Do you feel like you need to be Wonder Woman all the time?
If you feel like you are doing it all and doing it almost perfectly most of the time, but you also feel like your career just isn’t where it should be…
If you ever skipped on an opportunity because you were worried that if you don’t show up and do it extremely well, it would tarnish your reputation…
If you struggle with having not enough joy in your life, we need to talk about this.
Perfectionism is keeping you in peril. It is holding you back from what you really want in life.
People say “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” When it comes to our morals and our standards, that’s true – how you show up morally every single day is who you are.
However, this idea does not apply to practical tasks because some things need less energy than others. Some tasks deserve less of your time than others.
Trying to make sure you’re doing every single thing perfectly can stop you from actually delivering well on those that are most important to your life and your dreams.
It needs to be said that the pursuit of excellence is noble and it moves our careers forward, but if we try and do every single task perfectly, we end up with excessive stress and burnout and eventually drop important tasks too.
So I want to give you solutions to move past the pressure of being perfect all the time and instead, replace it with the ability to move forward, advance your career, and have more joy.
The first step is to think about what happens if you don’t do something flawlessly.
If perfectionism is robbing your joy, set more realistic goals.
Ask yourself the question, “What happens if I don’t do this task/project/activity perfectly?”
Going back to the idea that not everything deserves the same amount of time and energy, I urge you to assess how much you’re putting into each task on your to-do list.
You have a thousand different things that you need to do.
◻️ Say you have a presentation coming up within your team. Do you really need to scour those slides for every typo and spend hours designing it?
The time and effort you put into this one will be less than if you have a presentation with the board.
◻️ You have a special dinner coming up at home and in the same week, there’s a bake sale that you were pressured into joining.
Do you need to bake both your signature pie and your signature cookies? Or could you just bake (or even buy) brownies for the bake sale?
As moms, we tend to feel like we need to show up 100% at home, at work, at school, and with our friends. You want to deliver extremely well all the time.
But you really don’t need to.
So ask, “What happens if I don’t do this flawlessly?” And you can’t answer with “my reputation’s going to tank.”
You can answer this objectively for yourself or for the second tip…
You can get clear about others’ expectations.
Ask your superior, “How pretty do the slides need to be?”
Ask your partner, “Do I need to prepare my signature dishes, or can we go for simple ones?”
Ask the PTO, “Can I bring brownies instead of cupcakes?”
This might be too simple or straightforward, but I can bet you haven’t asked others’ expectations of you. Being clear about this is just the first step to overcoming perfectionism and eventually, inviting more joy into your life.
Third, embrace criticism.
Think about criticism is a gift because it ultimatelty helps you get better
I want you to think about criticism as a gift. And yes, you do have to be able to sift through the trolls who don’t matter.
But criticism ultimately helps you get better.
What is going to advance your career? What is going to help you attain the life that you want? Is it when someone says, “Hey, high five, you did a good job” or is it when someone says, “Hey, here’s how you could have gotten better.”
Take that information and go and do better.
I’m going to give you a bonus one. If perfection is keeping you in peril, if it’s stopping you from advancing, and these tips I shared with you are not feeling like they’re going to help, then look for a coach.
Find someone to help you, or maybe even go to therapy. A few weeks of therapy could do wonders for freeing you of this burden so that you can actually start to advance and drive your career in the direction that you want it to go and have more joy.
So there you have it. If you like more of these conversations, please check out my podcast, The Savvy Working Mom, where we talk all about how we can move forward in life and flourish with more joy and less stress as working moms.
Perfectionism is holding you back from what it is that you really want in life.
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If you’d like this conversation, please check out my podcast, The Savvy Working Mom, where we talk all about how we can move forward in life and flourish with more joy and less stress as working moms.
Let’s makeover your routine at How To Get Unstuck.
