Writer Oliver Burkeman, psychologist Laurie Santos, and organizational psychologist Melanie Katzman discuss the illusion of perfectionism, the signs of burnout, and the limits of productivity. According to their research, the constant drive to improve often leaves people more exhausted and less productive – even if their intentions were to grow, improve, or achieve bigger goals.
Together, they explain how accepting “good enough” and finding value beyond work can lead to greater balance and lasting happiness.
We created this video for Brain Briefs, a Big Think interview series created in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators. As a creative non-profit organization, they’re on a mission to help people challenge their perceptions and expand their thinking. Often, that growth can start with just a single unlikely question that makes you rethink your convictions and adjust your vantage point. Visit Perception Box to see more in this series.
OLIVER BURKEMAN: Perfectionism for me, has always been a kind of central part of what I'm struggling with. That sense that I'm kind of on the back foot, that I need to put in just a little bit more, maybe a lot more effort and self-discipline.
LAURIE SANTOS: We are a species that constantly wants to improve ourselves, so there can be this constant push to do more, more, more. And I think a lot of us assume that that's the path to flourishing. That's the path to feeling better. But the research shows that sometimes we can feel happier by doing less.
MELANIE KATZMAN: You know, we often work to the point of exhaustion, depleting ourselves, resources, taking up time that people don't have. In the quest for this elusive perfect, the reality is that in most instances, good enough is good enough. Research shows us that people who are satisficers tend to be happier and just as effective as people who are maximizers.
OLIVER BURKEMAN: It's not really difficult to get on top of all your to-dos. It's actually completely impossible. And in that transition from really difficult to completely impossible, there's a sense of a weight being lifted from one's shoulders, and then you can just walk forwards with a spring in your step and actually try to do a few things that matter and make life more rich.
LAURIE SANTOS: Burnout is not just a sense of stress or overwork. Burnout is a very special kind of clinical syndrome, that has a couple very particular symptoms. One of the symptoms is a sense of emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion isn't just about being tired. It's really about feeling like you cannot emotionally handle another thing on your plate. The second symptom, which I think is even more profound, is a sense of what's often called depersonalization or cynicism. You're just kind of on a short fuze with the people around you. The third symptom is a sense of personal ineffectiveness. You just feel like even if you were doing your job perfectly, it wouldn't matter. And one of the main ways to fix burnout is to really take good care of yourself. It's really trying to engage all the values in the things you care about outside of work, so you can start to develop an identity in that, and not just in what you're doing for your job.
OLIVER BURKEMAN: There will always be too much to do. You're never going to feel completely ready. So if you set out on some big project of scheduling your time very, very, very strictly, not only will you probably fail and get very stressed, but even if you succeed, you'll fail in a way there will be some lack of spontaneity to that life, to that sense of just having to carry out these instructions that you've given yourself that is somehow at odds with what we really value from being alive.
