Perfection is not the goal

How to get to "enough" with Dr. Ellen Hendriksen

One of my negotiation coaching themes is that when interacting with another human being, you cannot expect perfection. Things will not go exactly the way you would like; you won’t say exactly the right words; you’ll forget something important in the moment and kick yourself afterward. Focus on what matters, not on getting every detail right.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen’s new book, How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists — one of Oprah’s best self-help books of 2025! — teaches us how to go easier on ourselves, while harnessing our perfectionist tendencies for good. For this month’s newsletter, I sat down with Dr. Hendriksen to talk about how perfectionism relates to how we approach conflict.

(Full disclosure, Ellen is a friend, in addition to being an excellent writer and trusted source of reassuring and often humorous advice.)

Pia: As you know, my newsletter encourages people to engage in conflict rather than shy away from it, and gives them some tools to do that. When I talk to subscribers and friends about your book, many of them say “I need to read that!” So I wonder if there is some overlap between people seeking to assert themselves more, and people who tend to be perfectionists.

Ellen: The stereotypical profile of a perfectionist is someone assertive, who emphasizes being right over getting along, or someone who sets out to win. But perfectionism is heterogeneous. It can manifest very differently, including as avoidance. For instance, there might be two people who hold the same belief: “I should win this” – but one jumps in with gusto and the other decides if they can’t do it perfectly, they should avoid it altogether.

Perfectionism can also manifest as over-responsibility. It could be a sense that we should be prepared for all the points that anyone could ever present to us, with an articulate refutation or support.

I know you sometimes talk about how overly conscientious negotiators will start with solutions before discussing the problems, and I think it can manifest that way too, jumping directly to solutions or thinking we need to have things figured out ahead of time.

Whether perfectionism manifests as conflict avoidance, or as going full steam ahead with the urge to win, it’s driven by “should”s. I should be winning, I should do this correctly, I should be articulate, I should make good points, I should come across as brilliant to the person I’m negotiating with.

Either way, it’s about our self-imposed standards of how we think we should be presenting ourselves or, even less under our control, how we think we should be received.

Those of us who are perfectionists make a lot of rules for ourselves, demanding of ourselves a level of performance higher than required for the situation. Performance can be social performance – I have to seem smart, I have to not be awkward, I have to avoid coming off as inarticulate. Self-imposed standards manifest as rules about social behavior that can apply in negotiations or at work, or can be when you’re just hanging out with your friends at brunch. If we define “failure” as “not meeting expectations,” then failure can mean not meeting our own expectations.

Perfectionism can also be about rules that guide our behavior. These rules tend to be rigid, meaning that we don’t adapt them from situation to situation. For example, a common rule people internalize is “I should be nice,” and that works most of the time. But if we feel like we can’t assert ourselves because we would upset someone and that wouldn’t be nice, or we can’t ask our boss for a raise because it might make them uncomfortable, then we’re clinging to that rule a little too rigidly. Or if we can’t yell “get away from me” at someone harassing us on the street, we’re sticking to that rule a little too rigidly.

Pia: Do you think the rules come from self-identity, or what we’ve been taught and internalized?

Ellen: Both. They can be overtly taught, or can be what we think of as core characteristics.

Pia: What if you feel like niceness is one of your core characteristics, but it’s getting in your way?

Ellen: We can think about whether applying the rule in this situation works. We are misapplying the rule if we’re trying to be nice to someone harassing us.

How can we adapt how we think about ourselves to work for this situation? We can make exceptions that we integrate into our positive view of our ourselves. In this case, it could be “I’m a nice person who can be assertive.” Or “I am someone who gets along and can stand my ground.” It’s not either/or. It can be both/and.

It is actually hard to engage in conflict, or what we perceive will turn into conflict. And those are not different things – you can certainly be kind and nice and polite while being assertive, it’s not that you need to start baring your teeth and snarling. Negotiation can be polite and kind.

Pia: In your book, you discuss the very relatable “cringe attacks.” Can you talk about those and how they relate to uncomfortable conversations?

Ellen: Cringe attacks are a colloquial name for something that doesn’t have a scientific name: the tendency for embarrassing memories to pop into our minds, often when we are doing something passive like taking a shower or folding laundry. It’s a physical experience – we might cringe, or wince, or shake our head – and it’s almost always a memory of us doing something interpersonally humiliating, or being embarrassed or ashamed in some way.

A way to turn down the volume on the cringe attacks is to make some room for mistakes, challenging the idea that we should never do anything wrong or embarrassing, or make a fool out of ourselves, or be in an awkward situation. If we can allow for some of those as part of the package deal of life, if we can make some room for that, then the intensity of these memories will decrease.

Saying something humiliating, forgetting someone’s name, telling a joke that doesn’t land correctly – once in a while, these things are going to happen.

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If you’re letting perfectionism drive you away from conflict — or if you’re torturing yourself after difficult conversations — I hope this advice will help.

For more from Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, read the full interview on my website, order How to Be Enough from your local bookstore, and subscribe to her Substack, How to be Good To Yourself When You’re Hard On Yourself.