Perfectionism Can Help You Find Work You're Excited About. Here's How.
Since I was 4 years old, I’ve been told perfectionism is a bad thing. But is it? I can point to so many of my successes and wins that were driven by my desire to be perfect. So I dug into the research.
In this post and video, I share some insights from my research on perfectionism - what it is and what it isn’t - and how high-performers can leverage their perfectionist tendencies in their career change, job searches, and development of their strengths.
Perfectionism can start at a really young age.
Pretty much my whole life I’ve been told…
“Stop being such a perfectionist.”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, Erin.”
“Why are you doing that? This is good enough.”
I could go on, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean. And while many times friends, family, and coworkers have had my best interest at heart, I’ve always been a little annoyed by this advice.
“Like, no kidding, y’all. If I could stop being a perfectionist I would! You think this is fun?”
Now, from the time I first started hearing this feedback, I’ve definitely grown and matured in…
my self-awareness of my strengths (hey, Maximizer),
improving and managing my mental health (my old friends anxiety and depression), and
identifying the areas most meaningful to me where excellence is my standard.
Perfectionism isn’t all bad.
But even with that growth, I’ve still been nagged by a belief that perfectionism isn’t all bad. That we can’t make a one fell swoop and say across the board perfectionism is the worst. And it turns out, just maybe, that gut feeling was right.
There are different types of perfectionism.
Yeah, blew my mind, too. As a chronic over-achiever, high-performer, and recovering perfectionist, I had always been told that perfectionism is bad. And I bought into it, too. Bad. Bad. Bad. If I ever wanted to reach my potential and be successful, I’d have to get rid of it. Wipe it out of my personality completely.
Guess what? It’s not that easy. And honestly, I could point to a ton of instances in my life where my perfectionism and inflexibility to accept mediocrity (I’ll call it high standards for now) actually helped me to accomplish my goals and persevere when I wanted to give it up. Yeah, you’ve noticed that, too?
But here’s the thing. A few years back, the Harvard Business Review in an article titled “The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research" consolidated nearly four decades worth of research on the concept of perfectionism.
And what they found was that there are two distinct types of perfectionism.
1. Failure-Avoiding Perfectionism
Detrimental effects really stem from a certain type of perfectionism called failure-avoiding perfectionism.
This is a notion that everything is either a complete success or an all out failure.
Failure-avoiding perfectionists are constantly worried that their work is not quite right. Or good enough. And they even believe that they'll lose respect from others if they don't achieve “perfection.”
At work, failure-avoiding perfectionism can lead to higher levels of stress, burnout, and anxiety. In a career change, or job search, it can create a vicious cycle of inaction as you try to find that “perfect job”.
And wanting to know with 100% certainty before making a change that this mythical perfect job will indeed be perfect.
Hello, Fear of Failure.
There is no “perfect job”. It doesn't exist.
The biggest reframe is that your life can’t be perfectly planned, that there isn’t just one solution to your life, and that that’s a good thing. - Dave Burnett, Designing Your Life
If you’re not able to realize early on that the failure-avoiding type of perfectionism is at the wheel, it can end up leading to less than ideal results, frustration, and confusion as to why you can’t get it going.
It ends up translating to weeks, months, if not years of staying stuck in the wrong job. And it's actually that inaction, that in ability to take the next best step (not the perfect step), that causes your confidence* to completely plummet.
How failure-avoiding perfectionism has kept a good friend of mine stuck in the wrong job for 5 years [here’s that story].
*Confidence doesn’t come from thinking about and designing the perfect plan or endgame for your career. Here’s exactly where confidence comes from.
2. Excellence-Seeking Perfectionism
The second type of perfectionism is a bit more positive. It’s called excellence-seeking perfectionism.
“Excellence-seeking perfectionists not only stringently evaluate their own performance but also hold high performance expectations for other people in their lives.” - The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research
I see a lot of this type of perfectionism in the high-performers I work with in helping them get out of the wrong job and into a career they’re excited about.
That's why I'm really adamant that perfectionism isn't all bad.
Excellence-seeking perfectionism can really be that that positive driver of increased motivation and engagement at work.
If it is harnessed and combined with a strong self-awareness of:
who you are
your unique value-add
what you're looking for in work
what exactly makes work meaningful and engaging for you
That combination can be incredibly powerful as a source of energy, focus commitment in making a career change (which isn’t an easy process).
What happens if we harness our perfectionism?
You might have one or both types of this perfectionism going on.
But the real opportunity here is to strengthen the excellence-seeking perfectionism. And then combine it with a few things:
a clear vision and purpose of where you want to be in your career,
a deep awareness of your strengths,
being able to share your unique value-add with others
This will allow you to position yourself to be recognized, hired, and paid for what you do best. And you’ll be in alignment with your top career priorities, values, and non negotiables. All without having to attempt the impossible task of beating the perfectionist out of you. Because that’s never going to happen.
You don’t have to change your personality to be happy in your career.
And that's exactly what I help high-performers to do. Leverage your natural personality and drive for excellence in the pursuit of what you actually want to be doing for work.
So if you're wondering what that might look like for you, I'd love to hear more about how things are going for you…where maybe you're getting stuck and and if coaching together could accelerate your journey to work you actually wake up excited to do.