New year’s resolutions are catnip for perfectionism. Each January we are invited to reinvent ourselves as fitter, more productive, more virtuous, with the rollover of the calendar offering us a clean slate and a chance to correct our flaws.

While reasonable goals for modest self-improvement can be healthy, when these resolutions are perfectionistic, they become all-or-nothing tests of our self-worth. Make a mistake, miss a day at the gym, and the whole project collapses in a spiral of self-reproach. But the problem is not your willpower – it is perfectionism itself.

Perfectionism has a good public face but it frequently masks painful private struggles.

In the therapy room it is a foe to be vanquished if our patients are to live happier and more authentic lives. The challenge is that perfectionism tends to masquerade as diligence and achievement. Who wouldn’t want to do things properly, to high standards, to the best of their ability?

Perfectionists thus generally wish to rid themselves of the negative consequences of this trait – anxiety, depression and burnout – but not to lower their standards. This is hardly surprising given that perfectionism is often rewarded and praised and thus positively reinforced. Yet beneath the surface, it is often less about excellence than about fear.

Perfectionism is associated with the pursuit of quality but it is more accurately characterised by a fear of........

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