Perfectionism has no place in high performance: how to give it up for good!
As a high performers you can become stuck on getting everything right, waiting for perfect conditions, editing or checking things over countless times so that its right, not putting something out there unless you hit your target number. Perfectionism stops you in your tracks. The more you entertain it the more that you delay getting feedback from what you are doing, whether its from chasing your business goals before you have everything perfectly in order or whether its waiting to have a perfect life for someone to love you wholeheartedly. Perfectionism needs to be given up to live a more freeing, happy and confident life because they reality is you don’t have to be perfect, on you think you do!
Here are some steps to help you give up perfectionism:
Uncover, acknowledge and accept your imperfections. Perfectionism often begins due to impossibly high expectations from parents that becomes a child’s go to. If its not exact, precise or perfect keep going until it is…heard this before? When you fall into the pattern of being over the top about how perfect things become your belief system around what is right and what is wrong drives you to control every outcome and get seriously harsh with yourself if you can’t. As a teacher I used to see this as a child who rewrote entire pages because they made one mistake. I saw it as parents telling their children explicitly that near enough wasn’t good enough even if it was their child’s best effort. To protect yourself as an adult from severe judgement and feeling like a failure you repeat this process. Recognise that imperfections are a natural part of life and that everyone makes mistakes. It’s likely it will be a very slow process and perhaps you’ll walk away from that imperfect project feeling ‘yuck’ but feel the yuck and carry on anyway.
Practice self-compassion. You don’t expect perfection of others so start reminding yourself that you don’t need to expect that of yourself either. Focus on your strengths and forgive yourself for any weaknesses. It’s also worth reminding yourself that perhaps your ‘ok’ ability is phenomenal to others, this helps bring some more perspective and enable self- compassion to happen more easily.
Set realistic and achievable goals based on your actual life. So many people set goals without their calendar of commitments that they start burning the candle at both ends in a bid to ‘do it all’. Look at your schedule then plan your goals and when your schedule changes again follow this process again.
Stop looking at others and thinking they’ve done it all. You don’t know the full picture. Even if you look at someone else who is a perfectionist you may convince yourself that they are so much more successful than you but those people they gave up something. Often the thing they gave up is time, relationships and self care. Does that align with you? Focus on your journey.
Learn to embrace change and uncertainty. Your desire to control at the moment drives your decisions and actions. The most certain thing in your life is that life is uncertain and change will always happen whether you will it or not. Try to look at the positives of what change can bring and use that control to realise you can control how you react to ongoing change.
Put yourself first and prioritise self-care. Spending copious hours editing and editing things to perfection or waiting till ‘its the right time’ is seriously draining on your mental and emotional get. Get some of that energy back by committing to self care. Exercise, practice mindfulness, sleep at a consistent hour and maintain your wellbeing.
Remove the exposure time to other perfectionists. Completing high quality work is an asset but being around people who keep pushing you to be perfect or expect flawless from you isn’t healthy. Surround yourself with supportive people: friends, family, coaches and mentors who encourage and support your growth and development.
Learn from your mistakes. If you consider any mistake you’ve made it your life it would have taught you something. Who would you be without those mistakes? How would life still be stuck waiting? Reframe your belief around mistakes and get curious about how they will help you if you don’t know at first.
Change your negative thinking to empowered thinking. ‘I am doing my best, my best is good enough, my best is all I can expect’ may be a great start. When you find yourself redoing things (I’m thinking about authors who get caught in perfectionist paralysis and do not continue) ask yourself…how is this use of time serving me? Then use positive self talk to influence what you do.
Seek professional help. If you desperately want to ditch the perfectionism but you don’t know how, its probably high time you talk to a psychologist. We can refer you to high quality psychologists that can assist, simply reach out.
Remember, giving up perfectionism is a process, and it's important to be kind and patient with yourself along the way. Celebrate your progress and focus on developing a healthy relationship with yourself.