HOW “PERFECTIONISM” HURT MY CAREER AND RELATIONSHIPS

I value excellence.

During my corporate career, I believed that I had to do everything at 100% or as close to it as possible. I prided myself on high quality work and built a personal brand around being able to do pretty much anything that was thrown my way. I worked hard. I built an identity around my work ethic, my commitment to excellence and getting it "all" done.

This was the secret to my success...or so I thought.

In reality, there were real and tangible costs to my perfectionism. There were costs to having my "shit" together, working my ass off and being the person that could take it all on. I was simply unwilling to see them, choosing to believe instead that anything other than excellence would have everything I created for myself crumble, shatter and dissolve. I was so afraid to let things go, that I tried to control outcomes, was constantly seeking approval and believed that I was cementing my security with every "excellent piece of work" I delivered.

Wow, was I ever wrong.

Looking back, I can now clearly see the costs of my perfectionism. I can see how I had to come close to burnout to open myself up to the possibility of operating differently. I can appreciate that even in the areas where I strongly believed that my commitment to excellence was helping, it wasn't. The costs were simply harder to recognize. Now, I understand that holding excellence as important doesn't mean that, sometimes, 60% is simply good enough.

Here's my story of perfectionism:

My belief that everything had to be done to the very best of my ability has its roots in my childhood. My dad and mom both had high standards for their own work. I remember seeing my parents diligently and carefully do their work with focused attention on quality. My dad would lean back and look at some reno project he was completing and inspect it for any sign of imperfection. He would then lean back in, carefully and slowly, to make it better. This would go on over and over again until it looked perfect. My mom did the same.

My parents didn't really demand this type of perfectionism for me, nonetheless I grained this appreciation for quality and excellence, believing that better was better - every time and under every circumstance.

As I reflect, I can see that my tendency for perfectionism really came to light during my corporate career.

My work started to get recognized, I was promoted and so, naturally, I felt I needed to double down on quality. I reviewed my work multiple times before sharing it, I did extra work on the side to develop my skills further and I worked late into the night to do more and do it better.

This behaviour was rewarded. I started to be promoted to new roles every 2 or 3 years, often in new departments or companies that were facing challenges, which helped my case for continuing the cycle of working hard and taking on more. It never occurred to me that there might be a different way. I kept the "perfectionist" train going strong.

Within 6 years of starting my career, I was promoted to Vice President. I was well respected and on the fast track to more. From the outside looking in, all looked pretty great. I was happily married to my high school sweetheart, we had healthy and happy kids, I was traveling extensively to new and exciting places and was advancing in my career at record speed.

While this is all true, it's only part of the story.

The behind-the-scenes story involves a woman who was driven by an inner pressure to do more and do it better. I worked longer hours than I had to, I said yes way too often and often felt stressed and overwhelmed. As I tired myself out in order to live up to an unrealistic ideal, my relationships started to suffer. My 360 reviews started to include comments like - "I can't relate to you", "You make everything look too easy" and "Share your failures". My perfectionism was creating distance between me and others - all the while, I was suffering on the inside under the burden of having to always get it right. I was working tirelessly to prove myself and win people over and under the surface my team was feeling undervalued and wanting me to show them my humanity. They were right.

At home, the story wasn't much better. My relationships suffered under the pressure of having to be the perfect mom, wife and daughter. I took on too much at home while still wanting to deliver at the same level at work. I was rarely present, often under the influence or a wandering mind reviewing everything that had to be done and planning how I would get it all done ...of course, perfectly!

Looking back, I feel deep compassion for that person. The one that was trying to do well, and in the midst of all that effort, ended up making a mess. I get where she was coming from. I know that her heart was in the right place. I also know that there was a lot of wasted energy and unrealized joy that could have been had she tried a different way. I know I had to have that experience to get to where I am now. To fully embrace and appreciate my experience of today.

Ultimately, with the arrival of my third child, my 40th birthday and my inner exhaustion, I found a new way to both honour my value for quality work and recognize the shadow and consequences of taking it too far. I now see the value of excellence on a continuum - on on end, my value of excellence energizes me and those around me, on the other extreme it debilitates me, limits my creativity and creates distance between me and others. My work these days is to continue to ask myself, where am I on this continuum? Am I energized or drained? Am I creating closer or distant connections? Is this good enough?

Here are a few tips for my fellow perfectionists:

Don't get too attached to the perfectionist identity, or any identity for that matter. Labels are dangerous. Whenever we attach ourselves to a way of being, we give up some of the power to transform. The reality is, I'm not a "perfectionist". I worked late to review and tweak my work. I'm not minimizing my experience. I'm choosing to share only the observable behaviours that are fact, not story. The working late was the fact sometimes, but not always! There were plenty of exceptions - as there typically are. By keeping myself attached to the persona of a "perfectionist" though, I placed my attention on the times when I lived up to this label and ignored the times I didn't. This had me see this issue of "being a perfectionist" as bigger than it was and convince myself that this was who I was - keeping me stuck.

Question: What labels do you use to describe yourself? How attached are you to the labels you've created?

Learn to distinguish between the gifts and shadows of your strength. One of my strengths and personal values is my appreciation for delivering quality work. This is part of the gift that I bring to my leadership, work and life. When I commit to a project, I'm all in and I like it to be good work. The shadow of this strength however is that I sometimes work too hard, loose grasp of the bigger picture and push myself further than is good for me. This is not an issue unless I fail to distinguish between when I'm expressing my strength as a gift and when I've dipped into the shadow. Once I learned to recognize whether I was living in my gift or living in my shadow at any given moment, it became a valuable alert system that transformed how I focused my energy. Once I was able to see this, I started making smarter choices.

Question: What's the shadow of your strength? How can you begin to bring awareness to this shadow in your day-to-day life.

Ask yourself, what's the bigger picture? If your focus and effort on a particular project is energizing and has you light up with excitement, go on with your bad self - you're likely in the gift of your strength. If, however, you find yourself stressed, overwhelmed and exhausted - this is a good sign that you're in the shadow of your strength, which is a good cue to take a step back and reflect on the big picture of your life.

Question: What's the big picture of the life I want to live now? How is what I'm doing in this moment bringing me closer to that vision? Ten years from now, will I wish that I had continued working on this or done something else more aligned with the life I actually wanted to live?

Sometimes average is good enough. The most important skill I developed since my days of working late is asking myself, "is this really how I want to be using my energy?" I used to believe that I always had to deliver my personal best. My best was a universal term that applied to absolutely everything. Today, my best is much more contextual. My best may be different depending on the day, time, project, person, interest, energy levels, appetite, etc. I've learned to be more discerning with my personal best, so that I can direct my energy and effort toward the things that I love and offer me the best experience and return. Your personal best doesn't have to be universal - you get to choose how you invest your very limited and valuable energy and creativity. Remember to choose wisely.

Question: What is good enough for this particular project, during this specific time, based on everything that is going on?

Warmly,

Lisa

Lisa is an Executive Coach, Founder & CEO of LDR Leadership Labs. For more from Lisa, join the LDR Leadership Community on LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/company/ldrleadershiplabs and sign up for the LDR Insiders Newsletter here.