As a recovering perfectionist I always wanted to overdeliver, in everything I did. I remember getting off stage in the early days of my public speaking career and the first thing I’d do, before the applause had even finished was go through my notes and highlight all the bits I’d missed or got wrong. Even though the audience had loved it, even though no-one knew what was on my script, I still expected to deliver each keynote perfectly and would beat myself up if I didn’t.
Over the years I’ve learned that done is better than perfect and to not let perfection get in the way of great work. This has helped me achieve more and also stopped me burning myself out! It’s not that I’ve lowered the bar on my standards, I’ve just reset it to a realistic level.
For me, perfectionism was driven by my fear of failure which is ironic as so often it set me up to fail by taking on too much and aiming for something that wasn’t achievable.
As perfectionists we’re often working hard but still feel like it’s not enough. We have excessively high expectations and beat ourselves up for not meeting them, you struggle to delegate or ask for help. You think if it’s not perfect you’re failing. Yet the target we set ourselves isn’t always achievable.
Take this scale, failure exists down the bottom and excellence at the top. However as a perfectionist that won’t be enough. We want to overdeliver, to go above and beyond excellent. This is extra time, effort and energy that we waste because it’s not necessary and it’s also extra effort, time and energy we can’t spend on other things. Things on our to do lists, our family or ourselves. It contributes to burnout and is also one of the ways we set ourselves up to fail (ironic really when it’s driven by a fear of failure!)
We hold perfectionism up as the standard we must achieve and then we beat ourselves up for not attaining it. We feel like we’re falling short as much of what we aim for isn’t possible. Whether it’s trying to look like the airbrushed photo of a magazine or wishing our life looked more like someone’s social media highlights reel – we’re aspiring to an impossible standard that’s not real. We’re setting ourselves up to fail.
I'll tell you what is real – imperfection! Imperfection is human and it can still be pretty amazing. We will make mistakes but we’re also capable of brilliance – just not all the time!
When we appear perfect we are less genuine and authentic. Dame Jenny Shipley once told me ‘the closer you are to perfect the less people will trust you’ and this makes so much sense.
Perfection is imperfect, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. It’s not surprising this is linked to overwhelm and burnout when we hold ourselves to these excessively high standards. Sometimes done is better than perfect yet we’re conditioned to always want to achieve more or better – it’s no wonder we feel like we’re falling short!
