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The Lawyer Life Podcast
How to Ditch Perfectionist Tendencies
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This episode delves into the complexities of perfectionism, exploring its allure and detrimental effects on personal and professional growth. The discussion highlights how self-confidence is built through action and learning from failures, ultimately encouraging listeners to prioritize progress over perfection. This episode includes several tips for moving out of perfectionism to create greater progress and momentum.
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Autumn G Noble (00:00)
You are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast, episode number 40, How to Ditch Perfectionist Tendencies.
Welcome to today's episode where we will tackle a struggle that many people face, perfectionism. Specifically, we will explore why perfectionism is so damn appealing, the negative side effects of perfectionism, and then I will provide several tools to help you stop perfectionism in its path.
this month in The Collective we are exploring two of the most common challenges to productivity and how to overcome them. Today's podcast tackles perfectionism and our newsletter will explore procrastination. If you aren't subscribed to the newsletter, be sure to do that as soon as possible to catch this latest edition that releases this Friday. Head over to thelawyerelifecollective.com to sign up.
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So let's unpack this perfectionism thing. At first glance, it seems incredibly noble. After all, striving to do your best is certainly an admirable trait. But more often than not, perfectionism simply works to keep us stuck. Instead of pushing us forward, it paralyzes us with fear, holding us back from growth, progress, and true confidence.
Many of the attorneys that I work with are happy to describe themselves as perfectionist and state it very simply. I prefer not to do something if it can't be done right or if I can't do it well. And while I can certainly relate to that, remembering back to my college days when I had one particular interview that asked me what my biggest weakness was, and I happily related to them that my biggest weakness is that I am a perfectionist. In that moment, it felt like
this perfect blend of humility and high standards. But over time, I started to realize that there really is a darker side to this trait of perfectionism. And as I started practicing law, I noticed that it was having a negative impact on my ability to show up and get the work done.
Because here is the nasty truth. Perfectionism isn't really about
holding yourself to high standards. It's about self-protection and largely fear. When we delay action in pursuit of doing things perfectly, what we're really doing is avoiding failure. We are avoiding the possibility for embarrassment, criticism, or being told that we're simply not good enough. But that fear often comes with a cost, and that is stagnation.
and lack of progress towards our larger goals. What I often see is that perfectionism leads to inaction. We tell ourselves, I'm not ready or it's not perfect, so I'm gonna keep churning on this. But waiting robs us of progress and the chance to build confidence. And I'm gonna explain to you how those two things work in tandem today.
True confidence isn't about always getting it right. It's about learning to trust ourselves through trial and error. When we take action, even if it's imperfect action, we expose ourselves to failure, yes, but also growth. At the same time, we gain valuable information to do it better the next time and keep making progress.
Taking small imperfect steps towards our goals opens the door to the kind of resilience that makes lasting success possible. I have found this especially true in entrepreneurship.
starting something new inherently comes with risks and fear is simply part of the package. But I have so many individuals that I work with that are starting up a new endeavor or starting a new business or a side gig. And they come to me wanting instructions on how to do it right the first time and how to avoid any missteps. But the fact of the matter is that desire for perfectionism is simply intended to avoid
any feelings that come with failure and making mistakes. If we wait around until we know the exact right path forward to avoid any problems, We are never going to make any progress forward.
Letting go of perfectionism, it doesn't mean that we're lowering our standards or handing in subpar work. It means balancing your desire for excellence with the courage to take action despite the risk of failure. But it also embraces this idea that perfectionism is an amorphous standard that's always changing and is incredibly subjective.
One of the most transformative ideas that I share with my clients is this notion of B minus work or 80 % standards. It's not about settling for but it's really more about breaking free from the cycle of over-preparing and over-thinking.
In that space, we are called to accept that imperfect efforts often lead to valuable outcomes. And in that place, we can unlock a whole new world of possibility and forward momentum.
This often makes me think of my time when I was working in-house and I had previously been working as a shareholder in a law firm and it started kind of testing this theory of B minus work. Now there I was working in-house and finding that I was having to work with outside counsel on certain projects and there are a variety of instances that I can think about where I had asked a simple question to outside counsel and suddenly
a week passes in radio silence and I finally get a response and it's something like a dissertation addressing my question, kind of. And it was in those moments that I really thought to myself, like, if they had just given me a B minus answer, I would have been much happier with the relationship. not only do I not want to pay for this dissertation, but that's not what I really wanted or needed.
showed me that the person I was working with was fearful of giving me a common sense answer and being judged for that as opposed to providing this perfect dissertation on the subject.
The net result of all of that was that that type of perfect response actually created a divide between me and outside counsel where I was a lot less willing to ask them questions at all because I knew that I would be getting some type of a perfect response when really I just needed enough information to help me move forward with my day and make some type of a judgment call.
So here's my message to all of you that are in private practice. If you are going to provide A plus work to your clients, you better make sure that is what the client actually wants and ensure that you have a meeting of the minds with the client on what the final product will look like. This rarely happens. So your efforts to create a perfect work product often misses the mark.
And further, just because you conclude that something is perfect, it doesn't mean that no one is going to criticize it. Spinning on things until they are perfect doesn't necessarily save you from criticism because whether something is perfect is completely subjective and you could spend all of this time making it perfect in your worldview and give it to someone and it's still imperfect. All of that perfectionism just gets us nothing and a whole lot of wasted time
and miscommunications.
If you committed to doing everything 80 % or B- work and moving on, how different would your life be? How much more could you accomplish? The concept pushes us out of this endless preparation and overworking pattern into real action where real growth happens. Yes, we risk embarrassment, shame or guilt, but these emotions are simply fleeting sensations
that we can adjust by pivoting and reworking our own inner self-talk.
And just to be clear, in case I'm missing the mark, I am not suggesting that we provide our clients with subpar work. Rather, what I am suggesting is that if your perfectionist tendencies are causing you to overwork a project or provide a perfect response to what seemed like a very simple request, you better make sure that that's what your client actually wants. Because I'm telling you, after working in-house for years, I rarely needed that level of perfect.
detail. Instead, what I needed was a real conversation with my counsel, a B minus answer, a gut check to help me move forward. And instead, if you're going to provide perfect work, you better make sure that you and your client have a meeting of the minds as to what that looks like and what that entails so that there are no surprises and the relationship can only improve from that interaction.
As I mentioned, this approach is certainly going to expose us to the possibility for failure or embarrassment, shame or guilt. But what happens when you commit to progress over perfectionism is that yes, you will inevitably fail sometimes, but you're also going to learn how to survive those uncomfortable moments. And that is how we become more confident.
true self-confidence doesn't come from avoiding failure,
but rather from proving to yourself that you can handle anything that comes your way.
When we instead play it safe and try and play it perfectly, we rob ourselves of two things. First, that chance to fail and grow, that opportunity to fail and grow. But second, the possibility that your first imperfect attempt might actually work and be just what the client was looking for.
In fact, while our brain wants to tell us that everybody's going to be mad about our B- work, people may not be mad about your B- work and you're not going to know until you try. You're not going to know until you stop trying to manufacture A- work. You can always go back and make something better, but you won't know what better is or what better is needed until you start playing around with the standards that you're holding yourself to.
Self-confidence is not something that we are born with. It's not something innate and you either have it or you don't. It's something that we create for ourselves. And how do we do that? By taking action, failing and developing the ability to move forward despite the failure or the uncomfortable feelings that may come with providing B- work. When we know that we can survive all of those negative emotions,
that accompany not providing perfect work time and time again, we learn to trust ourselves. We realize that we can survive any kind of discomfort that comes our way, including all of those negative emotions.
In that experience, we develop confidence in ourselves because we know we can do and survive anything that comes our way and we commit to having our own back and the decisions that we have made about when a project is ready or when we're ready to move forward. Even when either of those are not done perfectly.
Before we get into some tips for overcoming perfectionism, I wanna provide a brief word of caution. And that is, even as we work to overcome our perfectionism and our perfectionist tendencies, that patterning in our brain is often gonna sneak back in, and that's okay.
When we slip into old habits or negative self-talk again, it's easy to feel like we're failing and we're just never gonna be able to stop those patterns. But what if we started looking at those setbacks as simply part of the process and opportunities to learn how to practice more self-compassion and how to recommit to progress? Transitioning away from perfectionism and replacing some of our negative thoughts
patterns with more positive, high-vibration thoughts will include some slippage and likely will never completely eradicate old patterns. However, that back-and-forth dance is an opportunity to embrace our own imperfections and challenge the concept of being perfect overall.
It's an opportunity to recognize that change is never going to come easily and that it will require not only commitment, but compassion for yourself and your imperfections.
Growth is rarely linear and it will require patience, compassion, and a willingness to fail forward.
With all of that in mind, let's unpack some quick practical steps to overcome perfectionism. One, challenge all or nothing thinking. Progress is more valuable than perfection. So we must aim for good enough or B minus work when perfect isn't necessary. We have to stop thinking that in order for progress to happen, it must happen.
Instead, more progress is actually going to happen if we embrace good enough and just keep moving forward.
Two, set time limits. Give yourself a set amount of time to work on particular tasks and stick to it, especially when you have a really large project looming or something that you're wanting to take action on that just feels really heavy. The best thing you can do is to break that task down into small actionable steps and set time to work on each part of it and stick to it. It's gonna force you
to not get lost in rumination and perfectionism, and it will force you to keep moving forward every time that clock runs out.
Three, reframe failure. Each time you make a mistake, view it as an opportunity to learn and not a sign of your inadequacy. As we embrace action and forward momentum as opposed to perfectionism, there are gonna be some missteps. But in order for us to continue to embrace this theory and keep moving forward, we have to stop looking at all of those failures and missteps as a reason to change course.
or a reason to go back to our perfectionist tendencies. Rather, we have to remind ourselves that progress is more important than perfection, and therefore each failure is okay and not a sign that we should stop or that we're doing anything wrong. It's just an opportunity to learn about how to move forward better the next time.
Four, practice self-compassion. It goes without saying that we must replace harsh criticisms with kind, constructive self-talk. And this can be particularly important as we're shifting away from perfectionism because your brain is going to want to tell you all of the ways that you're going to be judged if your action forward doesn't yield positive results. People are going to judge you. People are going to be mad at you. People are going to think that you're silly for moving forward when your plan's only half-baked.
the client's going to be mad or the partner's going to be mad that your project was not more fully constructed or absolutely perfect. Your brain is going to tell you all of those things. And what we must instead do is focus on the facts of the situation and practice that self-compassion and know that we are committing to having our own back. This means trusting the decision that you made previously. If you decided the project was done and good enough,
Now we're not going to second guess that and beat ourselves up over it. This practice of compassion is really having your own back and believing that you made the right choice in the moment and not letting yourself get sucked into that second guessing and doubt.
It also means not letting yourself second guess this idea that we would rather move forward in some shape or form than moving forward perfectly. And we're not going to let ourselves create a bunch of fearful things that are going to happen if we stick to that plan.
because ultimately we're committing to trusting our previous judgment, having our own backs in doing so compassionately, regardless of the outcome. Five, take small risks regularly. Start with low stakes challenges and build your tolerance for imperfection. This really is why I am so adamant that my clients have some type of a goal that they're working towards.
because having a goal is gonna force you to try new things and take new risks and invest in that forward momentum over perfectionism. The more you do that, the more you take those low stakes challenges, the better equipped you will be to handle imperfection and to handle those small failures.
And your threshold and tolerance for that type of imperfection and those types of struggles and discomforts is only going to grow stronger. And that will allow you to do bigger and bigger and more challenging things.
Six, focus on growth, not approval. Shift your attention away from external validation to personal progress. A lot of the time when we are stuck in that perfectionist spiral, it's because we're worried about what other people are going to think if our work product or our efforts are not perfect. We can't control what other people think about our efforts, about our work, about anything about us. And so we have to let that go and instead bring it back to
our investment in ourselves, trusting our own judgment, and knowing that we are committed to making forward progress. And that is enough for us to approve of who we are and what we are doing. And that is all that matters because we can't change what other people think anyway. So it's not worth even investing any energy in those kinds of worries.
7. Don't confuse rumination with progress. Many perfectionists have a proclivity to ruminate where we repeatedly mull over thoughts or problems and we never really come to a solution.
Not only is this incredibly unhealthy, but it's incredibly unproductive. We must not confuse rumination with problem solving. In coaching, I always talk to my clients about passive action versus massive action. And rumination and really stewing over a project or an issue or an idea is passive action. It feels like we're doing something. It feels like we're tackling the goal, but we're not going anywhere.
and nothing is actually happening. And more importantly, we're not risking failure. That's when you know you're making forward progress, when there's a risk of failure, where there's a risk of judgment. Rumination doesn't cause either one of those to happen. It's really just avoidance in a prettier outfit. So we have to take a step back and approach the issue with more of a problem-solving mindset.
and engage some of these other tools, which may include, okay, I'm gonna spend an hour brainstorming how to best move forward with this project, and that's it. I'm gonna set that time limit, and then I'm gonna execute and force ourselves to move out of that passive action to action that actually risks failure, learning, and growth.
Eight, give your brain a break. Distractions can be incredibly useful when we're trying to dismantle perfectionist tendencies. If we can give ourselves something that is cognitively absorbing, but also kind of tedious and doesn't really cause any anxiety, that can allow us to slip back into our prefrontal cortex brain and make more rational decisions. This may be filling out your billing sheet for the week or for the day.
or submitting an expense report. Oftentimes, spending just 10 minutes on something mundane like that can break the chain that keeps you from spinning your wheels in rumination and anxiety.
Nine, create project checklists. The pursuit of perfectionism is kind of like wandering around in an aimless journey where you just keep walking and wandering and you're not really sure if you're getting any closer to the destination because perfectionism is subjective and amorphous and like we just never really know when we get there so we just keep going. So what we need to do instead is we develop a checklist related to these big projects so that you know when I've completed that checklist
This project is done and it's time for me to turn it in. Not only is it gonna force you to constrain your focus to discrete elements of the project, but it's also gonna force you to say, okay, now I know when I have done enough, when the project is at good enough and I can move forward.
10. Zoom out to see the big picture. As any perfectionist will tell you, it's kind of hard and not very much fun to be a perfectionist. It takes a lot of effort and it's incredibly time consuming. Usually as a perfectionist, we don't recognize the lost opportunity, cost and time.
In order to see that big picture, we have to take a step back and ask ourselves, am I using my time wisely? Am I being productive? Am I making my greatest contribution to the client? Is it worth the client's time and my energy to spend three more hours making this perfect? Does that change the impact to the client? Or would it be better from a global perspective to get them this project earlier?
In working through these thoughts, it's best to consider your greatest contribution. Is ruminating on a project and making a bunch of final adjustments and tweaks, is that your greatest contribution to the project? And is that your greatest contribution to the client?
There becomes a point of diminishing returns when it comes to sweating the small stuff and nitpicking details. And when we zoom out, it gets easier for us to decide if we've hit that point and now we're just avoiding.
In closing, really want to emphasize that the work that we do around perfectionism going to reveal a microcosm of your relationship with yourself. It will shed light on all of our self-judgments and self-deprecating tendencies and fears and require us to face them head on in order to make progress.
Our brains can be adapted and renewed. Developments in neuroscience tell us that the brain is capable of establishing new neural pathways, healing and building new brain cells.
To do this, the brain simply requires direction and repetition. It requires a commitment to change and push through the discomfort and the setbacks that will inevitably come when we stop giving in to those perfectionist tendencies. Over time, it will get easier as we build new neural pathways.
All of this is to say that we can rewire our perfectionist habits. The path to success is not paved with flawless wins. It's built on repeated attempts, failures, and the resilience to keep going. The price for your success is repetitious failure. And the process of repetitious failure will ultimately create self-confidence.
So the next time you find yourself waiting for the perfect moment to ask or polishing something until it's perfect, ask yourself, what am I really afraid of? Remember that striving for continuous improvement and not perfection is the key to progress.
If this topic resonates with you and you are struggling with a perfectionist pattern that's keeping you from making your greatest contribution
and is inhibiting your ability to make forward progress. Reach out and schedule a free coaching consultation today at thelawyeralifecollective.com and see how I can support you to dismantle your own perfectionist patterns.
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