Ending the cult of 'never good enough'

We’re constantly bombarded with images of perfection, and it seems to have taken a toll on women’s feelings of accomplishment - with a recent survey revealing 80 per cent put too much pressure on themselves to be ‘perfect’.

Led by One Poll UK in July, the survey questioned 2000 men and women in Britain as part of ’s #LetGo campaign. The campaign encourages women to “let go” of the idea of perfection.

The research found that despite women accomplishing an average of 26 tasks a day, they tend to be overachieving yet ‘under-believing’. The main pressures they feel are balancing everything at once (36 per cent), being interesting (33 per cent), being intelligent (32 per cent), having the perfect body (30 per cent), and having the perfect home (29 per cent).

When it comes to the top five sources of pressure on women, these were themselves (72 per cent), family and friends (33 per cent), newspapers and magazines (22 per cent), films and TV (18 per cent) and Twitter and Instagram (18 per cent).

The survey also looked at how women compare themselves to their female counterparts, with 59 per cent admitting they compare themselves to other women, with 38 per cent doing it at least once a day. A further 15 per cent compare themselves to female celebrities once a week or more. This number was far higher than men - only 33 per cent of males compare themselves to their counterparts.

And it seems women are their own harshest critics - 88 per cent congratulate a colleague on a job well done, but only 10 per cent would do the same for themselves. When asked how they felt if they received a compliment, 10 per cent thought the person “must have been mistaken”, while 38 per cent thought they were saying it “to be nice”.

Acting on this research, Sanctuary Spa have today launched the above campaign video aimed at inspiring women to #LetGo - to escape the 'cult of never good enough'.