The Perfectionism Trap

Perfectionism ties your entire sense of worth to performance and external feedback — creating a belief that you must prove you're good enough to deserve love, acceptance, or even the right to stay. What's less obvious is this: more than failure, what you fear most is being finished, being defined, being judged. So you stay in preparation mode, because as long as you're still working on it, the verdict can't land. Inside, there's a pair of eyes that never stops scoring — and no matter how high you score, they always find what's missing. The exhaustion isn't from working too hard. It's from the impossibility of the task you've set for yourself.