself that I'll understand

what to do next. Whereas control is more frantic. It has a desperate energy and an attendant anxiety that other people around you can feel. And when we feel powerless, we double down on superficial control, and it backfires every time. In the moment, it feels like being controlling is the responsible thing to do when you can't find your own power. What do we gain when we seat control? So I think one of the reasons why people feel locked out of joy is because they haven't forgiven themselves. for past versions of themselves that did or did not do something. And if you don't forgive yourself, you don't trust yourself.

And if you can't trust yourself, you can't give yourself license to have power. You micromanage yourself. You try to control yourself. It's just like a boss who doesn't trust their employee. They're going to be checking in every second on what they do and they meet that person with suspicion instead of confidence, when you have that kind of relationship with yourself, you just cannot bring your full self to the table. You can't relax. And if you don't trust yourself, you're trying to move through life memorizing the right thing to do instead of trusting yourself

and the way that you feel and whether on the most basic level you feel good or not. Does being around this person make me feel good? Does being at this job make me feel good? You don't trust yourself to do that. And so you just end up in your head. You're thinking. You're making pros and cons lists all day. You're denying your instincts. Any say in the matter. And you just can't, in my opinion, think yourself through your life. You have to be open. And to be open, you have to be able to say, I don't know what is coming next. There is, you know, some degree of surrender required for that. You cannot be in surrender and in control at the same time. Catherine, thank you so much for talking with me today. Thank you. This has been such a pleasure. To recap, takeaway one,

perfectionism is powerful. You just have to learn to use it to your advantage. Takeaway two, There are a lot of different ways to reach for perfection. There's nothing wrong with longing to bridge the gap between your reality and your ideal. But be wary of how and why you pursue perfection. Building on that, takeaway three, understanding your particular brand of perfectionism can help you better see yourself and work towards your strengths. Ask yourself, are you hurting or helping the people around you in pursuit of your ideals? Does this action serve to connect or distance you from your values? Are you pursuing this ideal for the right reasons?

Or are you seeking some kind of arbitrary external validation? Finally, pick away four, seek power, not control. Remember, as Catherine says, you are perfect as is, meaning you are complete and therefore worthy of rest and joy exactly as you are in this current moment. Don't wait for that mythical, perfect balance or to achieve perfect personhood. Lean into your strengths and start trusting your own instincts today, right now. You got this. That was reporter Andy Tagle, talking to author Catherine Morgan Schaffler. Before we go, if you have a moment, I was wondering, would you rate and review Life Kit in your

podcast app? Tell us a favorite tip that you've learned. or what kind of episodes you like the best. We love hearing from you. This episode of Life Kit was produced by Claire Marie Schneider with help from Kayla Latimore. Our digital editor is Malika Grieb, and our visuals editor is C.J. Riegelan. Megan Cain is our senior supervising editor,

and Lauren Gonzalez is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Margaret Serrino and Sylvie Douglas. Engineering support comes from Jimmy Keely. Special thanks to Darius Cook. I'm Mariel Segarra. Thanks for listening. Thank you.