There’s a reason Nike has one of the most iconic and sustainable taglines. Their succinct “Just Do It” is something most of us can relate to as we’re tempted to put off even that which might help us grow. The reason? It could be that we’re fearful that the results won’t be perfect.

So last week, when I launched my podcast with a conversation on perfectionism with my colleague Pooja Dang, I hoped the topic would resonate with listeners.

One of Pooja’s mantras is to “Break up with perfect,” so I knew she’d have some opinions on the subject. And like me, she has personal experience overcoming the pursuit of perfection. In fact, the whole process around the podcast was a little scary for both of us, because, well…perfectionism. More on that later.

Ahhh…The Age-old Interview Humble Brag

I remember at least once in my career where I thought I was gaming the system when a job interviewer asked the stock question about my biggest weakness. My stock answer? “I’m a perfectionist.” After all, what manager wouldn’t love a candidate with that elusive goal?

The answer is complicated. In their Harvard Business Review article, The Pros and Cons of Perfectionism, According to Research, Brian Swider and his colleagues shared their findings from a four-decade study that revealed that although there was an obvious upside to hiring a perfectionist, the net benefits may be fewer than some job applicants and recruiters assume.

For one thing, perfectionists may be more prone to inflexibility and a binary mindset about their (and their teams’!) performance. The secondary impact can be increased stress, burnout, or anxiety.

Some Common Manifestations of Perfectionism and What to Do

We procrastinate. This might be one of the least obvious expressions of perfectionism because we often associate procrastination with laziness. But according to psychologist Fuschia Sirois, “…a task may elicit…fear of failure. Anxiety. You put that task aside and you’ve just regulated your mood. Now you feel better. It’s like, ah, great. I don’t have to think about it anymore.” Those of us who write for a living know this feeling well because we sometimes fall into the trap of thinking perfect prose should flow freely from our brain to the page—even though we know this doesn’t make sense, because good writing requires several revisions.

What to do? I created a reminder for myself that I return to every time I feel anxious about my ability to produce quality work: The words “scribble” and “scribe” have the same root, and I have to scribble a lot to become the scribe I want to be. If you could create a reminder for yourself when you get stuck, what would it be?

We get stuck in the weeds. As managers, we might start meddling in or trying to control really minor issues or projects rather than focusing on the bigger vision or making a positive change for the company.

What to do? When you start micromanaging, see if you can uncover the reason. Is the bigger project too intimidating? I find it helpful to break big projects down to their smallest parts and create a to-do list of those separate, more manageable tasks. If I’m really nervous about the outcome, I imagine what the worst possible scenario could be and decide if I’m willing to live with that.

Perfectionism is the belief that “If I look perfect, do it perfect, work perfect and live perfect, I can avoid or minimize shame, blame and judgement.”—Brené Brown

We spend too much time getting our ducks in a row before we take a really important action. We can spend months on the setup when we should just get on with it. Often, this can be for something that really doesn’t matter. A common roadblock for my clients is that they think they can’t send requests for LinkedIn recommendations before their profile is perfect. But is that really necessary? The recommendations are supposed to be based on something the client did in the past, not the status of their profile. So whether they have their “About” section perfect shouldn’t matter.

What to do? When I get stuck—and I often do—I have to recalibrate what the net gain will be for me to hold up my project until everything is lined up. Do I need to spend hours on this particular email, for instance? In the case of updating my podcast art, what was the point of diminishing return?

We freeze up when it’s time to make a decision. A major decision I had to make was whether to move my family from Seattle to the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ll admit that even after I made the decision, I questioned myself, which is not time well spent.

What to do? A psychologist friend once told me that we tend to idealize the path not taken because, since we didn’t take it, there were no mishaps. In other words, the road not taken doesn’t exist. So make your cost/benefit analysis and settle on the path that’s right for you in the moment. And remember that virtually any decision you make can be tweaked along the way.

We get sidelined by imposter syndrome. Sometimes we overthink what we’re going to say because we’re worried it will be rejected or we feel we’re not qualified.

What to do? Time to not take ourselves so seriously. Personally, I’m trying to create a mindset that’s more open to learning and admitting that I don’t know everything, even when it’s related to something in my field of so-called expertise. Proceed with a sense of humor (about what you don’t know) and curiosity (about what can help you deepen your knowledge), and you might find that your confidence grows organically.

The Difference Between the Pursuit of Mastery and Perfection

To be clear, we still need to work hard if we expect to master a skill. Effort is required if we want to do anything with excellence.

In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck talks about how, even though we’re all taught the tortoise and the hare parable, “if we really think about it, no one really wants to be the tortoise. We just want to be the less foolish, more strategic hare.” So true. We look around and see people performing at high levels and think it’s all effortless. But even the best of us have to practice. The question is whether we’re striving for perfection or mastery.

Recently, I listened to two separate interviews with those masters of music, Beyoncé and Sonny Rollins. When asked about how they prepare for their stage performances, both said they practice enough so that when they’re on the stage they don’t have to think about it. They can just experience the music. That applies to work presentations, sports competitions, and other activities where we want to reach high performance.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell introduced the 10K-hour rule for achieving mastery. This is a random number, and may only be achievable by those who have some other advantages, or a lot of years behind them. But regardless of whether we reach 10K hours, the importance of regular practice is the overriding message. For me, it means committing to taking small steps every day to master the writing craft, knowing that I’ll never write the perfect blog.

Learning As We Go

Pooja and I had a good laugh about the meta experience of having to overcome our own worry over perfection just to create this podcast. Some of the things I had to overcome were spending too much time on the technical backend and the fear that I might start this podcast project and run out of things to talk about. I also worried about whether listeners would actually benefit from the conversation.

In the end, the episode certainly wasn’t perfect. But what a hoot Pooja and I had! And of course, we celebrated our small step toward mastery.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how I can improve and bring you more content that might help you navigate your career. Feel free to email me at emily@wordsofdistinction.net.

In the meantime, stay healthy!

You can listen to our conversation here: