Stop Letting Perfectionism Hold You Back
Is perfectionism holding you back from pursuing your dreams? Well you are not the only one so let’s talk about it.
SO PERFECTIONISM. Ugh. What a beast of a struggle perfectionism is because it can manifest in so many different ways, right? I feel like perfectionism is sneaky because it disguises itself as good when really it’s draining and totally hindering.
It wears a mask of being the best, advancing, reaching goals, and being shiny and appealing. But perfectionism puts pressure on us. Like such a heavy, paralyzing pressure. It makes us stand still in fear and holds us back from making a next move because we’re scared it’s not the right move.
It immobilizes us and twists our thinking into, “Well if it’s not perfect, why bother trying at all?” We think that if we cannot show up perfectly then we don’t have the right to show up at all. We surrender the thought of going after our dreams and ambitions before we’ve even given ourselves the chance to try because we are so convinced that we’re doing it wrong or not good enough. Perfectionism really does hold us back from our dreams if we let it.
Can you relate to that? Because I sure can. I want to tell you a story about when I almost lost a dream to perfectionism. Let me set the scene:
This was last spring - so not that long ago! I was a few months into my decision to drop out of grad school to pursue hustle sanely full-time. My business was thriving, as in my income was increasing each month, my client roster was completely booked out, and I was fulfilled in the work that I was doing to serve the Hustle sanely community. BUT I had a conversation with a few other online business owners and I realized that the backend of my business was very ….let’s say different...than theirs. I didn’t have complicated marketing funnels or any plans of running paid ads, and if you asked me about
Now I’m not saying that having a business strategy is unimportant. It’s totally important. But mine looked messy next to others and this is when I almost decided to hang up Hustle Sanely and go get a job as a manager at Lululemon (I’m not kidding - I was like well I’d still get to wear workout pants to work and I’d get a discount on them so). I felt so paralyzed that my business plan wasn’t perfectly laid out and accompanied by articulate charts and graphs. I started to feel stuck. I didn’t have a perfect business plan, so I didn’t own a real business so what was the point of all this anyway?
IMPACT, that’s what the point is. We’ll talk more about that in a second.
Maybe you’re sitting there thinking about a time that perfectionism held you back. Or hey, maybe you feel like perfectionism is a brick in your boot right now and it’s keeping you from progressing toward what you know you were called to do.
So let’s do some digging together and bust up perfectionism, cool?
First I wanna talk about some ways that I think perfectionism manifests or shows up in our lives:
Perfectionism can look like making excuses.
Perfectionism can look like procrastination.
Perfectionism can look like the pressure to prove
MAKING EXCUSES
It seems like many of us are waiting for the perfect circumstances before we go after our dreams. You choose not to take a step toward making your dream happen at all because you are not married to your dream partner, living in your dream house, driving your dream car, or whatever. You think you have to have all these proverbial ducks in a row before you can start something such as your dream. Well that’s not the case. You can start today. You can start now. Starting something is not the same as completing it, you know.
I talked about this in a recent weekly email but big dreams are the outcome of a lot of small steps. You can start taking small steps now so that they can add up over time and as time is passing, you are simultaneously getting closer to your dream. Taking small steps doesn’t look like the perfect big picture dream. They can look like a baby giraffe learning to walk.
Example:
Let’s say you want to start a blog. But you don’t have the best camera. You don’t have the funds to access the top web designer. You aren’t quite sure what all of your blog topics are going to be. Guess you just shouldn’t start then since you don’t have the perfect plan in place, right? NO GIRL.
Use your phone to take pictures for your blog. Heck I still do that honestly.
Hire a web designer from Upwork for your first website.
Write posts about what you do know you want to share.
Your blog will grow with you. As you practice and get better at blogging, you’ll learn more. You’ll figure out what your audience wants to hear about from you. As you grow that audience who knows maybe you’ll start doing brand deals and you can use the money from those brand deals to fund a DSLR camera. Momentum does not happen from stillness. We have to use the small steps that are at the beginning of our dreams to help us get to the big picture dream.
I mean hello, look at me - I thought I was going to be an SLP and pursuing that turned into Hustle Sanely. I had no idea this would ever be a thing but I stumbled on it because I was actively moving toward something else.
Many of us also clutch onto our dreams instead of sharing them with the world because we don’t think they or we are ready. Well let me tell you, 9 times out of 10 even if you DO have a seemingly perfect plan in place, that ish is not gonna turn out like you imagine it to. That right there should take off some of the pressure. We learn by throwing a fumble not by standing there still holding the ball hoping it soars in the right direction on its own.
What if when you put whatever it is out into the world now, you learn how you can refine it because of feedback that you get from people. You’ll never get that feedback if you don’t put it out there, you know?
PROCRASTINATION
This one kind of ties in with making excuses except instead of coming up with reasons why you can’t do something, you are putting your energy into doing other things instead of doing what you need to do to progress in another thing. Make sense?
When you think of procrastination you probably think about wasting time watching TV or scrolling social media for hours or something like that. But I want to talk about an underlying example of procrastination - many of us spend ample amounts of time and energy “researching” because we get this false sense of comfort from it.
I think we should all give ourselves a limited amount of time to research before we do something, sure. It’s responsible. BUT we can’t stay in the research phase hoping to learn every single thing before we try because we learn so much by doing. Like have you heard the saying, you don’t know what you don’t know?
With my paper planner business for example, I tricked myself into thinking I had to spend like 6 months learning how to run a planner company before I could start taking steps. But now I’m learning that I can research stuff as I go. I’ve got the planner in my hands cool. Now how can I package this sucker to get it into your hands? I didn’t overwhelm myself with telling myself that I had to have steps 1-10 nailed down before I could start on step 1.
THE PRESSURE TO PROVE
Now let’s talk about how perfectionism makes us feel. It runs deep. It’s an all-over debilitating thing to experience because perfectionism has a way of leaking into all areas of our lives, right?
We want to be perfect when it comes to choosing a career.
We want to be the perfect partner.
To be the perfect Christian.
To be the perfect friend.
The perfect family member.
The perfect mom.
And the list is endless. Think about all of your roles. Chances are, if you struggle with perfectionism, you want to be perfect in just about every area of your life.
Perfectionism leaves us feeling:
~ Burnt out
~ Overwhelmed
~ Exhausted
It robs us from enjoying the moments that make up our lives. Cool. So you know how perfectionism can look and how it can feel but what the heck can you do about it?
What are some action steps that you can take to overcome perfectionism?
1. Start viewing things as stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks.
We have to understand that failing forward opens new doors. Doors we never would have the chance to walk through if we didn’t fail into them. And to fail, we have to ditch perfectionism. Give yourself permission to try on a few hats. I mean take my journey for example. I went from personal trainer, to speech-language pathology, to Hustle Sanely. Like I mentioned earlier, all of those things were stepping stones to get me here.Instead of fretting over being so far away from where you want to be, focus on what you can do today to get one step closer.
Maybe you can buy your website domain. Maybe you can brainstorm a business name. Maybe you can build or create your first prototype.
Use the knowledge and resources that you have right now to take one step. Then as you take that step, you’ll learn and grow more and you can take that new knowledge and experience into the next step and so on.
2. We talked about this last week a little bit but define your priorities, let’s say your top 3-5, and put your best time and energy into those.
Do those things well. Be great at them. And then be okay with being good at everything else. Yep, just GOOD not great. I’m all about doing things with excellence. Really, I think it’s biblical to do things with integrity and to the best of our ability. But I don’t think that means we are called to run ourselves into the ground by trying to be everything to everyone.Wouldn’t you rather be an AMAZING wife, mom, teacher, friend, and church member than an okay wife, mom, teacher, friend, church member, city council member, team mom, tee-ball coach, photography club coordinator, insert whatever random role you agree to without actually wanting it to be something you take on.
Defining our priorities allows us to show up well for what matters with full hearts. When we show up well for what matters we are fulfilled. We are living in purpose. Which doesn’t give perfectionism a lot of room to wiggle its way in and cause destruction.
3. Look outward: Focus on the impact instead of the action itself.
I said earlier that we would circle back to impact and we made it. When we focus on the impact that our actions have more so than on the actions themselves, we are less likely to let perfectionism hold us back. Hustle Sanely is a new business - a new business comes with growing pains. I’m learning as I’m going. And you wanna know what keeps me going even when I mess up or something unexpected happens? YOU GUYS. Hearing your stories and how Hustle Sanely is changing your life makes my messy action way less scary.
Think about how you could help, serve, and love others right now. If you wait for the perfect circumstances or for your dream to feel perfectly ready to share, you are actually keeping the help or love or whatever it is from people.What if someone in your life needs what you have right now? Before it’s ready? Before you're ready?
I encourage you to stop seeking the perfect path or the perfect answer. Instead, focus on showing up with your whole heart every day. Take messy action.
When we stop competing, with others and even with ourselves, and we start living, we start showing up and living in alignment with our values, that’s when we can be freed from perfectionism.
If you enjoyed this post, tune into episode 041 of The Hustle Sanely Podcast to listen into this topic!
