As someone who struggles with a tendency for perfectionism, I would often go the extra mile, and then a couple more. “You’re a maximalist,” my mother used to say, “just like your grandfather.” And that was a compliment. In school, I was praised by teachers, too, for being very ambitious and perfectionist.
Being a perfectionist has served me in many aspects of my life: I graduated school with top grades. I have a B.A. and an M.A. degree, both with distinction. And I got them while living in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, and working to pay for my education and support myself. I began my career early, while a student, and I accumulated a lot of experience. And I advanced my career quickly when I was in full-time employment.
But my tendency for perfectionism has also had a negative impact on my life. I haven’t been as productive as I could have been. I have sacrificed quantity over quality. I haven’t embraced opportunities because I was afraid I’d fail. I’ve struggled with a tendency toward analysis-paralysis.
Ascertaining whether perfectionism has had a positive or a negative impact on my life is impossible. To weight that would be to compare something that is against something that isn’t – and there’s no basis for comparison. I have no idea what my life would have been like had I not been a perfectionist.
My tendency for perfectionism served me well during my education and my corporate career but as an entrepreneur it has harmed me and held me back. I attribute some of that to the anxiety associated with the fact that for an entrepreneur the sky is the limit in terms of what’s possible at any moment. The level of success one can achieve and the route to success are limitless. A blank canvas. There are so many examples of people creating remarkable things in unlikely circumstances, breaking the boundaries of what we thought was possible, designing innovative solutions we didn’t know we needed. And when everything is possible, it’s easy for nothing to become feasible.
In contrast, in the corporate world, the route to success is largely structured. There are clear expectations of performance. There’s a progression in terms of career advancement. You aren’t expecting yourself to make giant leaps overnight, to discover the undiscovered, because more often than not you aren’t in environment that’s designed for that. And that lifts a lot of the pressure.
These are some of the strategies that I have used in order to overcome perfectionism and balance personal growth, fear of failure and creativity.
Understand the genesis of perfectionism
And then deconstruct it. When I dug into the root of my perfectionism, I discovered that anything and everything I did, I was doing it to fix rather than to create. I was running 10k every morning six times a week not in order to improve my health, but in order to make sure I don’t get sick. I wasn’t nourishing my body when I was eating, I was trying not to gain weight. I was learning not to expand my consciousness, but to be less ignorant. In other words, I was living life in order to avoid a bad future by making it less bad rather than in order to create a good future.
Adopt a learning mindset
When I first started writing on a regular basis, one of the strategies I used to free myself from the grip of perfectionism was to think of writing as an act of learning. And I still do. I write to learn. I apply a learning mindset to all areas of my life – my relationship, my coaching work, my publishing business, my personal growth – and this has had a profound impact on my happiness and inner peace. Whatever I do, I do it to learn.
Most education systems do little to encourage real intellectual exploration – our work is evaluated for being right or wrong, we get marked, we raise our hand to give the right answer. This creates the illusion that there’s an absoluteness to knowledge – that it’s a destination rather than a journey. Along with this, we live in a culture that favours depth over breadth of expertise. This intimidates us from sharing our work unless we’re an expert. But when we think of experience and competence, there is no absolute destination. Our knowledge and experience – personal and societal – are dynamic, always evolving, rather than static. There’s no ultimate or finite level of expertise in any given field. And that’s a beautiful thing. We are always learning. Stay curious.
Seek the work and processes you enjoy
Any goal is inherently restrictive. If you want to grow your newsletter audience to 50,000 subscribers, you’re imposing a cap. If you are aiming to increase your profit by 10%, you’re limiting yourself from growing it by 100%, 4,000%, 700,000%? Keep the future open and let the results take care of themselves. Have a lose direction, but not a destination.
Success and achievement compound over time. The things that will make you successful are the things that you enjoy, because they’re the ones you’ll eventually stick with on the long-term. You can’t be successful by being someone else – by doing the things they’re doing, following their proven path or strategy. It’s proven for them. It may work for you, too – but evaluate whether it’s yours through the prism of enjoyment. You have to find the things that you enjoy. From the type of work, to the way you do the work – make sure that whatever you do and how you do it is fun for you.
Favour quantity over quality
Focus on output. The deliberate practice theory, developed by Anders Ericsson, emphasises the importance of focused, repetitive practice to achieve mastery.
Pioneering work in the 1970s by Dr. Michael Merzenich demonstrated that repeated practice can lead to changes in the brain’s structure and function, a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity. Targeted frequent practice strengthens neural connections and pathways associated with a particular skill which facilitates mastery over time. To improve, practice whatever you want to master, push beyond your comfort zone when feasible, review feedback, and make adjustments based on it.
In his book, The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge shares the story of Canadian author, entrepreneur, and lecturer, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, who struggled with severe learning and cognitive disabilities throughout her childhood. Inspired by the principles of neuroplasticity, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young devised a series of brain stimulation exercises to target the parts of her brain that weren’t working that through persistent practice helped her overcome her cognitive and learning disabilities.
Create standards
It’s impossible to meet standard when anything is possible. To tame the beast of perfectionism, create output goals, set deadlines, define your expectations. I find that, for a perfectionist, Parkinson’s law is very true – the work does expand to fill the time we allocate for its completion. And you will be tempted to break your rules – spend just a little longer on the project, revise your presentation one more time, add another paragraph or two to the article. And when you are, bear in mind that you don’t have to create everything you can create now. Whatever you are working on, the final product doesn’t have to capture all you’ve got. You don’t need to put all of your mind, and heart, and soul into it. It’s just an increment. It’s a milestone. It’s a snapshot in time of you, your work, your art, your creativity. If you’re writing an article – you don’t have to cover everything there is to be said on the topic. You can express other angles and ideas in future pieces. Or not at all. If you’re coding a piece of software it doesn’t need to include all the functionality it could possibly include. Leave more for later. Think of your work, your life, your output as dynamic, not static.
In the words of renowned chess player and martial arts champion, Josh Waitzkin, author of The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence
“The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.”
To beat perfectionism:
- Understand the root of perfectionism and shift from a mindset of fixing to creating.
- Embrace a learning mindset, recognizing that knowledge is a journey, not a destination.
- Pursue work and processes that bring joy and align with personal interests.
- Prioritize quantity over quality, focusing on consistent output and deliberate practice.
- Establish standards, set deadlines, and avoid the trap of endless refinement.
Ultimately, overcoming perfectionism is about embracing the dynamic nature of you, creativity, and life, staying curious, developing your self-awareness and allowing room for exploration.