5 Tips to Help Perfectionists Take Action
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ What perfectionism is
⋒ Signs that you’re dealing with perfectionism (they’re not all what you think 👀)
⋒ 5 tips you can implement to overcome perfectionism and take action on your goals
If you couldn’t tell from today’s blog post title, we are talking about perfectionism. What it is, how to tell if you’re struggling with it, and what to do to take action in spite of it.
But real quick before we really get going, I want to throw out a little disclaimer – I know most of you know this about just in case – I am not a mental health professional and none of this is meant to pose as medical advice. This is just me sharing from my own personal experiences and my experience as a coach who works with ambitious women.
That word is something we hear a lot – perfectionism – but what is it actually?
According to Wikipedia, (so credible, right?) perfectionism is:
Perfectionism, in psychology, is a broad personality trait characterized by a person's concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.
I also took to my man Webster and looked up what he had to say about it:
refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.
UMM… intense. When you think about perfectionism in that way, it kinda knocks the wind out of you… at least it did for me.
I used to think that perfectionism just meant you had high standards. But it really means you have impossible standards.
I also didn’t think I struggled with perfectionism because I’m not afraid to take messy action on some things. If y’all have been following Hustle Sanely for any amount of time, you know that I am definitely not a stranger to jumping and figuring it out on the way down.
But did you know that perfectionism is deeper than just not taking action because you want everything to be just so before you start?
I’ve had my friend Monica here on the show before – she is a therapist who focuses on helping ambitious women and entrepreneurs overcome anxiety and perfectionism – she is so full of knowledge and shares a lot of it on her Instagram account – oh and spoiler alert, Monica is our BFF Guest Expert for Q4 and she’s gonna be educating us on tips for setting boundaries as a recovering perfectionist/people pleaser. I am STOKED to have her join us in the BFF Membership in December!
But anyway, she made a post on Instagram that I want to share here because it was really eye-opening for me. Her post shared these signs that you may be a perfectionist:
~ You set high and unrealistic expectations.
This is pretty much the only way I thought perfectionism manifested in people.
~ You often take and all-or-nothing approach.
This one hit me hard because it’s something that I have to be really intentional about not falling into. I’ve talked about this a lot in therapy and I didn’t realize that it was a form of perfectionism. I used to struggle hardcore with the all-or-nothing mindset and I think a lot of that is rooted in my history with hustle culture. Now I understand that things are usually on a spectrum – there are not just ALL or NOTHING as options – we can show up in different capacities for different things based on our season and our energy.
~ You procrastinate in order to avoid.
~ Failing seems permanent.
~ You don’t leave any room for mistakes.
~ You never feel like you’ve achieved enough.
And this is another one that hit close to home when I read it – again, I think this goes back to my hustle culture roots that I’m still healing from.
So think about those perfectionism indicators as we go into the rest of this episode – maybe you’re struggling with perfectionism but you didn’t know how to label it.
I don’t know about y’all, but when I’m able to give something a name, I feel like it lessens the hold it has on me and it also equips me to take steps to heal from it. When we have these big, nameless feelings kind of floating around in our minds, it’s exhausting!
I want to spend the rest of this episode sharing 5 tips to help perfectionists take action! These aren’t in any specific order – like you don’t have to do one before you can try the next, and as always, take the fish and spit out the bones – if something doesn’t resonate or work for you, don’t cling to it.
01. Evaluate the costs vs. benefits of perfectionism for each situation.
This one sounds scarier than it is – I don’t know why but the way I worded this reminds me of economics or something, lol.
All I’m saying is ask yourself, “Are my standards for _______ helping me or hindering me?”
Sometimes, I do think that having really high standards for certain things is necessary (not perfect standards but really high ones) and sometimes I think it’s totally okay to have good enough standards for certain things. We just have to take a moment to ask ourselves what is worth the higher standards and what isn’t.
And keep in mind that the variation of standards for certain things is going to be different for everyone. So something that I deem as “high standards are benefitting me here” might be a “high standards are costing me here” thing to you.
Some things just aren’t that serious but when you struggle with perfectionism, and you’re used to operating from a place of perfectionism, everything can feel like it’s a huge deal.
Asking this question helps us recalibrate our perspective on each task/situation.
02. Get clear on the standards.
Shout out to Key 02 to Hustling Sanely – Get Clear on Your Vision. Half the time I think we’re floundering or avoiding or burned out because we don’t have a clear picture of our vision. Tasks feel mundane and we don’t understand the connection that our actions have to our vision.
When it comes to making moves when you’re having a perfectionism moment, visualizing the big picture can be extremely helpful.
Here’s how I recommend getting clear on the standards 👇🏻
Ask yourself:
“What are the required standards for this?”
“Are the standards I’m aiming for aligned with those or are they much higher?”
“Is the difference necessary/important to me or can I pull back a little?”
Sometimes we don’t realize that we’re operating from a place of perfectionism until we actually sit down and map out what the real standards are versus what we’re shooting for. The disconnect doesn’t compute in our minds until we see the 2 sets of different standards side by side.
Seeing the actual standards written out can help your mind release unnecessarily high standards that you’re aiming for.
03. Set time limits for tasks.
This one sounds simple and it is – but the key here is to set time limits for your tasks and then make sure to follow them. I’m pretty sure most of you know how to set time limits for your tasks – create due dates/deadlines for goals, use time blocking while working on day-to-day tasks, etc. I wanna talk a little but more about how you can stick to the time limits you set:
~ Create accountability by telling your friends, family, and/or co-workers about your time limits.
This way you have people checking in and making sure you’re not dragging your feet on something that you said you wanted to get done.
~ Pair a task that you want to have a set time for with a scheduled event.
So for example, let’s say you’re launching a podcast and you need to create the cover art for it and you know that in the past, a task like this would take you 3 hours because you want it to be perfect. Instead of giving yourself an open-ended amount of time to do it, you can time block your day (aka create a schedule), and give yourself 45 minutes to do it and to help hold yourself accountable, you can sandwich that 45 minutes in between 2 time-bound events, like meetings or client calls – things that you have no choice but to attend at a set time.
Before you start the podcast cover art, remind yourself that perfection doesn’t exist and that you have 45 minutes to create cover art that you approve of and that 45 minutes is plenty of time to complete this task with excellence.
04. Do a mindset reframe to detach yourself from perfectionism.
I have talked about this many, many times here on the podcast and in the BFF Membership, and on Instagram – the way you talk about something matters. Your words have an effect on your life.
If you didn’t know, I’ve been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and this is something that I do that helps me navigate life with it – instead of saying “I’m anxious.” I say, “I’m having an anxious moment.”
Wording it that way reminds me that I am not always anxious but that I have anxious moments. It helps me detach myself from my anxiety – to view it as a part instead of as the whole, if that makes sense.
So in terms of perfectionism, instead of saying, “I’m a perfectionist.” you could say, “I’m dealing with perfectionism right now.”
05. Separate yourself from your inner critic.
This one kind of goes along with the last one – and I’m gonna tell you my favorite way to do this. I might have shared this on the show before – I can’t remember – but it’s worth saying again even if I have. I know for sure we’ve talked about this in the BFF Membership!
To help me separate myself from my inner critic, who is usually being really rude and upholding unreachable standards, I like to give my inner critic a persona. I got this idea from a book called Real Self-Care – the author suggests naming your inner critic because that’s where a lot of our limiting beliefs come from.
She suggests making notes of what your inner critic says and sounds like and then coming up with a popular cultural stand-in that represents your inner critic (mine is definitely Miss Trunchbull from Matilda -- the author said that hers is Angelica from Rugrats, lol). When we do this, the goal isn't to eliminate the inner critic but instead to recognize when it's become too harsh and affects how we show up for our lives – which in this case is perfectionism having a hold on us taking action on things that matter to us.
This exercise helps me differentiate my true voice from my inner mean girl and it has helped me navigate limiting beliefs quicker because I don't hear them in my own voice, but in the voice of Miss Truncchbull -- sounds silly, but I'm serious!
A line from the book that I just love:"Talking to yourself with kindness and respect, understanding that you are worthy of time and help, and realizing that you deserve rest are all radical acts." (page 161)
It sounds silly to give your inner critic a persona but I’m telling you – it’s worth a try!
Alright, y’all, that is what I’ve got for you today – 5 tips to help you take action if you’re dealing with perfectionism. To recap, the 5 tips are:
01. Evaluate the costs vs. benefits of perfectionism for each situation.
02. Get clear on the standards.
03. Set time limits for tasks.
04. Do a mindset reframe to detach yourself from perfectionism.
05. Separate yourself from your inner critic.
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Loved this blog post? Tune into the full podcast episode below!
