Self-improvement | Psychology
You Are Not a Perfectionist, and You Never Were
Understanding why will save you thousands of hours
My greatest imperfection was being a perfectionist.
The first article I wrote on Medium took me five days and 2,500+ words. I spent hours tweaking, rewriting, and changing little details to fit my impossible-to-appease expectations.
I put the me in meticulous.
And guess what? I never uploaded it. I convinced myself it would be embarrassing to publish such a joke of a piece.
My message isn’t good enough, my writing is bland, and the style makes me sound like a muppet; I need to add this, resize the image, delete that, change this, edit the grammar…
Then I froze.
I stopped and stared for hours, marveling at my unworthy creation.
So, I deleted it. All of it. And with it, my hopes of writing content online.
That was until I learned that perfectionism isn’t real.
Why you think you’re a perfectionist
Perfectionists are clever and highly capable people.
When you were younger, you probably excelled. You did better than others, exceeded expectations, and were likely labeled ‘gifted and talented.’
This meant you produced great work. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t receive praise. So, you only produced the best work with the highest of expectations. Otherwise, you’d feel like a disappointment.
Over time, as life gets harder and more complicated, you find yourself being able to perfect outcomes with much less success.
Now, you beat yourself up more often, refuse praise for the mediocre work you produce, or give up on your work entirely.
You’ll spend hours procrastinating as a protection mechanism.
Yet you’ll call it ‘perfectionism’; it sounds sexier and strokes your ego.
Perfectionists need more help than most people
The comparison game is the perfectionist's poison.
You will overtly compare your abilities, a consequence of being labeled ‘gifted and talented’— a metric that can only be defined by comparing yourself to others and something you’ve likely become attached to.
Now you spend too much time on something none, in a purgatory between creative ingenuity and a self-inflicted prison.
The worst part is this: you’ll likely refuse help.
Being highly intellectual, you have become accustomed to figuring things out by yourself; you attach a level of pride to not needing support.
I know this because I’ve been there.
Yet studies suggest that highly capable people and perfectionists require more attention and support to aid their full development.
Without overcoming perfectionism, you’ll forever undermine your potential.
Perfectionism will consume your time and soul
Perfectionism made me hate myself.
Every time I thought of starting a project, I would over-prepare and plan every minute detail I could imagine.
Then, when it came to executing it, I’d wimp out, scared of failing to match my preparations and expectations. It resulted in dozens of dreams and plans put in the bin, further consolidating how incapable I felt.
After putting time, energy, and hope into so many ideas, to have them tossed away felt like a punch in the gut every time.
I hated myself for how often I faltered at the simplest of things.
For example, when I tried making my first routine, it took me four hours of detailed planning. I planned every 30 minutes of my day and optimized it for peak productivity.
After trying to follow it for two hours the next day, I gave up.
But wait, there’s more!
Over the next few weeks, I created two more routines and did the same thing. How inept must I be, I thought. to be unable to do something as simple as create a routine!? I must be a lost cause.
This sort of behavior seeped into every part of my life, sucking the creativity, joy, and happiness out of my life. It even affected a few of my relationships.
All my time spent uhm-ing and ah-ing could have been used taking risks, failing, learning, experiencing…
Perfectionism stole my time and virility without remorse. I’ve probably wasted hundreds of hours thinking and resisting.
Understanding the truth about perfectionism changed everything.
You’re not a perfectionist; you’re afraid of failure
When reduced to first principles, everything we do is driven by fear.
Perfectionism is procrastination masquerading as quality control because you’re afraid of failure and letting yourself — or others — down.
Read that again.
You are not a perfectionist. You are afraid.
This is extremely important to understand.
More specifically, you’re afraid of failure. Other fears nicely complement it, but it’s usually a fear of failure that supersedes others.
Your brain has an uncanny ability to protect you from things you fear; it will convince you of ostensible truths, force you to avoid uncomfortable situations, and so much more.
Giving into those protections will form feedback loops, making it increasingly difficult to see reality for what it is and conquer your fears.
Your ego also gets involved, compelling you to believe you’re a detail-oriented perfectionist — not a scared little procrastinator.
That’s okay! It happens.
Realizing this is the first step to freeing yourself.
Removing perfectionism gives you power
After I solved my procrastination issue, everything changed.
I had resisted attending my first Thai Boxing session for months; I told myself I didn’t have the right clothes, diet, mouthguard, preparation, and more. Probably.
After educating myself and growing an intolerance for procrastination, I bit the bullet — regardless of fear, emotion, and lack of preparation— and signed up for the next sessions available.
If I hadn’t, I would’ve never started; I wouldn’t have 6 months of experience.
Another example is going to the gym.
I resisted going for about 3 months — I didn't have the right shoes, bag, water bottle, understanding, towel… the excuses were comical.
To overcome this mental masturbation, I did the same thing with Thai Boxing: I dove right in regardless of preparation. Now I’ve been going for almost two years.
Jump into something new. Then prepare yourself.
With new projects and experiences, you must embrace f*cking up and looking like a stupid noob. There is no effort without error.
The mindset shift that changed the game
A mindset shift I implemented was calling everything an ‘experiment.’
Experiments are messy. The outcomes are unpredictable; it’s safe to mess sh*t up in every way possible. You put much less pressure on yourself to achieve a desired outcome when you experiment.
It also eliminates the fear of being good enough and failing to persist; it’s an experiment. Who cares if you do well? It’s all about experience.
With these experiments, you can start labelling macro goals with their respective micro experiments.
- Macro goals: grand outcomes as a result of lots of preceding goals.
- Micro experiments are small outcomes/actions that break down macro goals into their fundamental parts.
As a perfectionist, you want to spend 95% of your energy on small goals and ‘experiments’ — manageable chunks that do not overwhelm you.
Instead of writing a book, make it your mission to write 100 words per day; eventually, you will have a book without the overwhelm.
Achieving small goals creates a positive feedback loop, affirming that you can succeed and produce great work.
Which you always were.
Free yourself from the shackles of perfectionism
Here’s a step-by-step framework I devised to help you put all this action into practice:
- Accept you are not a perfectionist. You are a clever person who is using procrastination as a protection mechanism.
- Identify your dreams & goals — makes you more likely to want to get rid of perfectionism; nothing will change without changing. How much longer do you want to waste your limited time on Earth?
- Break down your dreams into manageable micro-experiments.
- Remind yourself of the mindsets that help you take action and overcome fear — write them on the wall; read them often.
- Jump into the experiments and practice with passion. Keep trying, experimenting, and seeing what does or doesn't work. It will take time to recondition your mind.
I hope this helps!
Remember to be careful when listening to your brain’s crafty objections.
Acting without emotion is a powerful skill.
Application of this is the killer of procrastination.
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