How to Overcome Comparisonitis and Perfectionism at Work

Dr. Christine Li:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 240. If you're at work and you happen to be finding yourself comparing yourself to other people and comparing your work to other people's work, or you are kind of knee deep in perfectionism, where you're wondering when the cycle of needing to be perfect is ever going to fit. Finish this episode was crafted for you. I'm going to talk about both topics, comparison and perfectionism. But I'm also going to encourage you to move away from anything that is oriented around fear, because I do believe fear is the whole reason we get ourselves worked up about work in the first place. So let's go to share this episode with each other now. Hi, I'm Dr.

Dr. Christine Li:
Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. So the other day I got an email from a podcast listener who requested some help with the twin concepts of comparison and perfectionism. I should say comparisonitis, maybe that kind of behavior where we are frequently looking towards other people to see how we're doing. And perfectionism is, of course, trying to make sure that everything is wrapped up perfectly so that we can make sure that we're okay.

Dr. Christine Li:
And I was very happy to receive the email because I love engagement, I love the fact that you guys are listening, and I want to thank this listener for sending in this very lovely and relevant request because I love to help people to move away from things like comparison and perfectionism, because I think these are all protective behaviors that we have for ourselves. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to protect yourself. The thing that ends up being problematic is that we end up spending all of our good time and energy and our focus on doing all this protection of ourselves when we could be expanding and enjoying ourselves and just doing a whole lot more with our time and our days. So let's get down to answering this listener's question. This listener happens to work in the fashion industry and does some work that requires a lot of detail and precision. So that is the backdrop of this message. So you could assume that this listener needs to take a lot of care in her work and a lot of pride in her work. And I think that's where we should start that I want to congratulate the listener and any of you who are just observing what is going on with how you get things done, right? Just that basic mindfulness, that questioning, that observing of your own standards and activities, that is always the best starting point.

Dr. Christine Li:
So congratulations on already succeeding. You're already succeeding in saying, I have a role in changing myself in any direction I desire. And that mindfulness, being open to what might need changing what might be problematic sometimes is definitely the first step. So if you are listening and you don't consider yourself very mindful, consider this your invitation to just explore with me as I talk through some ideas I have about comparison and perfectionism today and see, does this apply to me? Is this something that I can shift? Is this something that I've been thinking is just how life is in the past, and maybe now I can open up a brand new doorway into feeling more flexible and free in my life. I invite you to grab a seat and grab like a moment in time just to say, I can take this time to consider what is going on. It's not a waste of time. It's actually a really great use of my time. So, okay, the first thing is the congratulations.

Dr. Christine Li:
My first thought when I saw the email from this listener was that the first thing we can do to heal ourselves from all these coping mechanisms, these protective behaviors like comparison and perfectionism, is to understand that our lives will go according to our beliefs. So I'll repeat that our lives will go according to what we believe. So if we believe that when we compare ourselves to other people, we will get the right information about ourselves and how we should behave and the standards we need to keep, then it would make sense that we would continuously want to compare ourselves to other people. Because after all, we all want to be good people. We all want to be good performers at work. We want to make sure we cut the mustard in quotes and that we're doing okay. But the thing is, that kind of belief that we need to compare ourselves to know how we're doing ends up being like a little trap. It's a trap because when we believe that the right answer is outside of us, then we're always stuck needing to go look at somebody else to see if we're needing to do something, if we're on the right track, if we're good enough, right? And it Is this kind of constant feeling of a chase or an investigation or sometimes like a desperate grab for a feeling that everything is okay.

Dr. Christine Li:
All right. And I think the reason that's a trap is because what's always been interesting to me is when we compare ourselves to other people, we engage in this kind of random behavior because what the person next to us is doing is kind of none of our business because they are so different from us. They are in such a different life space than we are, they have such a different mind and brain and body and operating system that than we do that it kind of is just like this random person we've plucked out of the universe to compare ourselves with. So all of a sudden we're placing our value and our self worth on what this other person is doing. This random person and that person might have the same exact job and job responsibilities as you, but it's still a random person sitting next to you that you've decided, huh, let me just hop over all my attention on this person and what they're doing and then evaluate myself based on what I think that person is doing. So you can see it's like this chain of beliefs. I believe this, so then I believe that. And because I believe that, I'm now going to believe this.

Dr. Christine Li:
And then you end up weaving this whole story about yourself and your talents, your worthiness, your abilities and how you're doing. But somehow this comparison business, this comparison behavior ends up making you feel not so steady, not so, not so secure, not so safe and not so happy about yourself. In my experience, and I've had 25 years of experience working with people in this way, I have found that most times when people are comparing themselves to other people, they're doing so negatively. By that I mean they are coming out of that comparison view thinking that they are not doing well enough, that they are the loser, they are the one that's behind, they are the one that didn't get the message in time that they are the ones that are failing. And so I just want to rescue you from that behavior. If it's consistent every once in a while, it can be fun. It could be fun to check in and see what Nancy is doing at the other table and maybe connect with Nancy in this really lovely way. But if we're comparing and judging and a little bit nervous and a little bit afraid, those pre feelings, the nerves and the fear are a signal that maybe you can skip this protective behavior.

Dr. Christine Li:
Maybe you should just return to your work and decide, you know what? I wish Nancy at That other table. Well, I hope she's doing well with her work and I hope she's in a state of flow for herself. And I'm going to focus on my work because that's where I can see my progress. That's where I can find joy in accomplishment. That's where I could start to build my self worth, my self esteem, if I need a boost. And it's a great way to just earn your living as well, of course, is to do the work that you were assigned. All right? So you can escape the trap of comparison, Nitis, and you can relieve yourself of that feeling like you're not enough. Just start at the beginning of your workday feeling, I am good enough.

Dr. Christine Li:
I have what it takes. I know what is in store for me today in this workday. I am enthusiastic about my work and I look forward to accomplishing X, Y and Z by the end of the workday. That's basically the basics. That's basically all you need to have a great day at work. Evaluate yourself based on how far you've come. But don't even evaluate yourself. Just evaluate your work based on how far you've come and then decide you're good no matter how much progress you've made, even if it's been a low productivity day for you.

Dr. Christine Li:
You've got to go through your work and to your work feeling like you're always good, you've always got what it takes, and you're never at risk for this kind of negative evaluation, especially from yourself. All right, now, I promised that we would talk about perfectionism too. And I do see the two topics, comparison and perfectionism, as being mostly different from each other. And I'll tell you why. I think of comparison as something that you can kind of take it or leave it. Sometimes it's kind of like browsing windows in New York City and saying, oh, that's a really nice dress. Oh, how cute that bag is. Oh, look at the deli meats in the deli window.

Dr. Christine Li:
You know, you're kind of observing and then walking by and you can go into the store if you want. You can leave if you want. You're just browsing, right? And there's no obligation. That's how I think about comparisonitis. Perfectionism is a totally different story. I think of perfectionism as you're walking into a store, you don't really like the vibe of the store, and all of a sudden you're trapped in the store for some reason. Like it's too crowded and you can't get out or it's like an IKEA setup and you really don't know how to get out. And I don't mean to scare anyone, by the way, but I'm using this as an analogy because perfectionism is actually something that I see as a pretty brutal self protection mechanism.

Dr. Christine Li:
When we insist that we are perfect with our work, we end up trapping ourselves. We end up believing that every single thing that we do needs to be perfect because that's the standard that we've adopted for our work. And so even if you manage to get one project to the point of perfection, that joy that you might feel because you've reached your standard is going to be very, very short lived. Because guess what, 20 minutes later you've got your next project that you have to work on. And so you end up being in this very vic, this very unfriendly and uncomfortable cycle of having to push yourself and worry and spend every spare minute perfecting your work and aiming for this perceived perfect place that may not even exist when you think about it. So what I think are some of the dangers of perfectionism are the fact that you lose your focus right away because instead of thinking about the really big set of opportunities that are in front of you for creativity and getting things done, you are thinking about finding the one, maybe two avenues for getting to the perfect destination. So you're really just kind of cramping your own style and cramping your creativity because you're so nervous at the get go that everything has to end up being perfect in the end. The second thing that you end up doing when you're aiming for perfect is you are sacrificing your time because again, you're using every spare moment, you're using a lot of your energy and you're not submitting your work when it's good enough.

Dr. Christine Li:
Right when you've decided, oh, this is, this actually feels good, I'm going to see if this works. You're actually keeping it twice as long, three times as long. You might not even be submitting it because you think, oh, it's not perfect yet. So we have a lot of time loss there. And then the last thing that we sacrifice is our mood, I think because we end up feeling negatively about our work in general. If we see our work as being really difficult to do or to get through or to finish, we're going to start resisting because we're really smart and our brain likes to keep us away from things that really drain us and make us feel like we can't hack it. So we're going to have this push and pull relationship with the very work that we need to do day in and day out. So you know from how I've been sounding in this episode that you want to do your best to steer clear from both randomly comparing yourself to other people and insisting that everything you do be perfect.

Dr. Christine Li:
Now, does this mean that you're gonna give up your high standards and not try so hard? In a way, maybe. But I say this with all the love in my heart and with all the respect from me to you for the part of you that really cares about your work. Let that part of you stay alive, right? You can dump the comparison and you can dump the perfectionism, but you want to preserve that part of you that is beautiful, that is well intentioned, that is hardworking, that really cares about the quality of your work and how it's received by other people and how it comes out. All of those things are beautiful. Promoting life enhancing wishes that you have and that you already possess. You can just let go of the parts of your desire that are connected with fearing that you're not good enough, fearing that your work is not valuable enough or beautiful enough, fearing anything, anything related to fear can now be shooed out the door so that you have this nice office space, this nice working relationship with your work and with your co worker Nancy, and with yourself. That you want to build a practice where you are not afraid of your work, where you're not afraid of anything outside of your work. Like other people coming to comment about your work, receive whatever comes about your work, take it as a compliment, take it as concern, take it as comment.

Dr. Christine Li:
But don't take it as a judgment on who you are. Because when you do that, you end up triggering your fear. It's very natural. We all do it, we've all done it. And I just hope that I've said enough today to help you say, I'm done with the fearful phase of my life. I'm ready for the enthusiasm that I already have inside of me, to be in my work and to be seen and shown to everyone around me without stress, without drama and without extra labor. Because we all work so hard, I think, to be the people that we are meant to be. So let's take away the roadblocks, let's close up the traps and make sure everything really is secure and safe in a true way.

Dr. Christine Li:
Saying that our hearts are always safe, that our minds are always open, and we've got so much more to show the world about who we are and who we can be. I hope you've really enjoyed my answer to my precious listener and her questions about comparison and perfectionism. I wish you all the best at work and at home. I wish you lots of rest in between all your efforts and to do the right thing and to do really good work. If you'd like to ask me a question, feel free to go to the Show Notes and there's a line at the top of the Show Notes that you can click. It's a link and then you can enter in your question. You can also DM me on Instagram. I'm procrastinationcoach on Instagram so you can send me a direct message there.

Dr. Christine Li:
And in between comments and your work, I hope you will listen to the podcast a few more times. Just click on the podcast for the next episode and find some inspiration for you, your progress and your best work. I so thank you for being here. I want to remind you that I always have a free download or I almost always have a free download for you that accompanies each episode. And this episode does have one of those worksheets. And this one will be called maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/excellence. We're going to call it maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/excellence. Let's go.

Dr. Christine Li:
Take care. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also Visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show.

Dr. Christine Li:
I'd love to hear all about how you're making Time for Success. Talk to you soon.