Maggie Bannan, a 24-year-old from Chicago, has always known she is a perfectionist. As a child, teachers noted that she struggled to move on from tasks because she was so focused on getting everything exactly right. The trait served her well academically: at Santa Clara University, she completed a double major and graduated a year early. But in adulthood, the perfectionism that once fuelled her success has become a source of anxiety, self-doubt and burnout.
“I obsess, I try so hard at something, I exhaust myself and get myself into a place of burnout,” Bannan, who now works full-time in marketing while pursuing acting on the side, tells me. Without the benchmarks she had in education, she feels lost. “When I graduated, I was just looking around, being like, ‘How do I judge myself as good enough anymore without grades?’ Now in my job, I find it hard to be confident about the work I’m doing because I have such a high standard for myself… It’s exhausting.”
