A short YouTube talk by Vishen Lakhiani that defines "Hermione Syndrome" as a label for perfectionism, argues that perfectionist/high-achiever behavior can lead to unhappiness (midlife crisis, burnout, imposter syndrome), and encourages self-diagnosis by asking honest questions about meaning and fulfillment. The speaker promotes his book Becoming Flawsome as a guided tool to help readers rediscover a more authentic, satisfied life and invites viewer engagement (comments, link in description).
Chapters
Our doctors do not diagnose such things as perfectionism or Hermione's syndrome. Because you see, Hermione's syndrome is another term I'm using for perfectionism. And if you haven't seen the Harry Potter movies, you might be a little bit out of context. Hermione is this straight, a perfect student who does everything well, everything right, follows the orders. So really a perfectionist. Being perfectionist may be ruining your life just as much as any other ailment. So how do you diagnose Hermione syndrome? Well unfortunately like with so many important topics in the life we have to to self diagnose we have to ask ourselves the right kind of questions. You might be the perfect little Hermione and you wouldn't even see the question coming because you're doing everything right. You're checking all the right boxes, you're following all the orders. You are super achiever. You do everything that needs to be done to be successful and happy. And then you discover that you're not really happy and maybe not even successful. You see, Hermione enjoyed what she was doing. Do all of us perfectionists, high achievers, enjoy what we are doing? Well statistics shows that's not the case. A lot of us suffer from midlife crisis, from being in the dead end, from depression, from burnout, from imposter syndrome. These are all symptoms of us doing the wrong thing, of us following the wrong goals. I have written a book which is called Becoming Flawsome. And part of this book is helping you to ask yourself the right questions. Because if you are going full steam ahead towards your goals, you sometimes don't realize that you actually lost, that you're going in the wrong direction and you don't even have a chance to slow down, stop and ask yourself what's going on with life? Because everything is so fast paced nowadays we idealize hustling. We idealize it to the point that we don't give ourselves a chance to just check in with ourselves. Am I doing the right thing? So in my book Becoming Flawsome, I'm going to help you, I'm going to guide you, I'm going to take your hand to find the path back to not just real you, but the truly happy, fulfilled, satisfied you. The you that actually knows that you're doing the right thing and you're in the right place. So if you feel that you're also suffering from Hermione's syndrome, I want to ask you, how happy are you with your life right now? Try to answer as honestly as you can. Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel that your life has meaning? Leave your answer in the comments below this video and I encourage you to get my book right away. It's called Becoming Foursome. And to get it, just follow the link in the description. Sam.
