Perfectionism & Self-Doubt
The More You Achieve, The More The Bar Moves
Doing Well Has Never Meant Feeling Well
You’re not here because you want to be told you’re “enough.” You’re here because you’re tired of the math.
If you do X, you’re safe. If you miss Y, you’re incompetent. If you slow down, you’ll fall behind. If you aren’t on top of it, someone else will notice.
It’s exhausting because there is no finish line. The more competent you are, the easier it is for people to assume you’re fine. So you keep it moving.
Even when you’re doing well, you’re never really off the clock. Self-doubt doesn’t show up as insecurity. It shows up as checking. Preparing. Rehearsing. Rewriting. It’s the part of you that gives other people room to be human, but doesn’t give you the same room.
The Cost Is Subtle
Perfectionism is usually not about standards. It’s about consequence.
Somewhere along the way, you learned that being thorough, prepared, and hard to fault kept things stable. It protected your reputation, your relationships, your livelihood, or your sense of control. So the system stayed online.
The issue is that it doesn’t stay limited to what actually matters. It starts treating ordinary decisions like high-risk situations. You catch small errors as if they are evidence. You re-check, re-work, and re-run scenarios so you don’t get blindsided.
From the outside, you look composed. Internally, it costs attention, time, and recovery. You don’t get the relief of being “done.” You just get the next thing.
A Different Way To Be Driven
Therapy for perfectionism and self-doubt is not about lowering your standards. It’s about changing what your standards are doing to you.
The work is learning how to tell the difference between precision and protection. Between preparation that serves you and preparation that keeps you braced. Over time, we identify the rules your system is running, what they are trying to prevent, and what it costs to keep them in place.
As the pattern becomes clearer, we build something more sustainable: the ability to apply your intensity on purpose. To let some decisions be “good enough” because they truly are. To stop treating uncertainty like a threat. To recover without needing a perfect day to earn rest.
You can keep your competence. The goal is to stop paying for it with constant internal surveillance.
Next Steps
If you’re seeking thoughtful, depth-oriented therapy and feel aligned with my approach, I invite you to reach out to explore working together.
Let’s begin with a free 15-minute consultation to see if it feels like a good fit.