When you walk into my office, the first thing that you will notice are the piles of paper covering every square inch of my desk. There are two towering stacks of papers related to the open files I am handling. Then there are the research papers and PowerPoint presentations for CLE courses I have taught or am working on. I have a stack for paid invoices and a mountain of pages of phone notes. The desk décor is accented by a random assortment of yellow Post-it notes. My desk would make Marie Kondo sad. You’re probably thinking that Lawyers Mutual should have gone paperless a long time ago. We did.  

So, when my wife accused me a few years ago of being a perfectionist, I took issue. How could someone with a desk like mine be a perfectionist? Aren’t all perfectionists meticulous neat freaks? It turns out that a messy desk is not determinative of perfectionism. According to psychotherapist and author Katherine Morgan Schafler, there is a category of perfectionism known as a messy perfectionist. A messy perfectionist is someone who holds extremely high internal standards but struggles with follow-through, organization, or consistency, often due to anxiety, overwhelm, or a need to feel in control. They have an endless supply of ideas and have high expectations when they start a new project. It is follow-through that is their weakness. 

Schafler describes four other kinds of perfectionists. The classic perfectionist is a person who is highly organized, detail-oriented, and dependable. The procrastinator perfectionist wants everything to be perfect before they start something or submit work product. The intense perfectionist is one who has razor sharp focus and gets things done at all costs. The Parisian perfectionist is a person who strives for perfect behavior in order to be accepted and affirmed by others. If you are a lawyer reading this, you probably recognize yourself in one of these descriptions. A 2024 National Association for Law Placement (“NALP”) study found that approximately 70% of lawyers suffer from moderate to high perfectionist tendencies.

Schafler developed a quiz to determine what kind of perfectionist a person is. Note that you may have varying degrees of the different types of perfectionism. While I am primarily a messy perfectionist, I also have a modest amount of intense perfectionism, Parisian perfectionism, and procrastinator perfectionism. While it is interesting to determine what kind of perfectionist you might be, the more important question to answer is whether your perfectionism is negatively impacting your personal and professional life.

Not all perfectionism is negative. Healthy levels of perfectionism have a variety of benefits.

1. High Quality: Perfectionists tend to hold themselves to high standards when they work on a project. As long as they don’t get “stuck” in doing something exactly right, they can produce exceptional results.
2. Motivation and Achievement: The drive for perfection can be a powerful motivator to strive for improvement, which can lead to higher levels of achievement in both personal and professional pursuits.
3. Strong Organizational Skills: Some perfectionists are highly organized. These perfectionists tend to stay on top of tasks and manage multiple responsibilities effectively.
4. Reliability: Because perfectionists routinely aim for excellence in their work, they can be relied on to produce quality work on a consistent basis.
5. Attention to Detail: Certain types of perfectionists are very detail-oriented, which can be an asset in tasks requiring careful analysis.
6. Self-Discipline: Most perfectionists have good self-discipline. Because of their own internal drive, they do not typically need to be micromanaged or closely monitored when working on a project.

You may be thinking, “With all these benefits, why wouldn’t I want to be a perfectionist?” Who wouldn’t desire to produce exceptional work and have high levels of achievement in work and personal pursuits? But it is not that simple. While perfectionism can lead to positive results, it can also slip into an unhealthy form of perfectionism know as maladaptive perfectionism. This form of perfectionism is characterized by a person setting unrealistically high standards and being overly critical of oneself when those standards are not met. With maladaptive perfectionism, a person suffers from a chronic fear of failure and a belief that anything less than perfect is not good enough. 

Maladaptive perfectionists always feel inadequate. There is a constant fear of failure or disgrace. They are driven by what others might think of them. When they complete a project, they focus on the shortcomings of their work and minimize their successes, even when others admire or compliment their accomplishments. Where a healthy perfectionist would celebrate the success of an achievement, maladaptive perfectionists cannot let themselves go there. Success and “good enough” is always just out of reach. 

The North Carolina Lawyers Assistance Program warns that maladaptive perfectionism can lead to anxiety, depression, and substance abuse issues. The NALP study cited above confirms this and adds that maladaptive perfectionism can also lead to burnout, decreased productivity and efficiency, damage to physical health, and increased risk for mistakes and ethics issues.

If you are a maladaptive perfectionist, do not despair. As the NALP study points out, maladaptive perfectionism is not a fixed trait. You can change. Numerous studies have shown that maladaptive perfectionist behaviors can be modified with various modalities, including cognitive behavioral therapy. If you are concerned that your perfectionism is causing serious anxiety, depression, burnout, physical health problems, or substance abuse issues, you should reach out for help from a mental health professional or the NC Lawyers Assistance Program. If, on the other hand, your perfectionism is less severe but is negatively impacting your life, there are things you can do to change.

If you want to tackle your own unhealthy perfectionism, you will first need to understand what is driving your need for perfection. What is the fear behind your perfectionism? Remember, maladaptive perfectionism is typically driven by a concern for what others think about you. Are you afraid of rejection? Are you afraid that others will discover that you are an impostor and not worthy to have a seat at the table? Are you afraid that if you don’t control every aspect of your personal and professional life, everything will come crashing down around you? Are you afraid that your inadequate performance could lead to job loss or financial devastation? Are you afraid of feeling the negative emotions that might be felt in the face of failure? Are you afraid of abandonment and loss of relationships? If you are a maladaptive perfectionist, one or more of these fears may be driving your behavior. 

The fear that has historically driven my perfectionism is the impostor syndrome fear. At times, I have been afraid that people might discover that I’m not really smart enough to be a lawyer or offer advice to other lawyers in my role as a Lawyers Mutual claims attorney. I sometimes fear that, when I present a CLE, people will doubt that I am knowledgeable enough to present the material. I have struggled in the past with these fears, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. While I have made great progress in eliminating this fear, it sometimes will creep back in. For example, I recently needed to write a somewhat complicated coverage letter to an insured. This lawyer was one of those lawyers that you might see in Super Lawyers or the Legal Elite. I have written this kind of letter hundreds of times in the past. It should have taken at most 15 minutes. Instead, I spent over an hour completing this letter. I researched old coverage letters and wrote and rewrote the letter until I “knew” it was perfect and could not be questioned. 

Once you have identified the fears that drive your maladaptive perfectionism, you can take steps to address it. The first step is self-awareness. Notice when your work and performance are being driven by your concern for what others will think about you. See if you can let that go and replace it with your internal drive and values. To do that, though, you will need to know what your values are. If you have lived your whole life worrying about what others think of you and want from you, you might be unsure about what your true values are. If that is the case, take some time for reflection and then write down what is important to you without regard to what others think. Having done this as a recovering people pleaser, I can tell you that it is incredibly liberating. 

If your perfectionism comes out like mine as a need to control everything in your environment, practice letting go of control in small areas in your life. When you release something, notice when the feared outcome never materializes. And if something negative does happen, ask yourself how bad it is. Does it really matter? During the time that I was writing this article, I decided to take a small step by getting rid of some of the piles of paper on my desk. Those piles represented my perceived ability to stay in control and not let anything slip through the cracks. But the truth is that they didn’t really serve any purpose. I never looked at them. So, I decided to declutter. I felt a weight lifted and have been enjoying my office more as a result.

The next step is to develop self-compassion. You have years of maladaptive perfectionist behaviors that are deeply engrained in the neural pathways of your brain. That won’t change overnight. When you notice yourself slipping by taking an hour to write a letter that should have taken 15 minutes, just notice it without judgment and resolve to change that behavior. Don’t become a perfectionist about overcoming perfectionism!

Another valuable tool to overcome maladaptive perfectionism is to focus on evidence that contradicts your negative beliefs. Your inner critic might have been telling you that other people think you are incompetent or unworthy. That voice in your head might have been telling you that you need to control every little variable in your environment or the sky will fall. Whatever negative messages have been floating around up there in your control center, there is always evidence to refute those negative thoughts. 

Write down all the things that contradict your negative thought patterns. And then begin to collect and save things that reinforce positive beliefs about yourself. For example, when I receive notes and emails from lawyers complimenting me on a CLE I presented or an article I wrote, I save those. It helps to look at those things when my ugly inner critic tries to convince me that I have no business writing articles for publication or speaking to audiences of lawyers. You can do the same thing with notes and emails you receive from clients. And when it comes to compliments from clients or colleagues, learn to accept those unconditionally. Don’t downplay your performance or accomplishment. Simply express gratitude. 

Finally, accept that there is no such thing as perfect and there is no perfect person. We are all flawed and we all make mistakes. If your goal is perfection, you will never get there. It can always be better. You will never be good enough. You could have done more for your client. The brief could have been written better. You could have obtained a more favorable settlement. Let that fish go.

Perfectionism’s paradox is that the very drive that pushes us toward excellence can also pull us away from peace and joy. Healthy perfectionism can fuel achievement and produce exceptional results, but when it crosses into the maladaptive zone, it becomes a taskmaster that erases joy, distorts perspective, and convinces us that nothing is ever enough. The key is not to get rid of your high standards, but to anchor them in your own values. Excellence is worth striving for, but your worth should not be measured by some unobtainable goal. Sometimes the wisest, healthiest thing you can do is acknowledge that it is good enough and you are enough.