Expectations and perfectionism: finding balance in a hyper-demanding world

Often, patients express dissatisfaction with themselves or with their ability to successfully manage various areas of their lives: work, relationships, self-care, hobbies, or physical appearance. It is also common to hear an overwhelming sense of doubt about “what should be done” in sessions.

Should I work more and focus on achieving goals? Should I cultivate more hobbies and dedicate more time to enjoying the moment?

These contradictions are influenced by internal pressures that constantly operate within us when making decisions and orienting our lives. However, today, these pressures are increasingly reinforced by ideals of perfection to which we are continuously exposed through culture and social discourses, which affect various aspects of subjective experience: work, personal life or body image.

This article will address how unhealthy perfectionism, and the fulfillment of unrealistic expectations can impact mental health. It will also offer some key strategies to build emotional balance in the face of repeated exposure to idealized images of life.

Perfectionism is the tendency to set very high standards and demand that we meet them. When taken to the extreme, it can lead to excessively rigid internal demands and self-evaluation based solely on whether we meet those standards or not.

Many people identify with perfectionistic tendencies that, in certain contexts, can drive them to work hard and commit. However, it is important to distinguish between perfectionism as a «desire to do things with interest and dedication» and maladaptive perfectionism, which is more related to an «urgent need to make everything perfect,» generating significant emotional distress when a mistake is made, no matter how small.

Scientific evidence has shown that perfectionism is a common factor in diagnoses of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

A recent study distinguishes three main types of perfectionism:

The latter type, socially prescribed perfectionism, has increased the most in recent decades, especially among young people. The rise in social pressure to achieve “perfection” promoted by contemporary discourses—such as career advancement, accumulating goods, building productive routines, maintaining flawless relationships, or achieving idealized bodies—impacts emotional well-being, contributing to the development of mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety.

Expectations are understood as anticipated beliefs about what is possible or likely to happen. From this perspective, they not only guide our decisions but also significantly influence our motivation, how we interpret what happens to us, and what we believe we can achieve.

In this sense, having reasonably high expectations can be very positive: it guides us, gives us direction, and often helps us face difficult situations with an optimistic attitude. An example of how our own expectations can influence our performance is when we start a project with an optimistic perspective. Believing that we can achieve it generates the drive to begin and continue.

In other words, having expectations, hopes, and aspirations is part of a psychologically alive life. However, the problem arises when expectations are built on external ideals that have little to do with our real possibilities or authentic desires.

When we build expectations about how we should be or live based on external pressures and experience fulfilling these expectations through perfectionism, we may feel that we can never be «good enough» and cannot reach that ideal, leading to mental fatigue and an increasingly critical inner dialogue.

In my clinical experience working with adults, young adults, and adolescents, the construction of ideals primarily based on external expectations can generate intense feelings of shame, guilt, low self-esteem, and disconnection from oneself. A common manifestation of this is the suffering of many experiences regarding their body image when comparing themselves to retouched images on Instagram, TikTok, or advertising campaigns.

Moreover, I believe that today, the suffering does not only come from whether these expectations are achieved or not, but from constant monitoring of how they are emotionally experienced (it seems that one “should” enjoy everything). This leads to a new form of self-demand, where even emotions become another area to evaluate, making it difficult to connect with what we are really feeling.

In short, questioning the expectations imposed on us by socially prescribed perfectionism does not mean rejecting our own aspirations, but becoming more aware of what is truly important to us and finding our way of guiding our lives.

Emma is a health psychologist at Sinews. She treats adults and adolescents who come for consultation for problems such as anxiety, depression, grief, self-esteem, emotional self-esteem, emotional dependency… In addition, she is a specialist in the treatment of trauma. She performs her interventions from an integrative approach, which includes an exploration of primary bonding relationships from the perspective of the attachment theory, as well as an approach to the problem from a cognitive-behavioral approach to the problem from a cognitive-behavioral perspective, using effective techniques according to each patient’s needs.