We all have standards and rules for the ways we do things or how others do things. Perfectionism is a personally-created standard of excellence that we may apply to a situation. Perfectionism can be useful, even rewarded, at times. Perfectionism is problematic when it comes at the cost of feeling perpetually frustrated at ourselves or others when our standards are not met, when tasks take an excessive amount of time/effort to complete, or when our relationships suffer because we try to make others do things according to our standards.