Stop Letting Perfectionism Stifle Your Potential.

It stifled mine, and all I can say is I wish I’d confronted this bad habit sooner.

For a long time, I thought being a perfectionist was a good thing — it was a good trait of mine.

But it wasn’t until I chose to challenge myself and try to turn my life around that I learned perfectionism can be and is a form of self-sabotage.

I often stopped myself from taking risks and making moves because I thought I wasn’t ready or what I was doing wasn’t ready.

I also stopped myself because I was worried I would look funny or dumb.

I thought what others thought of me and my actions was important.

That somehow, I needed their approval to move forward.

But that’s a lie we convince ourselves of, so we stay in our comfort zones.

Perfectionism makes you think nothing is ready.

Perfectionism makes you overthink what you do and makes you believe nothing you’re working on is ever ready.

I felt this way about almost every project I worked on, and in a way, I created a self-fulfilling prophecy that nothing I did was good enough.

I often let perfectionism get in the way of putting in more effort and chose to give up before giving things another try.

And therefore, they turned out mediocre and not good enough.

Other times, I thought my work wasn’t good enough because other people didn’t like it as much as I did.

This is another lie perfectionism tells you — because others don’t find value in your actions, those things are not valuable anymore.

Perfectionism isn’t just what you think about what you’re doing; it’s also what others think about it.

And if you’re struggling with other’s opinion’s of your work, odds are you’re a struggling perfectionist.

Perfectionism makes you think YOU are not ready.

This is the biggest lie that being a perfectionist tells you that stops you from moving forward.

When you’re stuck in your perfectionist ways, you don’t think you’re ready yet.

The problem is the ‘yet’ never comes.

I remember I used to think this way — ‘I’ll be ready when X happens,’ or ‘I’ll be ready when I reach this milestone,’ etc.

I would give myself these arbitrary timelines and milestones, and once I reach them, I would have permission to take risks and start moving forward.

The problem is, you’re never going to feel ready. None ever does when they start taking risks.

And I remained stuck and stagnant for a long time because of it.

It wasn’t until I was put in a position where I had no choice but to take risks (so I could survive) that I learned that ‘being ready’ is something we tell ourselves we need to be to make moves.

You don’t need to feel ready, and you don’t need to wait for whatever arbitrary timeline or milestone you’ve told yourself you need to achieve.

You’ve got what it takes now to move your life forward.

All you have to do is be okay with this:

Learn to be okay with imperfections and mistakes.

As I said, it wasn’t until I was put in a position where I had no choice but to take risks that I started letting go of my perfectionist tendencies and started acting.

To give you a summary, I had a falling out with the family members I was living with at the time, was forced to look for a new place to live, and was laid off from a second job.

Fortunately, I had my bartending side job.

Thanks to the help of friends, I could quickly find a place to live, but the reality that now I had to pay for the roof over my headset in.

I needed to find full-time employment fast.

Fortunately, I got an introduction to a restaurant manager looking for a full-time bartender.

Rather than thinking a summer bartending job is not perfect or ‘What will others think if I’m bartending full-time,’ I gladly accepted the job offer, and the rest is history.

I’ve been bartending full-time for almost two years, have reached more financial and personal milestones than ever, have made more mistakes and taken more risks than ever, and feel more like the person I’m supposed to become.

Through this journey of learning to be on my own, survive, and thrive, I’ve learned that being perfect or looking perfect doesn’t matter.

What matters is living according to your beliefs and values and not paying one bit of attention to what others may say or think about it because, at the end of the day, it just doesn’t matter.

What matters is accepting yourself, loving yourself to change for the better, making mistakes and learning from them (it’s inevitable), and working towards building a genuinely content and joyful life.

Perfectionism will only stifle your potential to create this reality.

This is why it’s crucial to focus on progress.

Choose progress over perfection and watch your life transform.