A Literary Prescription for

Perfectionism

For the exhausting belief that mistakes are dangerous, and being good enough was never actually good enough.

Perfectionism is often praised as a virtue, which is part of why it is so hard to recognise as the problem it actually is. It rarely produces the safety, approval, or peace it promises. It mostly produces exhaustion, and a persistent sense that you are always one mistake away from being found out. The books, poems, and words gathered here make the case for something considerably more sustainable: good enough, attempted with courage.

Books Poetry Quotes & Prose

Books

Prescribed reading

Books that make a compelling case for letting go of impossible standards.

Overcoming Perfectionism

Roz Shafran, Sarah Egan & Tracey Wade · 2010

Written by clinical psychologists using cognitive behavioural methods, this is one of the most practical and evidence-based guides to perfectionism available — treating it as a genuine clinical pattern with identifiable triggers and effective interventions, rather than simply a personality trait to be tolerated.

The Gifts of Imperfection

Brené Brown · 2010

Brown’s landmark book on wholehearted living addresses perfectionism head-on, distinguishing it clearly from healthy striving and arguing that perfectionism is fundamentally about avoiding shame rather than pursuing excellence. Her ten guideposts for embracing imperfection have become a touchstone for an entire generation of readers trying to loosen perfectionism’s grip.

Daring Greatly

Brené Brown · 2012

Brown’s research on vulnerability situates perfectionism as one of the primary shields people use against the risk of being truly seen — and argues that the shield costs more than the exposure it is meant to prevent. For readers whose perfectionism is really a fear of being found inadequate, Brown reframes the entire equation.

Mindset

Dr. Carol S. Dweck · 2006

Dweck’s research on growth versus fixed mindsets explains why perfectionism so often backfires — treating every mistake as evidence of fundamental inadequacy rather than information to learn from. For readers caught in perfectionism’s all-or-nothing thinking, Dweck offers a genuinely different relationship with failure, one that makes growth possible rather than terrifying.

Britt-Marie Was Here

Fredrik Backman · 2014

Britt-Marie irons her tea towels and organises her cutlery drawer with a precision that has clearly stood in, for decades, for a life she never quite let herself want. Backman writes her exacting standards with real tenderness, slowly revealing the fear underneath the order, and what happens when Britt-Marie finally lets a little mess in.

Mrs Dalloway

Virginia Woolf · 1925

Clarissa Dalloway spends an entire day orchestrating the perfect party, every flower and detail accounted for, while an undercurrent of doubt about the life she actually chose runs beneath the surface the whole time. Woolf is quietly devastating on the gap between a perfectly managed exterior and what it can cost to maintain one.

Poems about perfectionism

For when prose is not enough

Poems that grant permission to be wonderfully, sufficiently imperfect.

“The Author to Her Book”

Anne Bradstreet, 1678

Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
...I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet.

Bradstreet addresses her own published poems as an embarrassing, ill-dressed child she cannot quite disown, fussing over its flaws even as she sends it out into the world anyway. It is one of the earliest and funniest accounts in English poetry of loving something imperfect enough to release it regardless.

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“Anyway”

Kent M. Keith, 1968 (often misattributed to Mother Teresa)

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.

Keith’s “Paradoxical Commandments,” often presented in poem form, repeatedly argue for doing the right or worthwhile thing regardless of outcome — a useful counter to perfectionism’s insistence that effort is only worth it if the result is flawless. Try anyway, it says, again and again.

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“Birches” (extract)

Robert Frost, 1915

Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
...They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break.

Frost watches birch trees bent permanently out of shape by ice and weather, and finds the bent shape more interesting than a straight one would have been. Perfectionism insists that bending under pressure is a flaw to correct; Frost suggests the bend can simply be what happened, and is allowed to stay.

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Quotes & Prose

Quotes about perfectionism to keep

For the moments when good enough feels like it isn’t.

Done is better than perfect.

Sheryl Sandberg

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Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.

Anne Wilson Schaef

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Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.

Anne Lamott

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There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

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You have been criticising yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.

Louise Hay

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From Georgia

Pause here, if you need to

A short practice for sitting with perfectionism, whenever you need somewhere to land.

Letting Go Of Perfectionism

Guided meditation by Georgia Clare

A nurturing meditation for softening the grip of perfectionism, helping you find peace in progress rather than impossible standards.

Listen Now For Free

The Inner Peace Toolkit

Digital Self-Care Toolkit · Georgia Clare

2 guided meditations, an Inner Peace Journal, an affirmations eBook, 10 printable affirmation prints and 10 calming phone wallpapers — small daily practices to come back to whenever you need to slow down and reconnect with yourself.

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The 21-Day Meditation Course

Guided Meditation Course · Georgia Clare

Three weeks of short, guided meditations to help you build a calm, steady daily practice — gently softening how you meet stress, anxiety and overwhelm, one day at a time.

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Questions people ask

Reading for Perfectionism

Where should I start?

If you only read one thing, begin with Overcoming Perfectionism by Roz Shafran, Sarah Egan & Tracey Wade. Written by clinical psychologists using cognitive behavioural methods, this is one of the most practical and evidence-based guides to perfectionism available… And if a whole book feels like too much today, scroll to the poems below — “The Author to Her Book” by Anne Bradstreet can be read in a minute and asks nothing of you.

What if I can’t face a whole book right now?

Start with the short forms on this page — the poems and the lines to keep — rather than a whole book. A poem or a single quote asks very little of you, and you don’t have to read in order, or finish anything.

Which quotes about perfectionism are worth keeping?

Quotes about perfectionism worth keeping include “Done is better than perfect.” (Sheryl Sandberg), “Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.” (Anne Wilson Schaef) and “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane…” (Anne Lamott). You’ll find these and more in the quotes section above.

Can reading really help with perfectionism?

It genuinely can. A book won’t undo perfectionism, but the right one makes you feel less alone in it — someone else has felt this exact thing and found words for it, and being understood, even by a stranger on a page, is its own quiet relief.

Perfectionism

Prescribed reading

For when prose is not enough

Quotes about perfectionism to keep

Pause here, if you need to

Reading for Perfectionism

Where should I start?

What if I can’t face a whole book right now?

Which quotes about perfectionism are worth keeping?

Can reading really help with perfectionism?

More prescriptions await.