Is perfectionism holding you back?

For a long time, I thought doing everything perfectly was the way to get on in life and in my career, but it turned out it held me back.

Early on in my career it helped my progression – management knowing they could trust me to do a fabulous job every time meant I was given more responsibility and I was rewarded with, you guessed it, more work! But it also meant?working longer hours and juggling more. That was overwhelming.

Perfectionism can be a?massive time zapper. Just making sure that font is right, that the labels are perfectly straight on your samples – these are all important skills to learn, but they all take up time. And I have lost count of the late nights I spent re-labelling product samples that weren’t quite perfect or just adjusting “one more thing” on a presentation.

What happens when you’re trying to?juggle all the different projects?that you need to be perfect at (whilst trying to juggle the perfect home life, have the perfect social life, be the perfect mum) is that you get stressed and overwhelmed. And when you get overwhelmed,?you stop speaking up as much at work.

You want to keep your head down and get on with stuff and if you speak up, another project to perfect at will come your way. You also start to make mistakes (!) because you are trying to be superhuman and spoiler, it just isn’t sustainable.

The other thing perfectionism can do is create an?inability to delegate?(for fear that no-one can do it as perfectly as you can) which just perpetuates the overwhelm and frankly isn’t a very endearing leadership style (think micromanager!).

So, now you’re juggling everything, getting your head down, can’t ask for help and won’t delegate – you know what that is a recipe for??Burnout!?(see my?Buzzing to Burnout story and what happened to me)

The reality is?there is no such thing as perfect?in a world where everyone will interpret your work or what you have to say in a different way. So why do we do it?

Perfect, or just too afraid to drop the mask?

Perfectionists (me included) are often wearing a “perfect” mask. We were brought up to always “try harder”, “be the best you can be” and for a long time that worked. Our parents, care givers or teachers wanted us to do well, so they taught us how to always do better and we learnt to “put on a brave face” and continue being good (or trying our hardest) at everything.

This well-intentioned encouragement meant?you may have excelled?at school academically or you may have completely nailed an extra-curricular activity. More than likely if you’re reading this, you have learnt at some point in life that?working hard and doing a really good job is super important.?And it is… until it’s not.

Wearing the?mask of perfect is tiring.?But we are often too scared to drop the mask because we truly believe trying your hardest and being your best is what matters. It’s what makes us worthy and its what makes us likeable. And we want to be liked.

Perfectionism is linked to a fear of shame

The fear that is rooted in dropping that mask is?shame.?Remember that feeling when you were little and the other kids pointed at you because you said or did the wrong thing? That feeling is shame. And our fear of not being good enough and therefore trying hard for that to never happen again, it is rooted in that fear of shame.

I suffer with a chronic illness and for a long time I hid it at work, due to shame. I wore an “I’m Fine” mask every day (and a lot of make up on the bad days) but you know what? When I took that mask off and admitted to not being perfect, that is when the magic started to happen in my career. It helped others relate to me better and it helped them to open up too.

Turns out people often like you a bit more if you take off that mask and let them know you’re not perfect!

I still find letting go of perfect hard today (I put out a social media post today and the logo colours were all wrong, old me would have had a meltdown over that but I’ve let it go!) but I have found that doing so does lead to a lot more positives that it does negatives.

Letting go of perfect gives me:

• More time (which equals time to do fun stuff)
• More perspective (it turns out often – it really doesn’t matter)
• More contentment (it allows me to be more “me” and be ok with it)
• A better ability to learn from my mistakes and see failures as learning opportunities

It isn't easy letting go of perfectionism, but it is possible. If you'd like some help with how to, listen to this episode of the Oh for Food's Sake podcast: Letting go of perfect or get in touch with me [email protected]