Why Perfectionism Is Killing Your Business?
Are you someone that likes everything to be purfect?
I am guessing reading purfect may have annoyed you and you are already thinking of writing in and saying that it’s spelt PERFECT BEN!
If you are someone that likes thing to be PERFECT, then why is it a bad thing? Well let’s dive into Hannah’s story so you can understand how it affected her multi million-dollar property business.
Hannah is a business owner who has been running her property business for over 30 years. She has created a property empire but for some reason is always on edge! She told me that she can never relax and that her mind is constantly wondering onto problems in her business. She can’t stop thinking about it. She said that the most peaceful time in her life was when she got injured and couldn’t work on the business. She even asked me if a life of doing nothing is what she is created for, in order for her to be happy!
Now as you can imagine as we started working with eachother, there were a few core patterns that I want you to see that she had in her life. As you read, do reflect to see which ones relate to you:
1. Excessive stress.
Hannah knew that things could always be better. She would find herself always looking for things that were wrong in her business. No matter how many things she got right there was always an issue. Whether this was someone complaining about an issue they found with a property, staff that are ill or issues with the wifi! It always seemed that there was stress. Not only this, when she would do fun activities, golf for example, she would get even more stressed! This stress meant that her business suffered, as she couldn’t handle taking on even more projects and clients purely because it was overwhelming.
2. Crushing failures
This pattern occurred for Hannah when there was a trigger that set her off. If she had expectations that a project would come through, when it didn’t, she felt that she must have done something wrong. This in turn meant she was looking for more issues and experiencing even more negative emotions. This would lead her on a downward spiral where literally for days she wouldn’t do any work due to being overwhelmed whilst constantly asking the question of: “what did I do wrong.”
When you fail and you will most certainly do, this probably hits you so hard that you may also go on a downward spiral. This pressure you feel to always succeed isn’t just in your business though, but also in other areas of your life. Now when you are going through these downward spirals resulting in negative emotions you will perform even worse. This affects your productivity at work, as well as the team as they take in all of the negative energy you are giving off.
3. Can’t trust people
Trusting people was something Hannah struggled with for a long time, especially when it comes to very important clients! Why would she trust them? She can do it better herself! She can trust employees and managers to do the menial tasks that aren’t as important but when it comes to the big projects. It’s better that she checks on everything and makes sure that it is done because if they make a mistake then that wouldmean severe consequences.
You can only imagine how this stopped her expanding her business as she was always working in the business as opposed to on the business. Unfortunately due to this lack of trust it meant that she would never be able to leave her business that she had created over the past 30 years. Only when this pattern was removed could she start to look into other projects in her life.
4. No compromise
Hannah would also have a no compromise attitude when it came to negotiations in business. You can imagine the issues she faced, as she wanted everything done her way. It was very difficult to negotiate new business opportunities and make her a better innovator by being open to other people’s opinions. This meant that despite her success, she didn’t have the success trajectory she was truly capable of. When we look at successful entrepreneurs around the world it’s often their flexibility and ability to act quickly that helps them get through periods of very fast innovation, that leaves their previous business model behind.
5. Lost opportunities and time.
Another pattern that was an issue was Hannah’s belief of: all or nothing. This can be seen as a pro and a con in different circumstances. In some cases it is great to be a person that can go all in or not at all. However, if that’s all you can ever do then big issues can occur. For example, when Hannah looked into side projects or trying new things it would be something that would be pushed to the bottom of the list. She wasn’t willing to give things a go, or alternatively when she did go all in, she ended up wasting a lot of money, time and energy on something that didn’t serve the business as best as she once thought.
Perhaps you are in a similar position, where you won’t take projects on if you feel you can’t complete them to your standard; maybe you are wasting opportunities and losing vital time as a result?
6. High expectations that are unrealistic
As a perfectionist, Hannah would expect results that were way above what many of her employees were capable of. Despite that she knew this, she would still push for this standard, which would often lead to issues for her employees as well as problems with motivation. Moreover, conflict would occur if things were not done her way, as opposed to just getting the job done. Instead of expanding business, the actual outcome was to expand her business in “her” way. This would work for people that are like her but for others they would often rub heads. Are you causing conflicts in your business through too high expectations?
As you can see, Hannah had her fair few challenges when it came to business due to her perfectionism. However, I also wanted to add a few other common issues that other clients have faced. who have had perfectionist tendencies. I have explained these below so that you can have an even clearer picture of some more of the issues that can occur.
7. Negative patterns in relationships
When we want everything to be purfect (perfect – just testing you to see if this still gets to you!) and we add another human into the mix on a romantic level … there is only ever going to be an imbalance. If you are a true perfectionist you may swing 1 of 2 ways. Please note these are extreme examples and most business owners often end up somewhere in between where they settle for an average relationship as opposed to an extra-ordinary one
- You will ignore relationships altogether and don’t want anything to do with them, because they take away from your ultimate aim of your business.
- You suddenly become overwhelmed by emotions and want to do everything you can for the relationship. Unfortunately the relationship ends up breaking down making you feel hurt, lost and ultimately leads to a long period of time where you experience many negative emotions.
Both of these affect the business side of things, as you don’t have that energy from a relationship that often fuels amazing creations in the world. We often will do more for other people than we will ever do for ourselves, having a romantic partner beside you will be a source of comfort, inspiration and is vital to have on your journey.
8. Health issues
Another common thing to occur especially in business is a negative effect on health. Why is this a common thing?Well lets look into a response from one of my clients when I asked him about his health:
“Well to put it simply if the business isn’t finished why would you go to the gym? What is much more important, is to finishthe business because that is the bread and butter of how you live. It’s a must that you have to be able to get done.”
This unfortunately leads to business owners who have health that deteriorates over time; another big factor contributing to this is the lack of sleep and stress on an on-going basis. This in turn damages your business, as you aren’t effectively working in it. Not only are you not at your optimum levels but if you push your other employees as hard as yourself. (Never to your standard as no one could possibly be as busy as you!) Then slowly the effectiveness of you and your business will be going downhill.
9. Creativity disappears
I was part of a mastermind recently where one of the business owners was sharing how he has no creative time because all of his time is spent on the business. He hustles hard and does everything he can to build the business up to generate 7 figures plus by the end of the year. Whilst speaking with him, we could see that all the creative energy that could be used on other tasks is spent checking menial things and focusing on getting 100% results in all the different areas of his business.
The sad thing is that looking back he began to see that there was so much time wasted inefficiently on things that did not help him in the long run. If he had taken a step back and thought from a different perspective he could have saved months of time!
10. Unhappiness in life
A happy employee is a great employee. Let’s face it; if you aren’t happy in the business then it’s going to be difficult for other people to be happy. With all the factors going on above it’s near to impossible to be happy on a regular basis. I imagine if you have resonated with anything explained above, then most likely you have a pattern of being very happy but also very upset. This pattern probably occurs on a regular basis weekly if not daily. As this occurs it puts you in a worse or a better state to deal with the challenges in your business. You know this better than anyone.
If you can learn to let go of the perfectionism holding you back and start to allow yourself to be happy. The reason I say allow is that when we look into the top 5 regrets of the dying, one of them was actually: “ I wish I allowed myself to be happier” So once again, you need to allow yourself to be happy, then you are going to have a much more fulfilled and successful life. The best strategy I can give you is to trade your expectations for gratitude in every area of your life. If you can start to do this then your world will shift in a very different direction.