The 7 Myths of Perfectionism and How They’re Holding You Back
Do you feel overwhelmed when thinking about starting a big project? Do you finish a project, feel proud for .2 seconds, and then feel horribly embarrassed and hide it from everyone? Or maybe you have trouble sticking with things that you’re not good at right away?
These are all signs of perfectionism! And they’re holding you back from your best life.
What is perfectionism?
People use the word “perfectionism” in a variety of ways, but to me, perfectionism doesn’t mean you do things perfectly, or are detail-oriented, or keep a tidy house.
It means you hold yourself to unreasonably high standards.
Why is perfectionism a problem?
The great irony of perfectionism is that when you fall prey to it, you often end up performing worse instead of better. Perfectionism:
- makes people procrastinate, so they get less done than they otherwise could.
- makes them avoid getting the iterations, practice, and/or help they need to improve their work, so that their level of performance is stunted.
- makes them so hard on themselves that they can lose passion for their work and even burn out.
What explains this cruel irony? Well, when people are dead-set on an unreasonably high standard, they tend to see the world through an all-or-nothing lens. Everything becomes a binary: it has to happen at the perfect time, or never; it has to happen the perfect way, or not at all; it’s perfect, or it’s worthless.
This binary lens distorts reality. When we don’t see the world realistically, we can’t make the best choices.
As I help my clients overcome their perfectionism, I’ve kept a list of the types of distortions they encounter. I call them the Seven Myths of Perfectionism. If you learn these myths, you can start to spot them in your life and see how they’re holding you back from reaching your potential:
1. “If I start, I have to finish”
If you avoid working on large tasks because you don’t have time to finish them right now, or because the idea of doing the whole thing is overwhelming, you’ve got Myth #1 lodged in your brain.
The truth is, it’s okay to do things a little at a time, even if that’s unconventional. There’s actually no law against washing one dish and leaving the rest for later, for example.
When you’re set on Perfectionist Myth #1, you’ll tend to fall into ADHD Waiting Mode and put things off until the perfect time…which rarely comes.
2. “The first draft has to be the final draft”
If you’re afraid to put words on the page or paint on the canvas, or you get stuck word-smithing your first paragraph and never make it to paragraph two, Perfectionist Myth #2 is what’s holding you back. This myth is driven by a fear of creating anything “bad.” Even if no one is looking at your draft, it can still feel embarrassing to create something half-baked, something that fails miserably at capturing the vision that you have in mind. This is what Ira Glass calls the Taste Gap — the gap between how good your taste is and how good your execution is.
The problem is, the grander your vision, the more impossible it is to express it in one go. When you’re stuck in Myth #2, you block yourself from creating anything better than your best first draft. You probably fell into this myth because your first drafts can be pretty darn good — but think about how amazing your tenth drafts could be!
3. “I have to do it the optimal way”
I call this the Give a Mouse a Cookie problem, after the children’s book where you can’t give a mouse a cookie because if you do that, you’ll have to give him milk, and if you do that, you’ll have to give him a straw, and so on.
Often this is what it sounds like when people explain why they can’t solve a problem in their lives. “Well, I hate my job, but I can’t quit because first I would have to improve my resumé, but I can’t do that until I finish this certification course I’m taking and add it to my resumé, and I can’t finish the course until…”
To your family and friends, it may sound like you’re just making excuses. But what’s really going on is that you don’t want to waste anything — time, money, energy, potential, you name it. That’s a beautiful impulse. The problem is that waiting is costing you something, too! When you stay stuck in Myth #3, you waste time and potential (and maybe more) by making yourself choose between optimal change and no change.
4. “If it’s not perfect, it’s worthless”
If you feel awful as soon as you spot one mistake in your project, or think you were hired by mistake because you’re not a perfect employee, you’re probably suffering from Perfectionism Myth #4.
In reality, everything exists on a spectrum, not a binary between Flawless and An Abomination. And often, perfection isn’t even a real possibility. It’s just an ideal to move towards.
Perfectionism Myth #4 tends to make people feel bad about themselves unnecessarily, which can stop them from taking risks like applying for a promotion, speaking in front of an audience, or just making bold moves in your work. By shying away from mistakes, flaws, or judgments, you’re also avoiding opportunities for greatness.
5. “I shouldn’t need help”
Instead of naming these myths, I could have named them the 7 Rules of Perfectionism, because they often act as rules that people feel they have to live by. If you feel like you’re not allowed to ask for help, or achievements don’t count if you ask for help, you’re living in this rule-based mindset. Some people are also just afraid that if they ask for help it will make them look stupid (that certainly held me back early in my tech career!).
But the reality is, we all need help. The best employee isn’t the one who never asks for help, but the one who asks for help at the right times. The best friend isn’t the one who never leans on you, but the one who both gives and takes, so that you both feel like you’re in a reciprocal relationship. Clinging to the no-help rule can stunt your professional growth and the growth of your relationships.
6. “I should be good at things immediately”
Were you a gifted kid? Did things come easily to you for a while? And then you tried a hobby that you couldn’t just be good at right away and hated it? Yeah. Me too.
And of course, it’s okay to enjoy sailing through things. But if you find yourself quitting anytime you’re not good from the get-go, you’re stuck in Myth #6. And that will prevent you from developing the kinds of skills that just plain take time to develop. Some of the most rewarding skills are the ones you really have to work for.
7. “I should work the maximum amount possible”
Are you a workaholic? Do you feel guilty taking a break, but you still need one, so you just kind of waste your break doing something boring instead of fully letting yourself off the leash to go do something fun or restful? If so, you might be dealing with Myth #7.
In our capitalist culture, we associate productivity with worth and laziness with immorality. It’s easy to get the idea that if you could be doing more, you should be doing more. (Come to think of it, I also could have called these the 7 Shoulds of Perfectionism!)
But in reality, productivity follows a cycle, like all things in nature. Healthy productivity waxes and wanes; you work, play, and rest. If you try to avoid going through the cycle and cling to the work stage, you’ll end up burning out and being forced to rest, probably for longer than you would have needed to otherwise.
How to Overcome Perfectionism
So now you can see what kind of perfectionism is affecting you, and how it’s not making you perform better, but actually holding you back from your full potential. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to stay that way! Now that you see that these myths aren’t true and that they’re all that stands between you and doing even more amazing things in life, you’re ready to take steps out of perfectionism and into imperfect action.
So I made a cheat-sheet to give you a step forward from each Perfectionist Myth. It’s called How to Move Out of Perfectionism and it’s free with your subscription to my productivity newsletter: