I am not a perfectionist… but I’ve worked with a few of them.
It seems like a pretty miserable existence to me… Constantly stressed about every detail of every project… Unable to collaborate, delegate or overlook the tiny flaws…
Don’t get me wrong, I stress about project details and I get focused on correcting issues, and sometimes, I have been known to push a little too hard.
But I learned a long time ago that outcomes are rarely perfect, but most of the time no one notices…
Except the perfectionists.
I hesitate to hate on the perfectionists too much, because I have some perfectionist friends… And I LOVE having a perfectionist on my team. As a leader, it’s a huge weight off my shoulders to have someone else that I can count on to stress about the details…
Truth is, I feel bad for a person who is locked into a destructive pattern of perfectionism… In general, perfectionism is “destructive” when it looks like this:
1. If you are always on edge…. The stress of getting every detail arranged according to your vision is unmanageable.
2. If it limits the scope of your leadership because you (like any micromanager) can only lead as much as you can do yourself…
3. If the fear of failure is paralyzing for you or you would rather not work on a project where the outcome is likely to be imperfect.
The ex-perfectionists that I know all understand a very liberating reality:
They aren’t perfect and (in spite of best efforts) never were.
So, after you suck it up, don’t forget to cut yourself some slack… Your heart will thank you.
Now, I gotta go look at revision 17 of this graphics project I’m working on…
NEXT in this series: Making Good Decisions…
