Perfectionism is a dream killer.

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

Perfection is an achievement for some and requirement for others. While the former fuel their progress chasing perfection, the latter find their need for perfection an impediment to their success.

Pursuing perfection is good work ethic and a sign of a passionate individual. It indicates commitment and dedication to one’s work. So, by no means is it wrong to aim for perfection.

But if it stops you from making progress towards your goals, you must let it go, because:

“The goal is progress and not perfection.”

– Kathy Freston

(Source: Google)

How is it that trying to make things better makes them worse??

1. It holds you back from executing your ideas and taking action towards your goals because you think they are not perfect.
2. You procrastinate, always waiting for that perfect moment to start things which means you never get things done. You won’t apply for that job because your resume is not perfect. You won’t start that blog because the idea is not perfect or you think you need perfect writing skills etc etc.
3. Because you want your work to be perfect, you are afraid of making mistakes and that prevents you from learning from them.
4. Your work tends to get repetitive, predictable and boring because you are too afraid to venture out of your comfort zone.
5. Perfection is time consuming and exhausting. You are wasting your valuable time in making unnecessary changes to already completed tasks in order to make them “perfect.”
6. When you strive for perfection alone, any small error has the potential to disrupt your mental peace and cause unnecessary stress.
7. You don’t trust others to do as “perfect” a job as yourself, so you don’t delegate your work and never realise your true potential.
8. You miss out on making meaningful relationships and learning new ways of doing things from other more skilled people.
9. Because you expect perfection from everyone around you, you get upset when you find out that not everyone shares similarly high standards of perfection as yours.
10. The anxiety and frustration of not acting towards your goals will slowly add up to bigger and far dangerous psychological problems.
11. You tend to re-evaluate your goals over and over trying to fit them around your vision of perfect life and this may cause self doubt, low self esteem and low self confidence.

Solution:

Deadlines: Set a reasonable deadline depending on the complexity of your projects. No matter what happens, you must deliver by that designated date and time regardless of the perfection level. Trust yourself that you have done a good job and move on to the next task.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Try to use your drive for perfection to improve your performance and the over all quality of your work.

Don’t let your need for perfection stop you from showing your best work to the world.

You will be surprised to discover that people far less than perfect run the world around us, because they know that:

“(work) done is better than perfect.”

-Sheryl Sandberg.

Thank you for reading.

Now, go and get things done.