You Don't Have to Be Perfect
Striving for perfection, or wan mei 完美, is a waste of time.
Posted May 14, 2026 | Reviewed by Devon Frye
Hard-and-fast thinkers want perfection, and defeat and failure are not in their vocabulary. For them, everything must be just so. However, no one is perfect. Thinking that we can be perfect is the path to definite failure. My parents were exacting about certain things in life, but not all. For example, my father handled his brush, ink, and rice paper meticulously during his calligraphy sessions. My mother was exacting in the kitchen. The rice had to be washed three times, and the vegetables scrubbed just as much. This type of perfection, fortunately, did not rule other areas of their lives. My parents were surprisingly hands-off about many things. Namely, they never once pestered me about bringing home straight-As, not that grades weren’t important. Frankly, I was studious just enough . Perhaps my parents knew that demanding a straight-A report card was plain old crazy-making for them and me. They never even used the word perfection, wan mei , 完美.
Parents who expect a certain level of perfection use their children as vehicles for their own fulfillment and end up raising offspring who become overly focused on themselves—they think failure will ruin their lives. While they’re careful about not making mistakes, they’re missing out on valuable lessons. Such self-focus isn’t a great backdrop for development. The perfectionist is close-minded in her thinking and behavior, and she is constantly concerned that she may lose her parents' validation, affection, and love.
The Rise of Perfectionism
A review of multiple studies from the University of Bath and York St. John University in the United Kingdom found a rise in perfectionism in recent years . The cause of the increase may have resulted from various factors, including social comparison via social media and the rise of individualism and a decrease in collectivism. Not only has the demand for perfection by others steadily increased, but the demands we make on ourselves have increased as well. The results of a meta-analysis are normally strong and reliable because it is a consolidation of data from previous peer-reviewed studies; its primacy lies in the data analysis of multiple subjects.
According to research that was published in 2006 in the Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy , people who look for things to go wrong in life leave a door open to depression , a hallmark of perfectionist thinking. Psychologists view such a thought process as a cause of anxiety and other mood disorders. It is a frame of mind that also stokes other mental illnesses, including substance abuse , depression, and eating disorders. The link between perfectionism and eating disorders is real, according to the journal Clinical Psychology Review . While there is a chicken-and-egg problem in deciphering this—who knows whether perfectionism feeds the disorders or vice versa—the link is clear. Among tween and teenage girls, for example, perfectionism can be tied to the desire for a thin waistline and an amazing boyfriend.
Peter Gray, research professor at Boston College and author of Restoring Childhood, has something to say about this . There is little freedom in modern-day education , and no autonomy to learn or to be curious. While children are innately curious, we do a good job of stamping it out, he has argued. Genuine curiosity is a trait that’s accepting of life. In effect, we open our eyes to find wonder and novelty in the world; it is the opposite of indifference and hard-and-fast beliefs. (I should thank my parents for their hands-off approach.)
Nowadays, we prepare children for standardized testing through rote memory , competition , and subject-focused learning. It’s an environment that can deaden children. They do not learn to be curious and open. Gray wants to see children utilize their critical thinking, deep understanding, collaborative nature, and inquisitive engagement.
The Antidote of Wonder
Curiosity is a big part of positive psychology. When we want to learn new things, we are engaged with life, which fuels fulfillment and well-being. When we are curious, the worry of failure and perfection falls away. Curious people tend to be happier and less neurotic , while the unengaged and disinterested tend to be negative and depressed .
Children innately have loads of wonder, and this drives their motivation and desire to figure out how the world works. We can relearn this intuitive trait by opening our eyes, paying attention to what we see, and wondering out loud. Asking an open-ended question about what we are looking at is a good start. For some people, this may take being uncomfortable; it’s a willingness to be wrong and saying, “I don’t know.” Doing so can feel unpleasant, but it does not have to take us on a spin down a negativity spiral.
Adapted from the book How to Be Less Miserable . Blackstone Publishing, 2025.
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Lybi Ma is the executive editor of Psychology Today and author of How to Be Less Miserable.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.