3 Tips to Start Recovering from your Perfectionism in the Office
Perfectionism is a bad habit with a good intention. Many of us struggle with the want and desire to do things perfectly, particularly in work environments.
There are many reasons you might be a perfectionist; maybe it's just who you are (hi, enneagram ones), or perhaps it's rooted in your childhood or somewhere else in your history. It certainly isn't an abnormal struggle, but something detrimental to us mentally, even with its good intentions.
I like to call myself, personally, a recovering perfectionist. This means that I still struggle internally with the desire for everything to be "just right," but that I've learned tools to help me move forward. These tools give me more time to work (rather than obsess) and save the mental energy that perfectionism taxes.
I've come up with three tips that helped me with this shift, from perfectionist to recovering perfectionist in the office (and maybe out of the office too).
Stop rewriting/rereading your emails.
Seriously, what do you think you might be missing once you've read it over once? The thing is, after proofreading your email (after writing it yourself already), what else will you get out of the second, third, fourth (and so on) rereading? What will rewriting that sentence do for you, the email, and the reader?
Most likely, nothing. It's true.
One of my struggles with this was ensuring that my message came across how I wanted it to and ensuring that my dyslexic struggles with grammar and spelling weren't making me non-credible. These two things had me rewriting emails so many times, but rarely were there edits or changes after the first proofreading.
For myself, I started giving myself limits. I could only proofread emails once (there were a few exceptions, but there should always be healthy exceptions to rules). There times that I forgot, and halfway through the 2nd rereading, I'd stop myself; that's part of how it goes.
There were also times when I ended up missing essential words (have you ever forgotten to make a sentence negative (a little "no/not" can make a big difference). Guess what? I was able to say I was human and call out my error in the following email - things happen.
There was one tool that I found essential to invest in (that I am still using right now as I write this), that is Grammarly. The space Grammarly gives me to find and correct my dyslexic errors and then also tell me how my tone is coming across is monumental, truly.
I highly recommend that you find what works for you so you can stop obsessing about emails. The idea that everything you write is perfect is pretty bogus, but more so, most of the time, it is excellent; you simply bring the worry into your mental space.
Break larger projects into smaller ones
The idea of breaking down your projects into smaller ones might not seem incredibly obvious to overcoming perfectionism, but it is crucial.
Most of us have some form of larger projects that we are continually working on, maybe alone, maybe in conjunction with other teammates. With larger projects usually comes more complexity, and therefore more pressure. You can imagine that this stress (pressure) is like a breeding ground for perfectionism, not in a good way.
When you only see the big project, it's often hard to see how all the small pieces fit together and how you can make it all work. This lack of clarity often leads to trying to gain control by making everything perfect but not focusing on the details simultaneously.
So, how will breaking down larger projects into smaller ones help? Well, it's a lot easier to feel you are in control and doing things right (not perfect) when you have smaller bite sizes.
Seeing small things lining up in the right way (not perfect) will give you an understanding that things are under control and progressing; you are building up to a final project in a healthy way, assuring that (recovering) perfectionist of your progress.
Stop obsessing about "failures" and start learning from them
Here is my honest opinion about failure, the only time you fail is in the not-doing. I (now) truthfully think that you expose yourself to learning and growing every time you do something new, different, again, or whatever.
If you have never filled out a specific report before, the fact that you tried means you haven't failed. And, when you are corrected because something wasn't done "right," you have now learned, and when you do it the next time, now you know.
Before changing my mindset on this, I would get frustrated with myself; I should have known better. I would contemplate how I should have done whatever it was different and beat myself up.
When I did this, the only lesson I was teaching myself was that I wasn't good enough or worthy of my job. Can you imagine how that showed up in my moods and actions? I certainly wasn't showing up as my best self.
I wasn't about to stop doing the work or not trying new things out of fear of failure, so I had to do something else. I started by tricking myself. Whenever I felt my perfectionist self starting to poke her head up and beat me up about something, I asked myself, "what did I just learn?"
I was disrupting my negative failure mindset and moving to a growth mindset, and more so, I was distracting myself (hey, whatever works). I started to see the opportunities I was giving myself that previously I was shutting down. I was rewiring my brain, and it left me less focused on things being perfect and more focused on learning and moving forward.
If recovering from being a perfectionist is nothing else, it is growth; in the way you see the world and how you are participating with those around you (and yourself).
These three tips are all small habit and mindset changes that anyone can accomplish. They will genuinely give you mental space to focus on the positive and move away from your inner critic.
Remember to be kind to yourself; your drive for perfectionism isn't rooted in a hostile place. The intention is to make you successful. Let's find another way for you to feel successful and grow in the office.