The Perfectionist’s Trap in Practice (And Life)

As meditators, we often bring an invisible companion to the cushion—one that whispers relentlessly about whether we're doing it right, whether we're good enough, whether this session counts as "real" meditation. That companion is perfectionism, and it can quietly undermine the very peace and freedom we're seeking.

I'm speaking from experience here. I'm a recovering perfectionist—and if I'm honest, probably still a perfectionist in many ways. But I've made peace with that, because my job isn't to become a perfect non-perfectionist. My job is to recognize the habits and behaviors that show up in my meditation practice and in life that get in the way of deeper living—the kind marked by more compassion, more ease, and more genuine connection with others.

This exploration of perfectionism has become central to my own practice and to my work with students. When questions and doubts arise in one-to-one sessions or group classes, they so often circle back to this same territory. So let's dive in and look at what perfectionism really is, how it shows up in meditation, and how we can work with it skillfully.

What Is Perfectionism, Really?

My definition of perfectionism isn't the only one out there, but here's how I think about it: it's a very rigid sense of right and wrong, a fixed idea that "this is the correct way to do something and this is not." But there's something deeper happening underneath. Perfectionism ties this sense of correctness to our worth as human beings—and that's where things get tricky.

Now, Buddhist practice does include structure and outcomes. Take basic shamatha or calm-abiding practice, for example. Within the teachings of the nine stages of resting the mind, there is a progression we're working toward. So I'm not saying anything goes or that there's no such thing as skillful practice. There is a kind of specific outcome we're aiming for.

The subtlety here is this: perfectionism connects that outcome to our fundamental sense of value as a person. And that's what we need to work with—extricating perfectionism from the genuine progress we're trying to make.

Curiosity Over Outcomes

One of the primary ways I work with this is by centering curiosity and process more than outcome. That doesn't mean I'm not concerned with outcomes or that I don't study them. I am. But I keep a wider scope, especially on a daily basis, of what progress might look like. When we're too attached to a specific outcome, we're constantly grasping for it rather than giving ourselves the time and space to evolve into it.

Here's what this looks like in practice. Maybe you're 15 or 20 minutes into a meditation session. Your mind is still rapidly firing thoughts. You're getting caught in them. You're stressed. You don't feel peaceful at all. You finish your 30 minutes and walk away with that bummed-out feeling: "I just wasted half an hour. I didn't get anywhere. I basically failed."

Sound familiar?

Here's the thing: we actually don't know whether we failed or not. We put in the time. We trained the aware quality of mind. We practiced mindfulness by recognizing thoughts and distractions and trying our best to come back. That has tremendous value.

In shamatha or mindfulness practice, this kind of effort is incredibly beneficial over periods of time. Some days we sit and have a lot of presence, space, and groundedness. We don't get pulled away as much by the thinking mind. Other days we get completely swept up in thought. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. What matters is what accumulates over the long term.

The Long Game of Awareness

What are we accumulating in meditation? We're cultivating our relationship to awareness—that quality of mind that can bear witness, that can watch our experience without being completely enmeshed in our thoughts and emotions all the time. This doesn't mean we become distant from our inner life. It just means we don't have to follow after every thought and feeling that arises. And when that starts to happen, there's so much freedom in it.

My take is this: whether we thought a session went well or not, we actually can't determine that until months or years later. If we continue to practice every day, we'll most likely find that the quality of our awareness—our connection to that witnessing capacity—has deepened. That means it's been successful.

The same principle applies to developing compassion, loving-kindness, bodhicitta, or the non-dual wisdom of emptiness. We can apply it to any practice.

The Mental News Scroll

When we allow judgment to take over in an individual session—or even within a day, week, or month—something happens. I've noticed this in myself and in many students I work with: there's this unconscious news scroll running in the background saying, "Did you get it? Did you get it? This is what you should be getting. Did you get it?" It's like a mosquito of the mind that won't leave us alone.

We need to recognize that pattern.

Use your awareness and mindfulness to spot that underlying thought stream. When we become aware of it, it doesn't have to be as sticky. We don't have to follow it as much. And then we start to see: "Okay, this is one of the ways perfectionism is playing out in my meditation. This is how it might be harming my practice"—because we're stuck in that narrow focus, missing all the other space in the room.

This has become a daily practice for me. These days, when I have a session that feels like it didn't go well, I immediately recognize: "What do you mean it didn't go well? Because of what?" There's a curiosity toward it. And if I catch this pattern in the middle of practice, I recommit to the process—to simply showing up and trying my best to recognize awareness more and more.

Beyond the Cushion

This awareness extends far beyond meditation. You can use the meditation example as a starting point, then become mindful of other areas where perfectionism plays out in your life. The way you do your job. How you relate to family, friends, or partners. Habit patterns you struggle with. Where do you notice the judgment arising?

And let me be clear: judgment isn't inherently bad. Discernment is healthy and necessary. I usually use the word "discernment" to describe healthy judgment. But what I'm talking about with perfectionism is an unhealthy judgment—one that doesn't just observe what's happening but adds, "And you are bad or good for that."

That's what I notice with perfectionism. There's this underlying message: "I'm not good enough. I'm not doing it right because I'm not worthy." The more we can become aware of these thought patterns—and the emotions and bodily sensations that accompany them—with curiosity (without judging the judgment itself), the more space we can hold for that experience. And the more progress we can make in unwinding those habit patterns.

For me, these patterns often come from wounds and psychological-emotional states I've cultivated or been conditioned by throughout my life.

The Wound of Unlovability

Psychologist John Welwood—who also coined the popular term "spiritual bypass" and was a student of my teacher—described what he called "the wound of unlovability." I find this to be at the core of most of the wounds I work with. Perfectionism, I'd say, is a consequence of that core wound.

Working with this wound of unlovability—particularly through practices like what Tsoknyi Rinpoche teaches as the handshake practice—can help us work with perfectionism at its roots. I discuss this more extensively in other content, but the connection is worth noting here.

A Worthy Task

Perfectionism is a worthy task to tackle. When we start to open it up through compassion and awareness, we begin to find space and softening toward ourselves and others. We find more peace, more ease. Meditation becomes more enjoyable—not something we're constantly succeeding or failing at, but a practice we can engage with long-term discernment and awareness of what we're truly getting from it.

The same goes for exercise, creative work, relationships, and everything else in life.

This work will unfold into all kinds of territory—emotions to feel, states of mind to investigate, habit patterns to unravel. But the core approach remains the same: awareness, curiosity, and compassion for ourselves exactly as we are, right now, in this imperfect moment.