Aug 30, 2025 5 min read

I have decided in my post-retirement years that I will be more than satisfied with living a life of meaningful mediocrity. Moreover, l will kick to the curb any thoughts of achieving perfection in any of my pursuits.

While I have the time and better resources to seek a more perfect existence, where nothing is out of place and projects are improved until flawless, I now choose the opposite. My attitude will be “it’s OK” if my office is untidy, weeds are taking over the front yard, painting the porch comes out uneven, or my commentaries are not of a quality to win journalism awards. I will try to fill my days with messy, unpolished contentment, not perfectionist anxiety and self-doubt.

The noun mediocrity means “the quality of being average or ordinary.” Perfectionism is a personality characteristic, which is defined as “striving for flawlessness and setting exceedingly high standards for performance, accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations.”

A review of the offerings in the self-help section of any bookstore will find dozens of titles discussing mediocrity, perfectionism and similar character traits. The business books tend to stress the importance of focused ambition and high achievement. The psychology books lean the other way, emphasizing the value of being content with an average, mundane existence.

For years, many health care professionals thought that striving for flawlessness and critical self-evaluation, the hallmarks of perfectionism, could yield positive results. Recently, this thinking has changed.

A current edition of New Yorker magazine features journalist Leslie Jamison reviewing contemporary thinking on the subject. In The Pain of Perfectionism, Jamison relies heavily on the career and published works of Gordon Flett, a psychology professor from York University who specializes in understanding perfectionism and its pitfalls.

The article begins with a personal anecdote related by Flett to Jamison that explains how sneaky perfectionism can be. The professor was convinced that one of his two daughters exhibited the hallmarks of a perfectionist, and he developed a questionnaire to identify the trait in children. The child tested normal. Years later when there was no question that his daughter was a perfectionist, she explained to her father that she had internalized the message that perfectionism was to be avoided. She then decided to relate the “perfect” answers that any ordinary child would give.

Early in his career, Flett found it difficult to find support for the proposition that perfectionism was a source of suffering. However, as his research progressed, his testing and treatment of patients revealed it was anything but positive. Flett now believes that “Perfectionism can be personally terrorizing for people, a debilitating state. It’s driven not by aspiration but by fear, and by the conviction that perfectionism is the only way of being secure and safe in the world.”

Flett has an extensive collection of autobiographies of famous people who have battled perfectionism. High achievers in sports, music, and the arts are well represented. They include golfer Ben Hogan and tennis star Andre Agassi. (He wanted to hit a winner on every shot.) In music, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Lang Lang, and Brian Wilson are prime examples. In each case, the memoirs reflect how the condition has adversely affected their lives. Flett points out that recent films like “Black Swan” and “Phantom Thread” have “interrogated the downside of perfectionism while bestowing on it a fatal glamour.”

What has the research found that distinguishes perfectionism from a mere attempt to do your best? First, reaching a goal is never enough, whether it is a top grade, a target weight, or a professional milestone. Second, achievement doesn’t cure the feeling of being unacceptable. Third, perfectionism perpetuates an endless circle of striving, where getting better gives no satisfaction.

Flett and his collaborator, Paul Hewitt, have been credited with developing a framework and vocabulary for discussing and understanding perfectionism. It provides therapists with a means to explain anorexic patients and their “relentless self-destructive drive.”

After adjusting for other variables like depression, perfectionism is now considered a powerful predictor of suicide. Unfortunately, Flett and Hewitt have found that, “Perfectionists may construe an unsuccessful suicide attempt as the ultimate failure.”

While perfectionism continues to receive bad reviews from the psychology community, mediocrity is gaining support. Rejection can destroy the life of a perfectionist. Mediocre people often use rejection as a learning experience and make choices they can both afford and enjoy. Commentators now label this trend “meaningful mediocrity.” Beyond the world of celebrities, sports stars, internet influencers, and Wall Street financiers, most of us can live satisfying lives of meaningful mediocrity.

Since the pandemic, it is common to find books, articles, blogs, and podcasts of individuals who want to discuss their dramatic change in attitude after living a life dedicated to high achievement. They have all reevaluated their relationship with ambition and other perfectionist tendencies. The recurrent conclusion is that mediocrity is a far better fate than misery.

Jamie Ducharme, the health correspondent at Time magazine, writes “Embracing mediocrity goes against everything Americans are taught to believe. For a long time, I bought into this mindset. It was only once it tanked my mental health that I realized what this mindset had cost me.”

In my own case, striving to accomplish big things perfectly, while working 70 hours a week, contributed to my becoming an alcoholic. Today, I am content with being “good enough.”

Gary Stout is a Washington attorney.