Perfectionism is one of the most destructive strategies for dealing with life that a business owner can have. This is why it's crucial to practice overcoming perfectionism if we want to succeed in business.
Overcoming perfectionism is one of the most effective ways to turn from a low achiever to a high achiever. People struggling to get ahead and reach their goals often massively succeed when they realize how much perfectionism is hurting themselves - and everyone else.
Perfectionists often have unrealistic expectations for themselves - and everyone else. They don't take action for long periods of time because they're waiting - and worrying - for everything to be perfect. They allow the potential stress from making mistakes to stop them from doing what needs to be done.
This causes perfectionists to be low achievers, even though they often have a deep desire to be high achievers in the future.
Perfectionistic thoughts can completely destroy all the things that make a business, life, and relationships thrive!
Perfectionists tend to think that overthinking and perfectionism will help relieve stress. If everything is done to perfection, I won't have to worry about not reaching my high standards.
Perfectionists often let their anxiety over making mistakes cause them to take longer than they want to finish the projects they start. While they believe this is positive, it has highly damaging effects on their life and business successes.
Perfectionistic thinking is just one big massive, useless time wasters.
If you want to succeed in business, the most effective way to do so is to stop overthinking and break free from the negative spirals and constant anxiety that perfectionists tend to experience.
You can overcome perfectionism and still be your authentic self. It's not difficult, but it takes a conscious effort to do so.
What is the root cause of perfectionism?
It's helpful to identify the root causes of both of these behaviors. Our own mental health has a lot to do with perfectionism. If you want to overcome perfectionism, you're going to have to come face to face with the reason it exists in the first place.
Fear of constructive criticism is what drives perfectionism. It becomes difficult to stop negative spirals once that start in our lives. Our own negative self-talk and lack of self-acceptance create the unrealistic high standards for our lives way before we often become aware of what's happening.
The results of perfectionism tend to paralyze even our best effort to start living the life that we want.
The habits of perfectionism came from feelings of inadequacy from unrealistic parental expectations during our teenage years. This caused us to become so focused on avoiding making mistakes that it becomes tough to live in the present moment.
These parental expectations of perfection became our own sense of perfection. They made it harder for us to accept ourselves without worry about doing something wrong.
How can these mental health issues be addressed?
These high standards of perfectionism become one of our best strategies for survival that no matter what would happen, we made a habit that everything had to be perfect and we could never make mistakes.
This gives us a sense of control even when there is control. We tell ourselves, "If I never make a mistake again, I will be safe."
While at first glance, this seems like good advice, it's entirely destructive because mistakes are actually a positive part of living and doing business!
When we can't stop overthinking about situations that haven't happened yet, we often lead ourselves into situations to experience the very thing that we spent so much time worrying about.
Perfectionist thinking leads to more anxiety and worry and is never helpful in any situation.
We have to start to address the issue that is at the root of the practice of perfectionism so that we can begin to find balance in our lives.
Where do the negative thoughts of fear of failure originate?
Fear of failure is an anxiety-related issue that comes from these previous traumatic situations. When we experience a traumatic situation that we didn't sign up for, we stop accepting ourselves as our brain goes into survival mode. We're so deep in focus on surviving that we can't worry about anything else.
It's a coping mechanism. Without addressing the underlying self-esteem issues, it becomes almost impossible to overcome perfectionism.
The pain and anxiety that making mistakes causes us leads to seeking out ways to cope with these feelings on a daily basis. In order to survive, we will make sure everything is perfect, and nothing goes wrong because our brains have convinced us that any mistakes made in our life will certainly lead to death. This way of thinking, while we believe it is helpful, is entirely unhelpful when we become aware of the damage it is doing.
And this is why sometimes we need to directly address these painful events and grieve the past mistakes we've made in order to let them no longer have such power over our lives. We must accept that we are not perfect and practice more helpful ways of thinking.
The more we focus on being perfect, the less control we truly have in our world.
How do we become aware of the problems perfectionists tend to create?
Perfectionism creates more stress in the lives of business owners because it paralyzes them from taking any type of action.
The challenge this creates in business is the inability to perform and reach our goals.
Perfectionists spend too much time thinking about things that haven't happened yet or may never happen. They believe that doing so is helpful to address potential negative situations from happening.
The truth is, this is far from helpful at all.
A focus on never making mistakes often leads to making more mistakes along the way!
It's completely counterintuitive.
This causes them to procrastinate and prevents them from being successful.
Perfectionism also causes us to live under the rule of comparison. Perfectionists are afraid because they don't want their work judged, criticized, or ripped apart like it was in the past.
Perfectionists not only judge themselves harshly, but they also tend to be judgmental people that judge other people's work too harshly and see where others are lacking while not seeing their own shortcomings.
There's nothing productive about this way of thinking and living, especially for business owners. None of us truly has the free time or energy to focus on the wasteful, unproductive activity of criticizing ourselves and others (and it truly is the biggest secret time-waster for most business owners).
It doesn't matter how much you try to be perfect; it's impossible to avoid making mistakes on a regular basis!
How does someone start overcoming perfectionism?
To truly reach our goal of overcoming the perfectionism trap, we have to start accepting things just as they are, without needing them to be perfect. We must develop the habit of taking consistent imperfect action.
This is easier said than done and for one big reason.
One challenge with perfectionism is that it is a mental health-related issue. This means the best way to deal with it is to work with a professional. This makes it difficult to just overcome without help, and a proven process, like talk therapy that produces results.
One way that I defeated my own perfectionism was that I decided to sign up for BetterHelp.com
At the time of this writing, I am currently seeing a therapist there. I can write to her and ask questions throughout the week about what I'm dealing with, and we work together through the issues that lead to my own perfectionism and overthinking.
Therapy isn't something to feel embarrassed about. It can have real major success in the lives of those who struggle with perfectionism.
As you can see, I am very familiar with perfectionism myself, but I have been able to overcome it by working with a professional through the root cause of my own issues.
The cost is highly affordable. If you can't afford BetterHelp.com, I recommend 7Cups.com as a completely free resource to talk with people about the root causes of your trauma.
Two incredible books that can help you start living your life more powerfully and breaking free from perfectionism are The Big Leap and How To Do The Work. They deal with the issue from two different perspectives and both are life-changing books.
Listen to one of my top podcasts episodes where I break down the difference between Perfectionism vs. a Spirit of Excellence in detail as it applies to business.
If you would like more help for growing your business and breaking through problems that might be holding you back from business success, check out more videos on my YouTube channel here.
If you have any questions, feel free to direct message me on my social media.