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What is perfectionism? |
I used to have a boss whose red pen was poised over my draft proposals. A colleague told me that she purposefully left mistakes in her documents so that our perfectionist boss would feel good finding them!
Perfectionist tendencies come up a lot in coaching and my clients can give themselves a hard time, stress and negative self talk if they don't live up to their own high standards.
What is a perfectionist? The dictionary defines a perfectionist as 'satisfaction only with perfection.'
It is closely linked with people's self-esteem and fear of failure and rejection. Perfectionism is the behaviour that is driven by the belief and desire to prove that you are 'good enough'. Often the benefits of creating perfection are out of proportion to the time invested. We fear being criticised, judged, shown up, so work hard perfecting something to prevent this from happening, or risk damaging our fragile self-esteem.
In fact involving others, collaborating and getting their input can create a better result and the pace of change can be so fast, especially in certain areas that as soon as you have perfected something, it has moved on whether trends, data or technology.
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Upsides and downsides of perfectionism
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 Upsides
- You create things to your own standards giving personal satisfaction
- Results can be impressive
- Some jobs/projects where attention to detail is vital depend on it
- Shows high standards and gives a positive impression of you
Downsides
- Creates stress and pressure
- Time consuming in a world of 'time poverty'
- Often the investment of time to create perfection isn't matched by the reward
- Different people's views of good quality and what's important varies so much, effort can be wasted
- Other people like to feel they contribute/make a difference so if something is perfect, they can't
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5 FREE tips to manage perfectionism |
- Reflect on previous projects and the cost and benefits of perfectionism
- Work out the tipping point - when does putting in more time and effort add negligible additional value?
- Imagine looking at yourself sitting in a chair. What advice would you give yourself to manage perfectionism?
- Break down a project into shorter stages and get feedback to help you shape them
- Embrace the concept of 'imperfect actions' and frame them as 'work in progress' - benefit from other's input
For a FREE Energise article "Managing yourself," click on this link:
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