Dr Robin Buckley On How To Get Past Your Perfectionism And ‘Just Do It’

The first step in overcoming perfectionism is realizing that it isn’t a positive characteristic. Society has twisted the concept, making the term perfectionism into a synonym for hard-working or driven or successful. It isn’t. Instead perfectionism creates feelings of self-doubt or worthlessness, particularly if the idealized goal isn’t attained. Perfectionism also builds the tendency towards procrastination as people don’t finalize, or sometimes even start, projects because of the fear of missing a detail or failing in general. It is also detrimental to valuable cognitive processes. It hinders problem solving, time management and creativity. There is really no benefit to perfectionism.

Many successful people are perfectionists. At the same time, they have the ability to say “Done is Better Than Perfect” and just complete and wrap up a project. What is the best way to overcome the stalling and procrastination that perfectionism causes? How does one overcome the fear of potential critique or the fear of not being successful? In this interview series, called How To Get Past Your Perfectionism And ‘Just Do It’, we are interviewing successful leaders who can share stories and lessons from their experience about “how to overcome the hesitation caused by perfectionism.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Robin Buckley.

Dr. Robin Buckley has her PhD in clinical psychology. She is an author, public speaker, and certified professional coach who works with executive women and high-performance couples. Her proprietary coaching model uses a business framework and cognitive-behavioral strategies to support women and couples in creating and executing concrete, strategic plans for developing their careers and relationships.