I remember the shame of getting something wrong as a kid.
Sometimes my parents would ask me to do something and I’d mess it up.
Other times, I was just trying to figure something out on my own.
But if I did it wrong, I could still get judged for it.
After a while, you don’t just think about doing the thing anymore.
You start thinking about everything that could go wrong.
Am I forgetting something?
What if I mess this up?
So you try to prevent it.
You double-check.
You think ahead.
I’m 42 now, and when something matters to me, I still really don’t want to get it wrong.
Sometimes that means turning a 20-minute task into two hours.
Because once you notice something isn’t right, leaving it that way feels impossible.
Someone else might say:
“It looks fine.”
But you can still see what’s wrong with it.
Not necessarily because you need it to be perfect.
But because you really don’t want to feel like you got it wrong.
When Caring Makes It Harder
This is where perfectionism gets weird.
If you don’t care about something?
Whatever. Get it done.
But when it matters, suddenly there’s something to lose.
What if you put all that effort in and it still isn’t good enough?
So you wait until you have more time, or until you feel more prepared.
And now you’re procrastinating on something you actually care about.
Then, when you finally start, you run into the opposite problem:
You can’t leave it alone.
One more check.
One more change.
At some point, you’re not fixing something that’s obviously bad anymore.
You’re trying to get rid of that little feeling that says:
There’s still something wrong.
Because knowing something is good and feeling finished with it aren’t always the same thing.
How Does That Fit With ADHD?
When I pictured a perfectionist, I pictured someone organized and prepared.
That doesn’t exactly scream ADHD.
ADHD can already make it easy to miss details, lose track of time, or act before thinking.
And those traits can come with a lot of correction:
“You weren’t listening.”
“Why did you wait until the last minute?”
If you’ve spent years getting corrected for forgetting things, missing details, or doing things the “wrong” way, it’s not hard to understand why you might start worrying so much about getting things right.
But the research is actually more nuanced than a simple cause-and-effect.
A study of over 3,700 college students found that greater ADHD symptoms weren’t associated with higher personal standards. Standards and order were actually lower.
Instead, they were associated with perfectionistic discrepancy — the painful gap between what you expected of yourself and how you feel like you actually did.
Other research consistently links adult ADHD with lower self-esteem.
So maybe your perfectionism isn’t about wanting everything to be flawless.
Maybe it exists right alongside doubting whether you’re good enough in the first place.
Then You Make a Mistake Anyway
This might be the cruelest part.
After all that checking and overthinking…
sometimes you still screw up.
You spend hours preparing and forget one little thing.
You finally send the email and immediately spot the typo.
And instead of thinking:
“I made a mistake. People make mistakes.”
your brain goes straight to:
“I knew I should’ve checked again.”
Now all that overthinking feels justified.
Except there will always be something you could have checked again.
At some point, trying to prevent every possible mistake costs you more than the mistakes themselves.
So When Is Something Actually “Good Enough”?
I don’t want to stop caring about doing things well.
Sometimes another 20 minutes makes something noticeably better.
The problem is figuring out when you’re improving the work versus when you’re just trying to reach 100% certainty that nothing is wrong.
Because certainty is a trap.
There’s always another version you could try.
So instead of asking:
Could I make this better?
I’m trying to ask:
Does this need to be better?
The harder part is deciding whether the extra time is actually buying me something that matters, or if I’m just moving things around because stopping feels uncomfortable.
What Can Actually Help?
Knowing you do this doesn’t magically make the feeling disappear.
But you can put boundaries around how far you’re willing to go.
Decide what “done” looks like before you start.
If you wait until you’re deep into a project, the standard can keep moving.
Decide what the task actually needs from you before perfectionism gets a vote.
Give the last 5% a budget.
Give that final polish a hard limit — ten more minutes, or one more check.
Then ask:
Did this actually get meaningfully better?
Pay attention to the aftermath of a mistake.
When you inevitably mess something up, notice where your brain goes.
If the only way to prevent a mistake was to check everything forever…
that’s not a system.
That’s fear with a really good work ethic.
I Still Hate Getting Things Wrong
I still hate getting things wrong.
I still have moments where I know I should stop, and keep going anyway.
But I understand that feeling differently now.
I used to think perfectionism meant everything had to be perfect.
What I recognize now is the fear underneath it.
If you can procrastinate like crazy while also putting ridiculous pressure on yourself to get certain things right…
those things aren’t contradictory.
Maybe instead of asking:
“Why can’t I just stop caring so much?”
The real question is:
“What am I afraid it means if I get this wrong?”