Blog Post 2: How To Overcome Perfectionism Paralysis At Work

I used to wear “I’m a perfectionist” around me like a badge of honour.

Surely, trying to be ‘perfect’ is what life is about. 

That’s what I had thought anyway.

I wanted to be perfect in everything. 

I remember saying in an interview when I was applying for a coveted position at a top-tier law firm that ‘I'm a perfectionist’. And whilst striving for excellence is certainly a good thing, and many of my clients have this in spades, there is a tipping point where our perfectionist tendencies no longer serve us, where we are too scared to ‘put something out there’ or try something new, because we are scared it won’t be perfect.

When I saw my 3-year old daughter following in my footsteps, a Little Miss Perfectionist in the making, did I know for sure  that I had to make a change in my life - for me, and for my daughter Chloe.

So what is Perfectionism Paralysis?

A ‘perfectionist’ strives to attain ‘perfection’ in many (if not all) areas of their lives. And ‘paralysis’ means that this keeps you stuck. 

I’m not sure if WebMD has it on their website, but I believe they should. Perfectionism is FOR SURE an illness (or at least an ailment) that affects many people. I don’t think I’ve met a mother who doesn’t identify as a perfectionist, in at least a few areas of their life.

Some symptoms include: 

• An overwhelming fear of making any mistakes

• The need to ‘people please’

• SO much self-doubt 

• Negative and critical thoughts about yourself and your abilities

• A fear of ‘failing’

• Consuming information rather than producing work and getting it out there

• Procrastination 

I’ll be focusing on many of the above in my future blogs.

However, for this blog, let’s go deeper into what ‘perfect’ actually means. 

No two people have the same mind. We all think differently, and just like we all have different food preferences, ways of doing things, clothing styles etc, we all define what’s ‘perfect’ for something in different ways. 

What I may consider as being ‘perfect’ in something will not be ‘perfect’ to someone else. And that’s a beautiful thing. 

Once I realised that ‘perfect’ was just a construct in my own mind, I was set free.

Perfectionism doesn’t exist, so we keep ourselves stuck when we try to attain the illusive (and non-existent) ‘perfection’ we so desperately seek.

So how can we get out of Perfectionism Paralysis?

I’ll be sharing several strategies over the coming blogs, but one of the best strategies that I have found is shifting my mindset around time.

One of the most common sentences I hear is “I don’t have enough time”. 

Most people see time as something external, like it is something that is happening to us rather than us being in control of what we are doing. 

We ask ourselves “how much time will it take to do X”, as though it exists outside us. But time is what you decide it is. Something takes as long as you decide it will take.

When I started applying this to my work, I was able to get out of Perfectionism Paralysis.

I would look at a task, and instead of saying ‘I don't know how long this task will take me to complete’ or ‘How long will this take me to finish?’,  I would say ‘How long will I GIVE to completing this task’. 

This shift in my language was subtle but transformative. 

No more second-guessing myself, no more overthinking, no more working on something for an hour to get it to my (self-assessed) 80% and then spending another 6 hours getting it to my self-perceived 98% (never quite ‘perfect’).

Instead, I could spend one hour on it and get it ‘out there’. Like this blog post.

That really is the only way you can know if something works or not. Is putting it out there. And for me, even if only one person benefits from reading this blog, if I've only helped one person, I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve by writing this. Making an impact, no matter how big or small.

And then, I have those 5 other hours that I can use to create more value and help more people!

Can you think of something that you’re stopping yourself from doing because you’re scared that it won’t be ‘perfect’? 

What is it? 

And how much time will YOU give to finishing it and getting it out there?

Let me know via email or on socials!

I’ll leave you with a quote from Reid Hoffman, the Founder of LinkedIn, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you have launched too late.” 

Love Loren x