Your Crown is Already Straight: The Unspoken Roots of Perfectionism

I remember a few years back, saying to a client that perfection was not an attainable or reasonable goal, only to notice that my own inner voice (you know, that somebody on the bus) responded with, “But not you, Burgandy—You must be perfect.”

I was caught in a devastating cycle of performance and burnout. I gave my all to others, secretly recognizing that I was never going to get that standing ovation I was desperately seeking. I was overattuned to the outside world, using its affirmation as my only confirmation of goodness. Needless to say, I was miserable, but from the outside, I looked good. I looked strong.

This feeling, this high-stakes performance of flawlessness? We call it Perfectionism. But let’s be clear: this is not a simple character trait you were born with. For many of us, especially as Black women, it is a brilliant survival strategy we learned to navigate environments that questioned our competence, our humanity, and our worth from the start. It’s a shield we built to protect ourselves.

This brilliant strategy has a name. Researchers call it the Strong Black Woman (SBW) schema. It’s a cultural archetype that prescribes a very specific role for us: be endlessly resilient, suppress your emotions, be fiercely independent, and serve as the primary caretaker for everyone else, all without complaint. This isn't just a stereotype; it's a "race-gender coping strategy" that many of us have internalized to survive the harsh realities of living at the intersection of racism and sexism.

This performance was bred into us with cultural idioms like, “You’ve gotta work twice as hard to get half as far.” Let’s call it the 2X½ mandate. For generations, this wasn't just advice; it was the instruction manual for survival in a world built on systemic disadvantage. It taught us that our best would never be enough, instilling a deep-seated fear of failure. That "not enough," though, it sets us up to do twice as much. So now you’re out here, overdoing it, killing yourself to be and stay noticed, all in an attempt to build a presentation so flawless that, as we say, “They can’t say ish about me.”

This is an exhausting, illogical, and costly response to an unjust reality. But what is the true cost? In our next post, we’ll look at the hidden toll this performance takes on our bodies.

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