Episode 30: Signs You’re Perfectionism Is Turned Up
Do you suffer from perfectionism? It's something that is really common with us high-achieving business owners and corporate leaders. It can be so frustrating because we know perfection isn't possible but it can still hold us back if we don't recognize it.
In today's episode, I'm sharing the 7 sneaky ways perfection can show up and we do not realize it.
Full Transcript:
Welcome back to the Upgraded Career podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are talking about the signs that your perfectionism is rearing its ugly head now perfectionism. Is something that many of us ambitious, high achievers suffer from. And the funny thing is, is that we all know that perfectionism is not achievable.
[00:01:25] We know that that's not reality. We know that that's not something that is. Is again, achievable on this, in this world, right, in this life. But we strive for it, not because of our commitment to excellence, but my good friend Brene Brown talks about how it's because we want to avoid feelings of shame or failure.
[00:01:48] Right? And I know that, I definitely, definitely relate to that. Um, cuz again, we're smart. Intelligent people. We know that perfectionism intellectually is not achievable, but again, it still rears its ugly head anyway. I know when I'm struggling with perfectionism, it's gonna hold me back from what it is that I want to accomplish.
[00:02:10] It's draining my energy. It makes me feel like total shit and I'm showing, and I'm not able to show up in the way that I want to when I'm deep down in these perfectionists. Tendencies again. But perfectionism isn't just wanting things to be perfect because we know that's not possible. So if we've already reconciled that, that perfectionism isn't real, isn't possible, Why does it still keep happening?
[00:02:38] Well, again, there are several ways that perfectionists still, perfectionism still keeps showing up for us, and so here are those seven sneaky ways that perfectionism can still keep cropping up in our lives. One, a great signal that we are in perfectionism is that we are procrastinating on something, right?
[00:03:00] Remember, we just had an episode back a few weeks ago on resistance, on just this idea of resisting something. Is time for us to get just quiet with ourselves and just really ask the question? What's really going on here? What is it that I'm actually resisting? So sometimes our perfectionism can show up as procrastination because if we, again, don't think that something's going to be perfect, or that we're trying to just avoid looking bad to others or failing in front of others.
[00:03:32] Then we're just gonna delay on doing the thing, right? We're gonna, we're probably gonna procrastinate because we're like, Ugh, you know, I don't think I'm gonna be really good at this. You know? I don't like being a beginner, which again, I can totally relate to. I hate being a beginner. I love learning new things, but I wanna learn them, and then I wanna be perfect at it immediately, or I wanna be really great at it immediately, and we can end up procrastinating with.
[00:03:56] Certain tasks or again, with certain conversations that we need to have because we're just, we're fearful about failing or fearful about what's gonna happen on the other side of that thing, cuz we don't know that we're gonna be really good at it. The second sneaky way perfectionism shows up for us is that we can be really unnecessarily hard on ourselves.
[00:04:18] And again, I'm super guilty of this one. I am for sure my own worst critic, and then by extension, I'm my own worst enemy. I end up beating myself up if something isn't to the standard that I believe that I am capable of. But, It's not always about what we're capable of. Sometimes it's what we have time for or what resources we have, and sometimes our top standards are just not necessary in that situation.
[00:04:48] Sometimes things are fine at. 80% or at a hundred instead of 110%. And whatever we would add to get that additional 30%, I bet most people wouldn't even notice or care about it. And this is actually one of the reasons why my husband and I got married on a beach by ourselves at an all, all-inclusive resort because he knew I would go completely crazy with the details.
[00:05:16] Of a wedding because I have, again, super high standards. I have really great ideas about what a beautiful wedding would look like. And he, again, he know, he knew even 15 years ago that I would go completely bananas on those things because, because then,
[00:05:39] And this is actually one of the reasons why my husband and I actually got married on a beach at an all-inclusive resort because he knew 15 years ago that I would just go super crazy with the details of a wedding that no one else would notice or care about. And then neither of us would enjoy the day.
[00:05:56] So again, I know what. I have in my head is what a beautiful wedding would be, what those details would look like, just those extra special little things. And if the color of the napkins would be a little bit off. He knows that would completely, that would've completely derailed me. So again, I can be really, really hard on myself because I know that I'm capable of really, really great work of performing at a really high level.
[00:06:26] But again, it's not always necessary to perform at that high level, and frankly, not everybody would notice that extra that you would add on top of it. So the third. Um, sneaky way that we can still be in perfectionism is that we're actually suffering from imposter syndrome or self-doubt. And this is where two major issues that women tend to face can come together and just really amplify each other, right?
[00:06:57] So when we're down deep in perfectionism, we can feel like we can't do anything right? That. The things that we have done right were flukes that it was just luck and that they won't happen again. And the people who put us in the positions that we're in, or the clients who hired us are gonna find out that we're frauds, right?
[00:07:16] This is us. Just again, trying to, um, be those perfectionists, do all of these really great things in order to avoid that feeling of failure or that feeling of shame. If we, for whatever reason, don't deliver on that standard that we believe we are capable of delivering on. Which leads me to the next thing, which is we need to feel in control.
[00:07:43] If you have ever said, oh, I'm such a control freak, oh, um, you know, the only way to get things done right is to do it yourself, then my friend, you are. Definitely a perfectionist and are probably really deep down into your perfectionist tendencies for that particular thing. So if you feel like you can't go, let go of certain tasks or delegate effectively because we believe that we're the only person that can do what we do and we can't trust anyone else to do it as well as we can, this is definitely gonna hold us back in big ways because in business I.
[00:08:17] We have to lean on others. When we become people leaders, we are no longer responsible for the thing itself. We are responsible for making sure other people do the thing, right? No one has gotten to where they are in business or in their careers by doing it a hundred percent on their own. It's not possible for people to do these things a hundred percent on their own.
[00:08:38] So when it comes to delegation, a lot of times what I say to leaders is, Think about what is a personal preference and what is actually a requirement for that task. Because not everything, not every way we would do a particular task is necessary, right? How you might do something, how you might do a particular task might be different than someone else, and you probably can still get to the same outcome.
[00:09:05] Even by tackling it in a different way, and that is okay. Now, of course, there's definitely times where things need to be followed very step by step, but again, My question to you is what is a personal preference and what is actually a requirement for that task? Because we will end up burning ourselves out if we continue to hold onto a lot of these things.
[00:09:27] And it's even worse when we do delegate, but then we micro bandage behind it, which is double the effort. So we need to set clear expectations. Bake in some checkpoints for feedback, and we go from there, right? We cannot hold on to every single task or every single thing in our, in our career and in our businesses.
[00:09:49] And if you've ever said that, oh, I'm just bad at delegating, or again, I'm just a control freak. No you're not. You're just imperf perfectionism and we just need to get you, get you out of that perfectionism, and then we can be even more effective. The fifth way that perfectionism can be really sneaky sneaking up behind us is that we have this all or nothing thinking.
[00:10:14] So life is most often just shades of gray. There isn't a whole lot that is clearly one way or the other, especially when we are talking about business or when we're talking about leading people, right? Because. People are not just one thing or the other. Things in life typically are not just one thing or another.
[00:10:36] I think Game of Thrones taught us this, that people can be, you know, people can be, um, villains and people can be heroes all at the same time. There is space for both things, right? And I know I'm particularly guilty of this when. I think about exercise or healthy eating or self-care. Um, this is actually why I have a really, really, um, terrible relationship with self-care because I feel like if I'm not doing it just right, then it's, it's all for nothing, right?
[00:11:05] So if I don't go to the gym every single day like I had planned on, then I'm a total failure and. I can forget that, you know, walking in our neighborhood counts as exercise and as movement and that two days a week is still beneficial even if I had planned on going maybe three or four times. So again, if you feel like you're an all or nothing thinking, that's likely an indicator that you're just really deep in your per in your perfectionism right then.
[00:11:34] Which leads me to number six, which is that we are only focused on the outcome. This happens for us goal setters who love achieving our goals, but at the expense of the journey along the way. If the journey sucks, then whatever you achieved is probably not gonna be sustainable long term. And there's probably some residual damages that you're probably gonna have to clean up, right?
[00:11:58] So if you hit your sales goal, But you damage your relationships with your colleagues and your family on the way to that goal. Was it actually worth it? Right? I, it probably isn't. If you ran the marathon, but you injured yourself while you were training for it, and you absolutely hated getting up early in training for this marathon.
[00:12:19] Are you gonna do it again? Probably not. Was it worth all of those mornings running in bad weather or injuring yourself? Was it, was it really worth it just to check a box? Just to say, yeah, I ran the MA marathon. I can tell you for me, I'm not a runner. So I definitely don't think that that would be, that.
[00:12:36] That would be worth it. And then finally, Is your self-worth tied up in your achievements? If you think that you are a giant failure because you hit 99% of your goal in instead of a hundred percent, then you are probably in your perfectionist tendencies right now. We see this a lot with athletes when.
[00:12:58] You know, that regular feedback of what their stats are, or again, if did they win the game or not? Did they win the championship or not? And then they retire, then they really struggle because their self worth and their identity was just tied up in their achievement of being the top professional athlete or being the Olympian, right?
[00:13:19] Or even being just the top college, um, college, college performer, right? So achieving our goals. Achieving our dreams. Those are great pursuits. Those are important things to do. But when we are believing that the only, that it's good or that it's valuable, if we achieve the thing, or that we are the best, you know, or we're better than everybody else, that's when we are deep into our perfectionist tendencies.
[00:13:52] Achieving our goals are important, but. We are more important than the goals that we achieve. We are more than our job titles. We are more than our income. We are more than our, our revenue. You just being a human being makes you. Valuable. So if you find that you are finding yourself in one or probably multiple of these situations, recognize that there's just, there's nothing wrong with you if you are feeling again, that you are procrastinating, if you are being unnecessarily hard on yourself, if you're suffering from imposter syndrome.
[00:14:33] If you're feeling like you need to be, be in control of things that you probably don't need to be in control of. You're feeling like, again, you can't delegate or you're a control freak around something. If you are having this all or nothing thinking about something, or you're only focused on the outcome, or your self worth is tied up in your achievement, then it's just.
[00:14:55] Time for you to recognize that. Again, nothing is wrong with you. You're just in your perfectionist tendon tendencies and they're just, again, rearing their, your, they're just rearing their ugly head again. And personally, I don't actually think that perfectionism is something that you can ever get over. I don't think that kind of like, um, uh, imposter syndrome.
[00:15:17] I don't think this is something that you ever. Cure yourself of, if you will. I don't think, again, there's nothing wrong with you, therefore there's nothing for you to cure. It's just that this is just part of, of you and just part of your personality and part of probably just how you're wired, and that's okay.
[00:15:35] I don't think it's something that you need to worry about getting over. It's just a signal that, hey, I need to dig a little bit deeper here and what is going on in this situation. So again, for me, I. I can be super duper hard on myself. And I remember, you know, back in 2020 when I first went full-time in my business, I remember being in one of my mastermind programs and somebody actually called me out on this.
[00:16:02] I had, we were brainstorming, you know, I don't know, a strategy or a tactic or something. And um, and I said something to the effect of like, it was a really great idea what this woman had shared with me, this idea, it was a really, really great idea. And I said, oh my gosh, like, why didn't I think of that? And again, she called me out on this.
[00:16:21] She was like, Nicole, I'm gonna stop you right here you are just. Way too hard on yourself. She's like, this is going to continue to hold you back if you are constantly berating yourself and you're constantly putting yourself down just because you didn't think of something. That's why we are here. That is the point of a mastermind, is to pull all of these great minds together and brainstorm together.
[00:16:43] That's the whole purpose, and the reality is it's just that my perfectionism was coming out so strongly. Because I wanted to appear smart to these women. I admired these women, I respected them. They were all way older than me and way more experienced than me. So I was feeling, again, a little bit of imposter syndrome in that room with them because they were all already so successful in their businesses and in their careers that I felt kind of like a fraud being in the same room with them and.
[00:17:15] Again, I just so desperately wanted them to see that I was smart and that I was supposed to do this big, this business thing, and on top of it that I needed to prove to myself that I could do this business thing and that I could be a really amazing coach for my clients Plus. There was a lot at stake, right?
[00:17:36] This isn't just my fun retirement gig. Like a lot of the women that were, that were in that group with me, they were ama, they were amazing, amazing women that I'm still connected to today, but for a lot of them, this was their second career or this was their fun retirement thing that they were doing.
[00:17:53] After having a really, really long, successful career, for me, this is my livelihood. This is how I'm paying my bills. So early on, I felt a real immense amount of pressure to get it right and to get it right fast. But once I started. Kind of recognizing that, hey, this is my perfectionism that is, again, rearing its ugly head that's cropping up because again, the stakes are high and that I care about this thing doing going well.
[00:18:21] I care a lot about this thing that. I was able to be a little bit more gentle with myself and again, just continue to like recognize when that was coming up to be like, Ooh, this is just my perfectionism. Let me just maybe dial down the intensity just a little bit. Right? And just give myself a little bit more grace and just.
[00:18:41] Recognizing that all of this is part of the journey and me being hard, hard on myself, and me being the perfectionist is going to keep me from actually achieving the things that I want to achieve. So again, there's nothing wrong with it because I just wanted to do well. It's just that recognizing that, okay, but if I continue down this path, it's really gonna keep holding me back.
[00:19:04] So as you are going through, Know anything in your career you're trying to upgrade yourself, you're probably going to experience these tendencies of perfectionism and when they come up just. Get quiet and ask yourself, what is it about this situation that I'm feeling like I need to be in control of fully?
[00:19:23] Or what is it going on? What's going on in this situation that I'm procrastinating or that I'm being too hard on myself? Or what about this situation is triggering for me in this way? And again, how can I lower the intensity a little bit? So my perfectionist friends, I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did that, I know you are definitely going to enjoy my weekly newsletter full of more strategies and inspiration to upgrade your own career and your business without the burnout and without the perfectionism.
[00:19:55] So head on over to nicole k speaks.com/newsletter to get signed up for that. But in the meantime, remember your career deserves an upgrade.
