Perfectionism

The Art of Accomplishment

Brett Kistler

Management, Mental Health, Personal Development, Education, Self-improvement, Business, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 269 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brett and Joe have nailed the PERFECT episode, which means they can finally get this podcast launched! Now they just need to get the perfect album art, title, set…and the perfect list of everything they need to do before they can launch the perfect podcast! In this episode, our hosts tackle everyone’s favourite Achilles heel: perfectionism. It shows up in individuals, teams, organizations, and entire societies. They explore where it comes from, why it has increased dramatically over the past decades, and how it narrows perception, creates internal chaos, and—paradoxically—produces worse results. They discuss: - Perfectionism is fundamentally fear-based, not excellence-based - How perfectionism predicts the same negative health outcomes as chronic stress - The rise of perfectionism over the past 30 years and why things haven’t gotten better - Binary thinking and the illusion of a perfect end state - The childhood roots of perfectionism and chaotic environments - Why perfectionism actually *creates* the chaos it’s trying to prevent - How organizations unintentionally reward fear and stagnation - Practical ways to work with fear, the inner critic, and the nervous system

Transcript

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0:00.0	The idea of perfectionism is fear-based.
0:03.0	And because it's fear-based, we learn less, we learn slower.
0:07.0	All of that happens when we're in that binary thinking and when we're in that false end.
0:12.0	Perfectionism is predictive of all the same negative health outcomes as stress.
0:16.0	The internal mind frame of being perfect is extremely chaotic.
0:21.6	That if I was living right now, the life that I thought would be perfect for me,
0:26.6	it would be a miserable life for me now.
0:33.6	This week on the Art of Accomplishment, we're talking about perfectionism, what it is,
0:43.5	where it comes from, and how it's creating stagnation in your life, in our lives, in organizations,
0:48.1	and in society. Over the past 30 years in Western societies, perfectionism has increased
0:53.9	about 33%.
0:55.3	And it doesn't mean things have been getting more perfect.
0:57.7	It just means that we've been getting a lot more anxiety, depression, eating disorders.
1:02.5	All of these things are downstream of perfectionism.
1:06.2	Perfectionism is apparently not preventative of these things.
1:09.0	Like you would think, if you are a perfectionist.
1:11.3	It's actually a risk factor for all sorts of mental health outcomes that we don't want.
1:16.1	Yeah.
1:16.6	So what's going on there?
1:18.1	Yeah.
1:18.4	What is perfectionism?
1:19.6	It's a reaction to fear and to try trying to control a situation and make it so that it's
	...

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