Why Perfectionism Is a Hidden Danger for Your Productivity

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success Podcast. This is episode number 276. I've decided to make a miniseries on the podcast, and we're gonna kick off this 3-week miniseries on the topic of hidden patterns that drain your time, energy, and progress. We're gonna kick off the series with today's episode on perfectionism, because I have found that perfectionism really does threaten to kill your best productivity with all the control and avoidance that is involved in standard perfectionism. And then next week we're gonna cover chaos and time loss. And in the final week, we're gonna cover your capacity and how to reset your energy. I'm so excited to share my thoughts with you. Over the next 3 weeks.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:55]:
And let's start today with perfectionism. I'll see you over in the episode.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:04]:
Hi, I'm Dr. 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.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:47]:
So let's kick off this conversation about perfectionism. If you've ever told yourself, I just need a little more time to get this just right, or I'm not ready yet, don't think it's ready for airtime, or it's not quite good enough. If you've said any of those comments, it is likely that you might have a bit of perfectionism in your operating system. And it sounds responsible, it sounds like you're being thoughtful, but I wanna let you know that your perfectionism may also be one of the biggest threats to your healthy, vibrant productivity. Not because you're doing too little, but because your perfectionism may actually be causing you to expend a lot of energy and to be overly productive, where you're using all of your human life resources for your work. And I'm gonna use this episode today to try to help you step that back a bit so that you feel comfortable doing your work, you feel comfortable completing your work, and you feel comfortable submitting your work for other people to see and to enjoy. Perfectionism is very powerful. It really gives you the illusion that if you reach a level of being perfect, then you're protected.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:23]:
It means you have high standards. It means you're doing everything well and you care about doing everything well. And it means that you care about yourself. But underneath that top layer of perfectionism, we often find that that drive towards perfectionism really comes from deeper fears. Fears of things like judgment, fear of failure, fear of not being enough or not being good enough. And those fears are very potent. We will spend a lot of energy, a lot of time a lot of forethought, a lot of late-night hours trying not to be judged, trying to be better than we think we are to avoid other people's judgment and to avoid disappointing ourselves. But you can see how that quickly can turn into this brutal process where you are giving over your life energy and you're not enjoying yourself.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:31]:
You're wasting your time and you're not proving anything about excellence. You're proving your discipline and your endurance, but it's really more about control and avoidance than about fulfillment, about purpose, about just getting the project done. So I wanna help you save your energy, save your self-esteem, and do good work. Stepping back from perfectionism doesn't mean you're gonna turn in trash all of a sudden. I think people who lean towards perfectionism are typically very high performers by nature. You do care, you are thoughtful, you are mindful of the quality of your work, and that just stands on its own. You don't have to have this additional fuel of, oh, I have to protect myself from imperfection, from being judged, from being criticized. Because when it comes down to it, that kind of energy is in the air all the time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:39]:
We can never fully prevent someone from feeling critical of our work or of us. We can never fully prevent ourselves from feeling critical or judgmental. Of ourselves either. That is why spending and wasting all of your life energy on your work tends not to be a good deal for your energy and your life. You tend to give over too much to your work. And then guess what happens? You wonder, where did all my time go? You wonder, how come I don't get to socialize like other people seem to be able to do? How come I never feel refreshed? After the day is over or after I go to the gym, if I manage to go to the gym, because you're spending all of your time and energy being careful, being avoidant of these negative fears and factors. And I'm just going to talk a little bit more about perfectionism and how it blocks productivity so you can see that it might be beneficial for you to let go of some of the stress around productivity. Perfectionism shows up in a number of ways.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:51]:
It shows up when you delay starting things. It shows up when you overcomplicate things that otherwise are quite simple. It shows up when you struggle to put an end to things or to finish things. And it shows up when you feel hesitant to share your work. You kind of like it, but you're not really sure what other people are gonna think about it. So you keep it longer. And there's another cost to perfectionism that I have thought of recently, and that is that when you tend to be perfectionistic, you tend to block other people from being able to support and help you, not just in the specific project, but more broadly speaking, because when we're being perfectionistic, typically we're hyperfocused on us, on our work, and in our own sphere. We're kind of blocking out other people's energy and what they're doing and what they need from us and how they are performing because we're so wrapped up in making this current project perfect.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:02]:
And so how are other people supposed to help at all? Because they can't really access what you're going through. They're not really connected to why this particular project of yours needs to be at such a high level. They don't understand that because they're in their own emotional relationship with their work. So when you release the need to be perfect with your work, it actually makes work more accessible to other people and it makes it more shareable, which tends to be the purpose of work in the first place. We don't generally do work just for ourselves. We do work because we're being productive in society, we're being productive at our job, we're being productive in our family and in our social circles. So decide, I have a vision for how this should be. I'm going to do my best, but I refuse to cross the line where I begin feeling like the work has a stranglehold over me.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:07]:
I refuse to lose good sleep over this. I refuse to torment myself in the process of getting this done. And I know that I'm gonna get this done because done is always better than perfect. That's a common phrase. I love that phrase. It helps me out a lot. Let's get these things done so our energy can flow again, so we can grab our time back from our work, so we're not working around the clock. Our jobs are really supposed to be a part of the day, not our entire day.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:43]:
Perfectionism is also exhausting. It really is an energy drain because when we're trying to be perfect, our brain has to constantly monitor what we're doing. It has to constantly check and adjust and micromanage and second-guess our decisions. And it feels like it's this running process that never comes to an end. And like I said a few minutes ago, perfectionism really is that drain on our energy. So decide for yourself, I can't fix everything by trying to be perfect. So I'm gonna drop that idea. I'm going to release my work to the world knowing that I can't control every opinion, knowing that I can't control all the outcomes, knowing that I did my very best, and knowing that I'm proud of the work that I did.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:42]:
That hopefully will make you feel happy, will make you feel satisfied. And the more you release perfectionism, I believe you're gonna have more energy. You're gonna have more self-esteem, true self-esteem, where you are convincing yourself that you are good enough. It's not what other people think of you or the grade you get on your assignment that makes you feel good. All of a sudden, it's you deciding, I feel good no matter what the outcome is of this project. You will save yourself the mental fatigue of worrying. You will save yourself gobs of procrastination, and you won't have to avoid starting your work, being in the middle of your work, or finishing your work anymore. This is your life being returned to you in bulk.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:34]:
And having gone through this process myself of recovering and healing from massive procrastination, and a little bit of perfectionism to feeling like I'm good enough and my work is good enough, I can tell you this is a journey you want to start on if you haven't already because it is awesome. It is awesome to feel like you can focus when you need to. It is awesome to feel like your work is not the be-all and end-all. It's just a bit of who you are. And it's just awesome not to feel like work is something to be afraid of or something that needs something that is so tiring to execute. So what are you going to do with your perfectionism? What have you decided after listening to this episode? Are you gonna turn off this episode and decide, I'm gonna finish that project once and for all? Are you gonna decide, I'm gonna seek that opportunity, knowing that I have the bandwidth to do it? Are you going to refocus on nurturing your own energy instead of putting all of your energy on the work that you have in front of us? I think you're gonna find when you make these shifts, they're gonna be subtle, but you're also gonna feel something dramatic. You're gonna feel your own energy start to rise and you're gonna feel wonderful about it. Remember, it's not your perfectionism that causes you to be great.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:09]:
You are great. Let's detach our work from our personal value, from our value as human beings. We are all, to a person, wonderful, great, brilliant, talented, capable, energized. Let's not strangle our work by needing it to be perfect. Let's not strangle our own productivity by needing to be all the things to all the people. Let's just get our work done so that we can feel good about that. Progress creates energy. Perfectionism kind of tamps down your energy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:48]:
So let's not do the perfectionism. Let's continue to make progress. The way forward is to decide, done is great. Predict yourself reaching the finish line. See yourself as succeeding rather than seeing yourself as entering a very frightening zone where people are gonna judge and criticize and be disappointed. Give yourself time limits for how long you'll be able to spend on a particular project so that you can have a little guardrail for your own tendency, perhaps, towards perfectionism. Protect yourself because you deserve your own care. You deserve peace in your life and in your day and in your productivity.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:34]:
And you deserve to enjoy the great work that you end up putting out in the world. And I hope this episode really helps you to dig deeper and see, am I really enjoying my work process or have I been suffering a little bit too much? I really hope that you'll let go of the suffering and you'll enjoy your work so much more. If you'd like a free download to work through these steps and these feelings and these processes, I invite you to go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/perfectionism. Again, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/perfectionism. And then you can see, oh, It might be easier if I decide I'm not afraid of my work. It really does do a wonderful thing for your brain to release you from the grip of fear. We all should do it. I will see you next week when we continue this mini series.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:36]:
And next week we're going to be talking about chaos and how do you get back your time from time chaos. Let's do it. Bye.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:48]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've 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 under 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. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:29]:
Talk to you soon.