A lot of people out there try to wear their perfectionism as some sort of badge
of honor--something that they're proud of. One example of this:
you are at a job interview and when the interviewer asks,
"what's your biggest weakness?",
you tell them that your biggest weakness is being a perfectionist (in hopes that
it actually comes across as some sort of an asset). The reality, of course,
is that it doesn't actually serve you in the way that you might think it does.
It's obviously a great thing to be and do your but the problem with
perfectionism is that,
since it's a destination that can't really ever be reached,
it ends up just being this fruitless mission that can keep us indefinitely
spinning our wheels instead of getting us to where we want to go.
Ultimately perfection isn't something that brings us forward;
it actually just holds us back. Here is what you can do about it.
My name's Rachel Harrison-Sund,
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So we all basically know the definition of perfectionism--the continuous
striving for perfection--but it's easy to be unaware of the harsh self-criticism
and fear of failure that lies at the heart of it.
In terms of how it manifests itself, often that's by doing too much.
Picture the working mom who also volunteers for the PTA and the local community
center and the church all with a great big smile on her face,
barely concealing the completely exhausted and neglected human being underneath.
Or it might manifest as endless tweaking.
This is the one that I relate to the most:
where whatever it is you're working on never actually sees the light of day
because you just need to spend just a little more time getting it just right.
Or sometimes it manifests itself as procrastination: you're
so afraid of the end result of your labor being anything less than a total 10
out of 10 that you avoid spending any time on it at all.
Or it can even manifest itself as never even getting started on something
because you don't want to spend so much as a second on something that might not
be a slam dunk.
The end result of perfectionism is never ever perfection.
The end result of perfectionism is wasted time, stalled projects,
exhaustion, disempowerment, unrealized potential,
harsh self-criticism leading to anxiety or sometimes even depression.
So what do we do? First things first--you have to focus on progress,
not perfection.
You have to actively stop seeking to make perfection your desired outcome.
To do this, you have to admit to yourself first that perfection is illusory.
It doesn't exist.
Another way to look at this is by shifting your focus from the outcome onto the
process. When you stop worrying about the outcome,
you're then not only free to actually enjoy the process (imagine that!),
but this weird paradox occurs.
Because you're focusing on the process and not the outcome,
your process improves, and then so does your outcome,
even though that's not actually where your focus was.
Secondly--this is very important--you have to give yourself permission to suck.
This one was so huge for me. Seriously, it was a game changer.
There have been so many interests that I never even bothered trying because I
was so afraid of not being good at it. And then when I started my own business,
there were just simply things that I couldn't avoid doing because they were a
major part of my business operations.
I used to get such severe anxiety over doing these things.
I would like literally experience panic attacks.
A quick example was when I first started doing live videos and webinars,
I was so self-conscious about my ability to speak in front of others because I
just didn't really have a ton of public speaking experience.
I'd done presentations and things like that in front of groups in
my old jobs as an art director,
but speaking to 400 complete strangers on a live webinar made me feel so
vulnerable.
I felt like I had to come across as this seasoned pro who had been doing it for
ages and I had to be entertaining and I had to be engaging.
I put so much pressure on myself. The day before that first live webinar,
I literally was laying in bed crying,
absolutely certain that I would have a public meltdown in front of 400 people.
It went totally fine, by the way.
I felt very anxious at doing it, very uncomfortable.
I probably had pit stains down to my waist afterward,
but I did not lose control the way that I thought I would.
The fact of the matter is when you're first starting out at anything,
you are going to suck, unless it's something that's inherently super easy.
You can't really escape the beginning stages of anything;
it's just baked into the cake.
So you have to accept it as an inevitable part of the process and then give
yourself permission to fumble. I did this when I first started my channel too.
I'm a total introvert. I absolutely hate being in front of the camera.
I was scared I'd look like a total idiot.
I ended up watching a few videos about how to start a channel and one person--I
can't remember who--mentioned that your first one or even 200 videos are going
to suck.
So I gave myself permission to absolutely suck for my first hundred videos.
This is actually my 89th video, by the way,
so even now I am still giving myself permission to suck. And let me tell you,
it helped took the pressure off. All I had to do was show up, make something,
not worry about the outcome and I get a hundred tries to get it right.
Same thing when doing those live videos and webinars.
That is really what got me to do them.
Even though I'd been crying in my bed the day before,
I gave myself permission to suck. It was still, like I said,
extremely uncomfortable. I could barely breathe, I felt like, doing it,
but just knowing that it didn't have to be perfect and that it could actually
suck I didn't have to pretend to be someone that I wasn't yet.
I didn't have to pretend to be this seasoned pro.
I allowed myself to fumble over my words. It really didn't matter. I even put a
little sticky note on my laptop telling myself that I didn't have
to be anyone else other than who I am right now and it really, really helped.
Permission to suck, I think,
has helped me move forward in this side of my business.
Maybe more than anything else because the mistakes just simply don't matter
anymore. The third thing--this is a tactic--is to give yourself deadlines.
Deadlines are so essential for me.
Otherwise I'll waste years just screwing around with something,
trying to get it right, and then my whole life will be over.
That's not really an exaggeration.
Lots of people literally do waste their entire lives or,
to be a little bit more charitable,
waste their full potential just by never pulling the trigger on the things that
they claim want to do.
Deadlines hold you accountable to get stuff out the door and moving,
whether you think that they're sufficiently ready or not.
So when you begin a project--for example,
a low-content book that you're working on--give yourself a deadline.
Make it a reasonable deadline.
Make sure that it's something that actually works with your life,
but give yourself a deadline. When that comes,
the book gets published and you don't get to spend another four hours or another
four days or four weeks tweaking it.
Then you just take what you've learned and you apply it to the next book.
This allows you to make progress much, much more quickly and learn a lot faster.
Another example--this is what I did when I launched my course,
Low-Content Profits Academy--I was working on sales pages.
They really were not up to my design standards.
I'm a professional designer in my old career; art director.
So I'm used to getting things to a really polished level visually.
These things were butt-ugly, but guess what?
My webinar was set to start and I just simply didn't have the time to
polish them up the way that I really wanted to do it.
My business couldn't just grind to a halt and wait it out while I fussed over
fonts and images for my sales pages for God knows how long. And I just,
I knew that I could just get them out there. Iterate.
Ultimately it didn't matter as long as the functionality was there.
And guess what? Two years later, those sales pages,
they're still not that great because I've just been focusing more on what's
actually going to move the needle in my business.
Imagine if I'd never launched my course because I couldn't stop nitpicking with
the sales pages. And it's not just my sales pages. It's my website.
It's my YouTube thumbnails.
Everything is a little bit on the ugly side right now,
but I know that these are things that I can just improve slowly over time while
my main focus remains on what counts and what counts is creating useful content
for you. Done is better than perfect.
Those are three ways that hopefully can help yourself overcome your
perfectionism. I really hope that helps.
If you're here because you need help starting your low-content publishing
business, download my free guide,
3 Steps to Publishing Your First Low-Content Book in Less Than a Day.
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