ADHD and Perfectionism: When Getting It Right Stops You Getting Started

Do you ever put off starting something because you're worried you won't do it properly? Perhaps you spend far too long thinking about how to approach a task, keep putting off a project until you have more time, or struggle to finish something because it never feels quite good enough.

Perfectionism and ADHD might not seem like an obvious combination, but they can go hand in hand. For some adults with ADHD, the desire to get things right can make everyday tasks much harder than they need to be.

How are ADHD and perfectionism connected?

Living with ADHD can mean experiencing difficulties with organisation, time management, concentration, or meeting deadlines. If you've spent years being criticised for making mistakes, forgetting things, or not meeting expectations, you might develop a strong desire to get everything right as a way of avoiding further criticism. I know because I have been through this myself.

Over time, this desire can turn into perfectionism, where making a mistake feels much bigger than it needs to be, or where you feel that your work has to meet an extremely high standard before you're happy with it; this can make your life far more stressful than it needs to be.

The difficulty is that perfectionism can sometimes make the very things you're trying to achieve harder to complete - you might spend so long planning how to do something perfectly that you struggle to begin, or keep checking and changing your work because you're worried you've missed something.

When perfectionism leads to procrastination

One of the difficulties with ADHD is that getting started on a task can already be challenging, particularly when it feels complicated, boring, or overwhelming. Add the expectation that you must get everything right, and it can become even harder to begin!

You might put off writing an email because you're unsure how to word it, delay a project because you don't feel ready, or avoid a task altogether because you're worried about making a mistake.

From the outside, this might look like procrastination, but underneath it there may be a fear of getting things wrong or not meeting your own expectations.

How can you make things easier?

If you recognise yourself in this, it may help to start questioning what you're expecting of yourself. Does this task genuinely need to be perfect, or would doing it well enough be sufficient? What would happen if you finished it without checking it for the third time?

Breaking a task into smaller steps can also make it easier to get started, particularly if you're feeling overwhelmed by the bigger picture. Rather than expecting yourself to produce a finished piece of work straight away, allow yourself to make a start and improve it as you go.

It can also help to set a realistic limit on how much time you spend on a task, especially when you know you tend to get caught up in the details - you won't always get things exactly right, but that doesn't mean you've failed.

You don't have to get everything right

If you've spent years feeling that you need to work harder than everyone else to avoid making mistakes, letting go of perfectionism can take time. It doesn't mean lowering your standards across the board, it is about recognising when your expectations are making things harder for you rather than helping you achieve what you want.

ADHD can make certain aspects of everyday life more difficult, and perfectionism can add another layer to those challenges. Learning to recognise the connection may help you understand why you sometimes get stuck, and find ways of working that allow you to make progress without expecting so much of yourself.