The need to be perfect looms as large as any other problem that plagues leaders who are trying to reach personal and organizational goals. Getting it done, as important as that is, at times seems unable to compete with the need to make sure its perfect when its finished. In many instances the end result is paralysis; we don’t make any progress because of an internal need for perfection.
I was personally plagued by this dilemma while completing my doctoral dissertation. The deadline was approaching fast. I’d been writing the current chapter for well over a year and had made little progress. I felt the pressure that soon the time allotted for the completion of my doctoral program would come and go. While I was sure about the ultimate aim of my research and the direction that I wanted to take to get there, I still found myself staring at blank pieces of paper or a computer screen for hours. These hours turned to days, days to months, and months into a year. It wasn’t until I listened to the wisdom of people around me that I understood my major problem. I was a perfectionist and it was killing my ability to progress toward my goal. Many of us believe that being a perfectionist is a good thing. But an inordinate desire to get it right can lead to perfection becoming the enemy of progress.
When we are consumed by the need to ensure that everything we do is perfect, it often leads to little or nothing getting done. There are many reasons why this can happen, some of the reasons that I experienced were:
Fear of being wrong
We think, think, and think again in an effort to make sure we have made the right choice. We don’t want to be wrong or fail, but in an effort to ensure that we make the right choice we wind up not making any choice at all. Progress stalls because we are afraid of making the wrong choice.
Fear of being judged by others
What will “they” think of my work or my choices? These questions about the ever-present “they” and their thoughts about us can cause us to freeze in our tracks. Whenever we worry about what others may think about what we have done, more than the steps that need to be made toward the goal, progress suffers.
I suffered from both of these fears and they were killing my progress. After the intervention from those who cared about me I realized that it wasn’t just my dissertation that was suffering, but my leadership as well. The same fears that were preventing me from writing were preventing me from acting as a leader. One day I read a post by Jon Acuff on breaking writer’s block at Money Saving Mom. A line near the end of the post jumped off of the page and became a personal mantra of mine. “Later, I’ll be awesome. Today, I’m just going to be productive.” That was it. I typed and printed the statement in big, bold letters and posted it over the desk in my office. I started writing without trying to edit for perfection. That’s what others are there to do. I made progress and I met my goal.
There is no need to fear being wrong. The truth is that we are all going to be wrong on more than one occasion in life. If we are smart, we learn from our mistakes and improve. There is no reason to fear what others think. In reality, most of us overestimate our importance as most people are thinking about us at all. What we should focus on daily is making progress toward the goals that we have identified as important personally and professionally.
Have you ever had to deal with a need to be perfect hindering your progress? How did you overcome it?