Thomas Curran: The Dark Side of Perfectionism

'That's the root of perfectionism: that chronic deficit thinking, the belief that we're not good enough. That we're not attractive enough, smart enough, fit enough, whatever it might be. In order to compensate for those feelings, we project on to the world a perfect persona that we feel like everybody wants to see – that we should be, essentially. And it's exhausting if you have to keep that up in every single interaction.'

Welcome back to another season of Alonement. My first guest on this season is Dr Thomas Curran, a world leading expert on perfectionism and the author of The Perfection Trap: The Power Of Good Enough In A World That Always Wants More. Endorsed by the likes of Adam Grant and, more recently, Gwyneth Paltrow, The Perfection Trap is the culmination of years of academic research, interwoven with other expert voices, and as well as being rooted in academia it’s also chatty, engaging and honest, which was not something I expected from an academic text. In this conversation, we chat about the relationship between alone time and perfectionism. This includes how solitude can sometimes be used as a space to recover from perfectionism, for practising a hobby that you’re not, technically, very good at – purely for the joy of it. But also the danger of bringing your own perfectionist tendencies along, like trying to get a PB every time you go for a solo run. We also touch on the potential loneliness of relocating you have to do as an academic professor – or any lifestyle, like digital nomadism, that involves rootlessness and moving around a lot. Finally, we discuss how time outside – specifically cycling in nature – is Thom’s favourite kind of alonement, and how sometimes finding joy in solitude can come to our rescue in our lowest moments. 

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