Transcript

There is a kind of person who seems at first glance to benefit from an admirable degree of self motivation, thoroughness and drive. They are up at dawn. They rarely take holidays. They are always sneaking in an extra hour or two of work. Their bosses are highly impressed. They are constantly promoted.

Their grades have been excellent since primary school, they never miss an appointment or turn in a piece of work that is less than stellar. We like to say that such a person has high standards. We might even anoint them with the term perfectionist. It might seem churlish to locate any problems here. Why complain about a somewhat overzealous devotion to perfection in a troubled and lackadaisical world? There could surely be nothing too awful about high exactitude. What could be so imperfect about perfectionism?