When Being “Good” Isn’t Good Enough
In my therapy practice, I keep seeing this same story play out: ridiculously capable women who look like they’re crushing it on paper, but privately feel like they’re one mistake away from everything falling apart. Extreme perfectionism.
Take Rachel (not her real name – I’ve changed the details to protect privacy). From the outside, she’s living the Silicon Valley dream. She’s 34, her AI startup is taking off, and she’s got VCs practically camping outside her office. TechCrunch just named her one of their “40 Under 40.”
But in our video sessions, when she can finally drop the polished founder mask, it’s a different story.
“I feel like I’m playing this insane game of high-stakes Jenga,” she told me recently, looking exhausted despite her perfect Zoom backdrop. “Like if I pull the wrong block – miss one investor email, screw up one pitch – the whole thing comes crashing down and everyone finally sees I’m not actually qualified to be here.”
After thirteen years of sitting with clients (and working through my own version of this), I’ve noticed something: This isn’t just about perfectionism or being ambitious or having high standards. That relentless drive to be perfect, to anticipate every possible problem, to never show weakness – it usually comes from somewhere deeper. It’s like we learned early on that being “good enough” wasn’t actually enough to keep us safe or loved or valued. So we aimed for perfect instead.
Where This “Not Good Enough” Story Really Starts
When Rachel finally opened up about her childhood, it was like hearing a story I’ve heard a hundred times in my practice. Her mom’s response to straight A’s? A quick glance and “What happened in Calculus?” (She got a 98%). Her dad was technically around – sitting at the dinner table and everything – but always buried in his laptop, barely looking up when she tried to tell him about her day.
The message was pretty clear: being “good” wasn’t good enough to actually get anyone’s attention. Rachel figured out pretty quick that maybe if she just achieved enough – got into the right college, landed the perfect job, started a successful company – someone would finally look up and really see her.
I see this all the time in my practice, and research backs up what I’m seeing in the therapy room. Ko et al.’s (2019) study actually mapped out how growing up with inconsistent attention or validation (what researchers call “insecure attachment”) directly leads to perfectionism later in life.
