Notes From a Recovering Perfectionist

Full disclosure: I’m a recovering perfectionist. 

I’ve struggled with perfectionism my whole life. It runs in my family. It was bred into me by my 9-year-gymnastics career. I’m also Type A, so perfectionism comes with this personality territory. And, I’m German. You get the idea. 

This perfectionism is actually what attracted me to office management. Tasks, organization, to-do lists, efficiency, multi-tasking, procedures, budgets, policies! All of these seemed to invitingly scream, “Your impossibly high standards and pursuit of flawlessness are most welcome here!” This proposal was a perfectionist’s ultimate fantasy. Needless to say, I gladly accepted.

In saying yes to office management, I never once thought my perfectionism would be a hindrance, a burden, or a weakness. I believed the exact opposite. I thought being a perfectionist was going to make me awesome at my job. I would be the most efficient, most timely, most accurate, most hardworking, most diligent, most____ (fill in the blank). The notion that perfectionism might be a not-so-great fit for the workplace wasn’t on my professional radar. Instead, I wore my perfectionism like a badge of honor. In fact, I was bewildered by non-perfectionists. In my mind, I asked, “Who wouldn’t want to be perfect?” And, “What boss wouldn’t want a perfect employee?”

Little did I know, but what I eventually discovered, was that people don’t want to be perfect and bosses don’t care about flawlessness. 

Around the same time I realized the above, I also discovered that I didn’t want to be a perfectionist. Simply because, perfectionism didn’t work. 

Here’s what I mean. Perfectionism had the exact opposite effect on my work life and product. It made me less capable and less productive. My extremely high standards and fixation on results prohibited me from taking small steps; they prevented me from enjoying the process, or even knowing that process was a thing. My fear of failure and fear of making mistakes were massive roadblocks, obstructing me from trying new things, thinking outside of the box, and risking. All of which are needed in the daily operations of a business. 

Ultimately, perfectionism killed my creativity and passion. It killed the joy of the job. Hence the reason I’m in recovery. 

For me, part of this recovery involves pursuing excellence rather than perfection. It’s taken me awhile to tease out the difference between the two (actually, I’m still teasing it out); however, I now know the difference between being a perfectionist with stringent, impossibly high standards, and being a driven, ambitious high achiever who desires to excel at her job. Excellence encourages trial and error. It sees mistakes as an opportunity to learn, rather than a mark of failure. It embraces process rather than end results. 

And, if I’ve learned anything from my job, it’s that in the world of office management, process is crucial. The day-in, day-out flow of the company changes. Needs and priorities are ever evolving. What worked one day, one month, one year, may not work the next day, month or year. This constant momentum presents challenges; it forces growth; it demands trying new things, and failing, before finding a system, that works. Perfectionism would only halt this momentum, yelling defiantly, “I’m unwilling to embrace challenges, growth, and newness!” However, excellence embraces all of these. 

Thank goodness I’m now aiming for excellence.