Joe calls this the golden algorithm applied to perfectionism: the feeling you’re trying to avoid, you invite in the exact way you’re trying to avoid it. Perfectionism originates in chaotic childhoods—unpredictable criticism, withdrawal of love—and attempts to control that chaos by getting everything exactly right. But trying to get everything right creates chaos: impossible standards lead to overwhelm, missed deadlines, lost focus on what actually matters, and the internal experience of “everything is wrong.”
Perfectionism is predictive of the same negative health outcomes as stress because it IS stress. It activates threat networks in the brain, shuts down creative problem-solving, and makes teams roughly 30% less productive.
“The mind says you need to do it perfectly, but your mind won’t actually define what perfect is. So no matter what you do, it will always not be perfect.”
The perfectionist sets up the same impossible game their parents set up: standards that can never be met, goalposts that always move. The chaos they’re trying to prevent is the chaos they’re generating—internally through relentless self-criticism, and externally through stagnation, fear-based relationships, and inability to iterate.
Related Concepts
- Resistance creates the feared outcome
- Fear creates binary thinking and false ends
- Shame creates the behaviors it punishes
- You become your own oppressive boss
- Organizations must remove fear to enable innovation