In the sphere of international education, where ambition often collides with overwhelming pressure, I found myself at a crossroads. As an experienced education consultant and mentor with over a decade of guiding high-achieving international students and their families, I've witnessed firsthand the escalating demands placed on young minds. My role extends beyond mere logistical support for admissions. It encompasses holistic guidance for families from a wide array of cultures, guiding them through the challenging pathways of prestigious academic environments.

Having walked this path myself as an international student over a decade ago (at Prague University of Economics and Business), and just recently (at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities), I intimately understand the drive for perfection that propels these young adults. Yet, as I've observed the mounting pressure on students aspiring to world-renowned institutions like LSE, UCL, Oxford, Cambridge, the Ivy League and others, I've grown increasingly concerned about the toll of this relentless pursuit of excellence.

It was against this backdrop that I encountered the work of Dr Thomas Curran, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics (LSE). Professor's expertise in perfectionism, coupled with his influential TED Talk "Our Dangerous Obsession with Perfectionism is Getting Worse" that gained over three millions views, and his insightful book "The Perfection Trap: The Science of Why We Never Feel Enough," resonated deeply with the challenges I face in my practice.

Attending Professor Curran's lecture at EDUFEST, organised by the renowned Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, and subsequently delving into his book fueled my curiosity. Here was a voice that not only echoed my concerns but also offered insights into the very phenomenon I grapple with daily: how to guide high-achieving students effectively without dismissing their ambitions or exacerbating their stress.

This culminated in an opportunity for an in-person conversation with Thomas in London on July 4th, while I was attending the LSE open day with one of my current students. This interview stems from that moment, a conversation born from the intersection of Professor Curran's expertise and my own quest to better serve the brilliant yet often overburdened students under my guidance.

The questions aim to delve into professor's expertise, his research on perfectionism, his book, how he addresses these issues with his students, and the pressures of the modern economy. The conversation also touched on topics such as the importance of boredom and idleness, the need for balance in life, and the challenges of addressing perfectionism in educational settings.

I grew up in a capitalist economy, we weren't in complete destitution, but nevertheless, relatively, there was a lot of struggle and a lot of trauma, and a lot of difficult moments that have created me. One of them was a deep insecurity and a deep worry about whether I'm good enough. That carried through as I went into education, and then I got a PhD, and ultimately, ended up at LSE. Through that process it was evident to me that something that was carrying me forward, was also doing me a lot of harm, giving me a lot of mental health issues, a lot of physiological complaints, which is consistent with what Gabor Maté was talking about. A lot of panic, anxiety, depression, burnout, all sorts of things.

I started to realise that a lot of these symptoms were all bound up in a completely dysfunctional way of viewing myself in relation to others and pinning my whole sense of self on achievement, lifting myself above other people, working harder and harder, for what end it was not clear. The only important thing was just to keep it moving. That was the moment when I realised that was a problem, it was obviously impacting me, so I wanted to find out more.

That started the journey and then I did a lot of research in the area. I did some big studies showing perfectionism is increasing, so those symptoms I felt were being shared by other people. That's where the book ultimately ended up on the back of a TED Talk that came from that research. That's the story in a nutshell.

I think it's always been encouraged subtly, certainly in the modern era. I think it exploded around the time that inequality exploded because inequality is, in many ways, the driving force of work. It is a very powerful motivator and the wider those gaps become at a societal level, the more important it is to achieve. I think once inequality starts exploding, it naturally impacts people's sense that they're going to have to be perfect to move upwards, because the bar is really high and getting over it is going to be really tough. So the mantra of work, work, work, hustle, grind, these sorts of phrases became part of the modern lexicon.

What we're getting at with the problem, and I'm trying to explain in the book, is that young people these days self exploit through high levels of self-oriented perfectionism, but they also feel exploited from the outside world, and the pressures out there that exist through high levels of socially prescribed perfectionism. Young people are tyrannised by these two rejoining forces, and I think what that does is it creates a tension that is really difficult to deal with, it creates a lot of tiredness, a lot of burnout, a lot of worry and anxiety.

There isn't any safety when there's conditionality to our existence. If you strive and do well, you are valued, and if you don't, you are less worthy. This conditionality exists all over in westernised economies, particularly the US, certainly the UK to some extent, less so in Europe, but it's there, too. That's where I think you will see more perfectionism, because it thrives in those conditions. It thrives in conditions of scarcity, insecurity and uncertainty.

If you want a dynamic economy that's growing, then you're probably going to need to provide a little bit of an environment that creates some perfectionism because that's going to push people to do more, more than certainly is comfortable.

Switzerland can be a nice example of an economy that has become so advanced it doesn't require everybody to be pushing 100%. What it requires is simply the economy to work, people to be in employment, to do things that matter to them, that give them a certain sense of purpose, and where the material needs are met.

What I would say to a student is not enough. For instance, a lot of self-help and books on this genre will paint the picture of the problem being a problem of you, that you are putting yourself under too much pressure. You are working too late. You are burning yourself out. And that framing, in my opinion, is unhelpful because it isn't true.

What's happening here is that young people are internalising a sense that there's two pressures, both of which are under neither of their control. First is the social side of being in an elite environment where they're expected to have high standards all the time and never stop. And that's not a perception. That's a reality. And then on the other hand, they live in a world that teaches them that they can do whatever they want, that the freedoms and the potential are limitless.

So they're tyrannised by two adjoining forces: tyranny of should and tyranny of could. Tyranny of should is quite repressive, it comes from outside of us, this is a socially-prescribed perfectionism. Tyranny of could comes from inside, this is self-oriented perfection.

This idea is almost like a self-exploitation, it's an internalisation of external standard to such an extent that we are both the master and the slave of our own psyche, so we crack the whip on ourselves, we don't need a boss, a teacher or a parent to tell us that we exploiting ourselves. We do it freely, willingly, because we feel that that's how we need to be, what we need to do to succeed.

Capitalism as an efficient economic system. What's the most efficient way to get people working? It's not a repressive way. It's a form of self-exploitation, where people are their own slave masters, where they exploit themselves.

I think what we're getting at with the problem, and I'm trying to explain in the book, is that young people these days self exploit through high levels of self-oriented perfectionism, but they also feel exploited also from the outside world, and the pressures out there that exist through high levels of self. So they are tyrannised by these two rejoining forces that should and could, and I think what that does is it creates a tension that is really difficult to deal with, it creates a lot of tiredness, a lot of burnout, a lot of worry and anxiety.

What I tried to do in the book, and what I always try to tell my students is this. You have to recognise that this is a really unprecedented period of time where the pressures are extremely high. And the higher you are, the more pressure there is.

Look at the parents of the kids who go to Le Rosey, some of the most incredible achievers on the face of the planet. We're not talking about the 0.1%, we're talking about the 0.0001%. How do you mentally deal with that pressure to live up to an expectation of how successful your parents have been? I couldn't even begin to imagine.

This is why my book takes a turn towards more material solutions because the more we continue on this trajectory where we celebrate the elite and that we allow the elite to accumulate further, the bigger the gaps, the more pressure that begins to weigh on people because we don't live in an aristocracy anymore.

As an educator or a mentor for young people, the first step is to be empathetic to their reality. You can't deny the evidence that suggests better performance comes from smarter revision strategies, adequate sleep, and balanced effort. However, it's challenging to convey this when their peers are staying up until 2 a.m. studying. Similarly, schools face pressure to compete, making it difficult to reduce academic stress unilaterally.

I'm in a privileged position because my students have already achieved academic success. I can encourage them to shift their approach from rote learning to immersing themselves in the subject, finding joy in broadening their horizons. I advise them not to worry excessively about grades, assuring them that good results will follow genuine engagement with the material.

I also focus on helping students deal with setbacks, teaching them to reframe negative thoughts constructively. While I'm not a strong advocate for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), I believe it can be helpful in the short term.

For educators in schools, the situation is more challenging. They need to balance preparing students for academic hurdles with fostering a healthier approach to learning. It's important to help students appreciate the present moment and recognize their privileged position, framing education as an opportunity rather than a burden.

Encouraging students to connect with intrinsic motivations - whether it's creating something new or helping others - can provide a higher purpose for their studies. However, I don't have all the answers. It's a complex issue, and one of my aims in writing the book was to draw more attention to the systemic issues, as that's where I believe we can make the most impact.

I think students would really benefit from this because they're currently taught the complete opposite. They're taught to attach themselves to external tokens of validation, whether that be likes on social media, grades, money, or other similar metrics. That's how they think all the time. They're constantly worried about these external forms of validation, when actually what matters is whether they feel like a complete person inside themselves.

However, this is challenging to implement. We could create a course and other resources, but truly addressing this issue requires a whole lifetime of journeying, really. It involves self-connection, connection with nature, and connection with other people on a level that we can't comprehend unless we actually completely switch the way we think about what matters in life.

Incorporating mindfulness or spirituality into education to counter perfectionism isn't a simple or quick fix. It's about fundamentally changing our perspective on what's valuable and important, which is a long-term, deeply personal process.

The problem with many self-help practices is that they become another 'should' - something else we feel we must do to be happy. This can't be a solution. Every time I started to think about how we could solve this, it brought me back to our culture, and I couldn't get it out of my head. My editor warned me against this approach, saying it was too nihilistic and people would think there's nothing they can do. But I felt that if I just added more self-help advice, I'd be contributing to the problem, not solving it.

It was a tough battle, and I managed to compromise. Some people still don't like my book because they don't think there's enough self-help in it, but I couldn't in good conscience write that book even if it meant it wouldn't sell as well. That's the pressure from inside the industry - if you want to address this problem at a broader level, you'll find it tough to get people on board because they just want to hear about what they can do immediately.

The solutions people seek are often just substitutes for something else, and you're never going to find it because it's nothing external to yourself. Only you can plug those holes. Even practices like meditation, while beneficial, require real work for real change. It's a journey, and there's no easy fix.

I recommend reading Karen Horney, who in her later life journeyed to Japan and became part of a Buddhist community. It's a fascinating story that shows how, after searching in Western countries and hearing the same issues from patients time and time again, she finally found a solution to the issues she'd written about her whole career.

Horney writes about how this journey isn't easy, and you may never find true contentment, but the journey itself is the most important thing. Putting yourself on the path and doing the work may not solve all your problems at once, but it opens up new possibilities and new ways of seeing the world that you're simply closed off to if you don't embark on that journey.

There has to be a coherent message. If one department, let's say, maths is really killing it, expecting x amount of hours, etc. and then you've got the English department on the other side of the equation who say 'just explore, do what you want', then it's not going to work. It has to come down as a top line: this is how we do things around here, we are not going to push your excellence through more, more, more. We're going to think about this a little bit more practically and also smartly.

We know, for instance, that when students are rested and well-hydrated, when they spend time with their peer groups and have outlets for creativity, their performance in other areas improve. So we may implement time in the curriculum for them to do those things, like to just go out and play and explore. If you've got a place like Le Rosey with its big grounds, you can certainly just let them loosen and allow them to spend time with each other, just to switch off.

Those sorts of things that are unconventional ways of using time, but nevertheless have spillover effects on performance, focusing on the growth, focus on the learning. And this is a cliche, but it is important for kids to recognize it's not all about the outcome and that maybe we can change our feedback structure so that we focus more on the feedback rather than the grade. So there are also little micro things that we can do to just push students in the direction of focus on their development.

As teachers, we can instill these things through the way we teach. We can make sure that we don't overemphasize the pushing side, you know, you must do this, you have to do that, this is the only way. There are many different ways that students learn and so having more flexibility around that and teaching in ways that provide some autonomy or insight from the students can also help, you know, sharing, taking their ideas, how they'd like to approach this topic can also help spark that intrinsic motivation.

The way out of it is to expand universities. Education, in my opinion, shouldn't even be about jobs. It should be about a rite of passage. So we have to expand university places and grow universities, so that it isn't such a competitive process. There will still be selection, of course. Right now LSE acceptance rates are 5-7%. It should be 25%. That is not easy to do because it requires a lot of investment. But I think that would be the number one solution.

Just look at what we have at the moment: record levels of mental illness, depression, and anxiety. This isn't all due to perfectionism, but there are certainly a lot of physical and mental illnesses that Gabor Maté talks about, such as the rise of autoimmune conditions, stress-linked illnesses, cancers, and clinical mental health problems. We're seeing increased anti-depressant use and addiction. Again, this is not all due to perfectionism, but you tend to see high levels of these issues in economies and societies where people are pushed harder and harder to justify their existence.

This creates cascading impacts on parenting, how teachers operate in schools, and how workplaces function. Maté talks very persuasively about how this impacts parenting and children through dissociation, which then leads to ADHD and other issues later in life as a logical symptom. Broadly speaking, these are the long-term consequences for our societies, and I think we're seeing that play out.

Burnout is an under-appreciated issue, as are tiredness and lethargy, which are on the less clinical end of anxiety and depression. We're seeing a lot of this in the American and British workforce - the 'quiet quitting' phenomenon, the 'just about enough' approach to work. It's really interesting because when I speak to Germans about this book, they're trying to figure out why the younger generation in the workforce isn't working as hard. Well, they're not working as hard because they're already tired, already burnt out. They already feel a lot of lethargy because of the exhaustion they're self-imposing.

What I'm talking about is the tiredness of the soul. It's a weariness that comes from being completely worn out from pushing ourselves so hard in pursuit of something nebulous, big, and unattainable that we simply collapse. We combust. This is very different from the tiredness that comes from simply working hard on something you love doing, like we used to do when working in fields to produce food for a community. That's hard work, but you're doing something of value. You're tired, but it's a tiredness that comes from simply working for the common good.

This burnout we're talking about is different. This weariness is different. It's a complete exhaustion of the soul that comes from exploiting ourselves time and time again, cracking the whip on ourselves. It's self-oriented perfectionism: work harder, work harder, work harder until we simply can't work harder anymore. We find ourselves in cycles where we can't get up, can't get out of bed, can't find the motivation. We're simply at the end of our rope. We have no more to give because we've been pushing ourselves beyond what our bodies can sustain.

That kind of tiredness is something I've seen a lot of, and I think it can explain many of the withdrawal behaviors we see in young people in particular through the lens of over-tiredness.

Much of the economy is built on a lack of meaning. When we don't have any meaning in our work, when we're exploiting ourselves time and time again, we can look to Marx and his concept of alienation, which is very interlinked with Buddhist thinking. Alienation is essentially alienation from what we do. We create something and it goes to the capitalist. This is the basis of Marx's thinking if you really want to distill it.

It goes to the problem of us losing our spirit, losing our sense of purpose or vocation in the world. Because now we're not giving back to ourselves or our community, but we're giving back to some other unknowable entity. We no longer have a connection to what we create. And that lack of meaning then has to be substituted through things like social media, video games, basically commodified products. High salaries, right? But it can't truly fill the void. It can't do it because ultimately, it's no substitute for a sense of purpose and meaning.

I'm reading a lot of Buddhism at the moment, and the more I do so, the more I am convinced that a lot of the crisis we see - and perfectionism is part of this - is a crisis of self-alienation. We're alienated from ourselves, not just from the product of our labor. We feel like we have to be somebody else, somebody perfect all the time, which creates an inner conflict. There's tension between who we really are and who we're trying to be. So spiritually, again, that creates a lot of anxiety, worry, and depression.

If you look at the big thinkers who have done work in this area, they all come back to Zen Buddhism at the end of their journey. Karen Horney, Carl Rogers - there are many big thinkers who ultimately ended up at Buddhism. And I think there's a lot to be said about that. I think what would really help is incorporating practices that reconnect us with ourselves - maybe through poetry, drawing, talking about meaning, talking about getting to know oneself by looking inside rather than always looking around.

One of the things that troubles me is the amount of digital content oriented towards telling young people how they should be doing things. On YouTube and podcasts about peak performance, there's always something else you're not doing that you supposedly need to do to be successful, happy, or content. Young people are bombarded with this information, and maybe only 1-2% of it is useful; the rest is garbage that might not fit their personal situation.

What young people actually need is less of this content. They need to be extricated from it, to understand that feeling like you have to do everything all the time is not healthy. The way forward is to live your life, find a way that works for you to study, read, enjoy nature or sports - essentially, take yourself out of the matrix and figure it out for yourself.

Young people's lives are mediated through digital media to an extent that's difficult for older generations to understand. John Haidt's book 'The Anxious Generation' suggests banning platforms, but that's not the solution. Instead, young people should use social media to connect, message each other, set up dates, and form communities - essentially using them as socialization tools to meet offline.

There's an awakening occurring among young people, and we need to encourage that. We should push them to use social media for companionship rather than comparison. If we can do this, it could solve many problems organically.

Regarding perfectionism, many see it as a necessary evil. People know it's not good for them but think it's important or necessary. The biggest breakthrough in therapy for perfectionism is the realization that perfectionism itself is the problem. Many people hold onto perfectionism because they think it's the one thing holding them up when everything else seems to be falling apart.

The difficulty lies in realizing that when we lean into perfectionism during stressful times, we're actually making that stress more aggressive and invasive to our well-being. Perfectionism amplifies stress, making it worse and creating more problems than if we were able to let it go and adopt a more adaptive, process-oriented way of coping. Once people realize this, letting go of perfectionism becomes easier, but most are stuck in the mindset that it's necessary.

The message I'd most like to convey to students and parents is that perfectionism is a problem, not a solution. Don't cling to it as if it's going to get you over the line. It's something that's going to keep you up at night, block your progress, and make success more difficult, not less. Perfectionism requires far more energy than working hard, being conscientious, and meticulous while being able to switch off. It's a very inefficient way of doing things and can create a lot of problems.

The alternative is recognizing that life isn't perfect, that we are exhaustible, and that's okay. It's part of our nature. We need to listen to our bodies - when we're tired, we sleep; when we need to eat, we eat; when we need social energy, we see friends; when we want to connect with nature, we take a walk. We don't let perfectionism dictate our lives with constant work and focus on outcomes. Instead, we stay in tune with ourselves.

This doesn't mean we can't have passion for learning, excelling, or creating. All these can coexist harmoniously with other parts of our life. It's about balance and not letting perfectionism rule everything at the expense of our health and happiness. The good news is that research shows you can be just as successful this way, but you need to give yourself permission.

Perfectionists might worry that taking a walk or being idle is unproductive. But there's something extremely important about boredom and idleness that we stigmatize. Some of the best ideas come when we give ourselves permission to do nothing. We've lost the ability to be bored, to procrastinate in a good way - not by flicking through social media, which exhausts us more, but by completely disassociating from everything.