The Impossible Pursuit of Perfectionism
Blog image courtesy of @ricardoviana
You click over to most online business owners’ websites and everything appears to be so good. Their sites are professional and polished, and if you let your mind go there, you can easily feel overwhelmed by the aesthetics of the online business greats.
How’d they get so far ahead of you? How will you ever stand out? Everyone else’s stuff is perfect, and mine’s not.
Whoah there, puppy.
You assume that everyone else has everything together and that you’ll forever be chasing something.
What is that elusive thing that many business owners chase?
Perfection.
Not only does the impossible pursuit of perfection block our creativity and growth, but it can also literally keep us from putting our blinders on, sitting down, and doing the work that we say is important to us.
Here’s a quick French culture lesson for you…
Maybe you already know that when I was 10, my dream was to grow up and be a rich and famous fashion designer and live in Paris. Growing up in Canada, French being one of the official languages, I loved French class and took it all through high school. I even won the French award at eighth-grade graduation.
The closest I’ve come to that dream is visiting Paris and becoming a writer. And if you’ve met me, you probably wouldn’t call me fashionable.
I digress. I’ve always fancied French culture. That je ne sais quoi way the French have of being in the world. And I might have binged the Netflix series, Emily in Paris faster than anyone. Too bad there’s no award for that.
After recently devouring everything that Carrie Anne James published on her gorgeous website — French Is Beautiful, I joined her monthly membership.
I recently learned from her, as a recovering perfectionist, that if you proudly tell a French person that you’re a perfectionist — as if it’s an endearing quality, they’ll look at you with pity or compassion.
Back in my corporate days, I used to cite perfectionism as one of my negative qualities during job interviews — which is acceptable (and often met with agreeing nods) in North America. But in France, chasing perfection is viewed as a sad obsession and an ego-filled way to bring creativity to the world. Well, that sure sounds gross.
Creativity cannot exist where there’s perfectionism.
I had a different relationship with perfectionism. Many of my clients tweak, prod, and shine everything they do to perceived “perfection” — touching something dozens of times before putting it out there. Sometimes it stays forever tucked away in a Google Doc.
My personal brand of perfectionism is a blend of half-assing it and procrastination. Because if I don’t try that hard, or put it off, then it doesn’t have to be perfect at all.
Half-assing it and procrastination is a direct route to hiding my gifts.
All because I’m incorrectly assuming what everyone else is going to think. It keeps me stuck outside of myself instead of doing the uncomfortable inner work.
What people are avoiding when it comes to putting their writing out there is because their inner critic is energized by their perception of what they think others are thinking about them.
Now, this isn’t all to say that I don’t have standards. I believe in excellence — in my work and life, but I’ve learned that second-guessing, doing nothing (overthinking doesn’t count), and hiding behind a screen are selfish ways that my ego uses to keep me small.
The dance of striving to create excellence and lead imperfectly is like twerking and belly dancing — at the same time.
As a writing coach and mentor, when a business owner shares a piece of content or copy with me, I’m extremely careful to avoid using the word “perfect” to describe their work. I occasionally catch myself blurting out, “Perfect!” And then I cringe on the inside. Oh, I hope they didn’t hear me. Maybe they don’t obsess over the word like I do.
I discourage the idea of perfection with my clients. If we didn’t, we’d never publish a thing.
The whole idea of perfectionism is actually pretty shitty if you look at the definitions:
“A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards.”
“The belief that a sinless life is attainable.”
Let’s see, aiming for perfection gives us a propensity to be displeased or the idea that we can be sinless. Welp, that sure sounds impossible to me. And really, the whole idea of perfectionism seems meaningless.
So what’s the antidote to perfection then, if chasing an endless report card is meaningless?
1. Find your drive in your favorite art form. Maybe for you, that’s coaching or a complicated spreadsheet. Maybe it’s tweaking a process until it functions elegantly. Perhaps it’s color-coding your flow charts.
2. Give yourself time. I know time is a slippery slope. How much time is “enough”? This is where you could apply limits to your work. Dedicate 30 minutes to writing a blog post, email newsletter, or podcast show notes. After 30 minutes, what you should have is a super shitty first draft (SFD). Take your time and be gentle with yourself in the process. This is why The Intuitive Writing School students have at least 4 hours each week on their calendar dedicated to co-writing time (co-writing is co-working with a writing focus).
3. Aim for 80%. Take your SFD and dedicate another 30-60 minutes to polishing it up, aiming for 80% good enough, and getting it out there. Why 80%? Because as a perfectionist, your 80% is probably better than most. I struggled with this idea at first. Trust that your B+ work is more than good enough. Save A+ work for more important things.
4. Your energy matters. When you create in a rush, you might have the sense that your work isn’t ready. What if you blocked an hour a week dedicated to creating? A block on the calendar where you can take your time, spend time with your work — just you and your project. This is not time to spend writing a weekly newsletter while attempting to consume a podcast on 1.5x speed. This is your time.
5. Decide when a project is complete. Noticing infinite possibilities in your projects can be a big reason why we’re so easily paralyzed by perfectionism. We hover over the “publish” button when we’re scared to make the wrong choice. When deciding on the trim size for Unfussy Life, I could have obsessed for days. I set a short deadline to decide. And whatever I chose, I’d have to live with it. Decide and move on whenever you can. Know that as a Libra, this has been a challenge.
6. Let go of the fear of judgment. While we’re scared of being perceived as imperfect, we become overwhelmed and stressed as if the entire world is watching us. But what’s really going on is that our eyes are on everyone, worrying about what they’re thinking. As if we can get in the heads of others to decide what we should or should not say, do, or create. Get out of other people’s minds — we don’t belong in there. The people who judge you likely aren’t people you respect and want to be like.
7. Trust that being you is enough. We humans like to control things. The thing is, if 2020 and 2021 taught us anything, it’s that we have the illusion of control and there are few things we can control — those things we can control — our thoughts, language, feelings, and behavior (all of them with practice and focus). Perhaps this is the purpose behind taking our time with self-development work. In my experience, the work to notice my ego and create anyway has helped fuel my creativity. I set out to write or create with intention, give it my focus and attention, and then detach and let go of the result.
8. Embrace your ideas of excellence. Notice what you appreciate. Whatever it is — a fluffy blueberry muffin, a creamy cacao latte, short and punchy words — invest some time exploring what you appreciate about these things. If you look for mistakes, you will certainly find them — but then ask yourself, are these “mistakes” intentional? Do these rule-breakers make the form more pleasing to you?
Without letting go of perfectionism, I wouldn’t be able to write this piece for you, publish my books, or any of the hundreds of articles on this website from 2012 until today. My inner work has been to get over myself, get out of my own way, and get on with co-creating whatever wants to come out.
If your heart is in the right place — as in, if you’re sharing your work because it will support someone, a community, or your greater community, then your work is “done” and ready to be in the world.
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