What perfectionist behaviours are you guilty of? Do you find yourself writing and rewriting a work email, only to find that an hour has passed and said email is still sitting in drafts? Or do you hear an inner self-critic berating you whenever you fall short of your exacting standards during an important project? If that sounds familiar, you might be a perfectionist.

By its definition, a perfectionist is someone who strives for perfection in execution and outcome. At work, that could look like avoiding a task unless they are able to perform it perfectly or taking an outsized amount of time to complete a project arising from the need to have it “perfect”.

Perfectionism vs. Healthy behaviour
While the word “perfectionist” gets bandied around a lot, especially among those who would describe themselves as fastidious, perfectionism is quite different from being driven or excellence-oriented. It's easy to mistake one for the other: both perfectionism and a pursuit of excellence involve setting a high bar for yourself. In an article on Salon.com, board-certified psychologist Emily Bilek, PhD says the difference boils down to how defined your standards are and how you react to not meeting them. 

According to Bilek, someone with a functional pursuit of excellence might say, “I’m striving for a score of 10 on this performance review, but I’m happy if I get an 8 or above.” However, a perfectionist will not be satisfied with any other outcome other than their desired goal. Their reaction to a less-than-perfect outcome might also be filled with shame and critical self-evaluation, sometimes amplified by the belief that someone else with more smarts or guile may succeed, while someone striving for excellence might feel initial disappointment, but able to muster some self-compassion in the face of setback. As author and researcher Brene Brown says, “Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best.” She explains that perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth, but rather a defence mechanism against fear, failure and vulnerability.

Women are held to different standards

The reasons for our perfectionist tendencies are multifarious. In the workplace, perfectionism is often celebrated, if not expected, even if people might describe themselves as a perfectionist in a self-effacing, slightly apologetic way. Competitive labour markets and increasingly demanding roles drive us to the belief that we need to be infallible in our work to secure a competitive advantage.

At work, women get stuck in a place of perfection because our mistakes are not seen as forgivable. When a professional endeavour goes wrong, women are more likely to blame themselves. This is not our fault: research has found that women and minorities are penalised more harshly for the same mistakes, compared to male counterparts, resulting in what some have called the “punishment gap”. There’s also stereotype threat, i.e. a situation when people feel at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. Research shows that being the only woman in the room can make you feel like you’re under a microscope; this creates pressure to over-achieve and excel in order to quell any doubts about your performance. 

“Perfectionist tendencies keep women small and risk-averse… It also doesn’t allow for serendipitous, fulfilling careers. Letting go of that singular notion of a “perfect career” can open you up to new opportunities and take you places. 

Perfectionist behaviours can get you ahead, but up to a point

While being excellence-oriented can accelerate your career growth, perfectionist behaviours can also hold you back in the long run. 

• Perfectionism makes you inefficient. Fear of making mistakes can lead to excessive performance monitoring that can leave you inefficient. Proofreading your presentation deck? Fine. But reviewing a draft or email six, seven or eight times just makes you inefficient.

• Procrastination and avoidance are common byproducts of perfectionism. “All-or-nothing” thinking can make you miss out on opportunities or avoid projects that can propel you in your career. The fear of making mistakes can also make you avoidant to projects or tasks you don’t believe you can ace. 

• A major pitfall of perfectionist behaviour is the toll it takes only on your self-esteem. By measuring your worth and success on impossible standards, you get caught up in all that you’re lacking, which can affect your confidence at work. It also creates a feeling of “never being good enough”, which can leave you feeling even less adequate and equipped to say yes to opportunities.

• Perfectionist tendencies keep women small and risk-averse. Due to the fear of erring or failing, women may avoid raising their hands for career-making projects they don’t feel ready for.

• Perfectionism doesn’t create room for serendipitous, fulfilling careers. Career trajectories are no longer the linear paths they used to be. Rather, the new way of work has led to “squiggly careers”, where people are able to move across different roles, industries and disciplines. Letting go of that singular notion of a “perfect career” can open you up to new opportunities and take you places. 

This culture of perfectionism isn’t our fault. Mainstream media feeds us a constant reel of peak career moments while editing out the years of failure and rejection that underpin these stories, making these successes seem like not the outliers that they are, but a norm. It creates an illusion that everyone is successful, and feeds into your feelings of lacking.  A quick scroll on LinkedIn can have you comparing your lives to others within seconds, and second-guessing your achievements and capabilities to everyone else’s. This easy, seamless narrative of success we see externally (versus the struggles we know to feel on the inside) conditions us to only accept only one correct version of success, and discredit every other scenario or outcome. 

“We need a new way to reframe imperfection and recognise the necessary role of failure in our lives and personal growth. There is a need for authentic, healthier and accurate portrayals so that we can get comfortable in uncertainty or failure, and hold space for different versions of success and the different paths life can take us.”

We need new stories about imperfection and failure 

What we need is a brave and new conversation around imperfection and failure. We need a new way to reframe imperfection and recognise the necessary role of failure in our lives and personal growth. There is a need for authentic, healthier and accurate portrayals so that we can get comfortable in uncertainty or failure, and hold space for different versions of success and the different paths life can take us.

Perfectionism may appear to be responsible for and accelerate your adult success. However, it’s a slippery state that tells us that life only begins when we become the best version of ourselves (and conversely, ends when we give up that hope). On the contrary, it is often on “imperfect paths” where the roads ahead feel fuzzy and unclear that truly understand ourselves, our limits, and ultimately humanness.

At Uncommon, we embrace imperfection

At Uncommon, embracing imperfection is one of our key brand values. Through our coach-led Core group sessions, transformational workshops and masterclasses and intimate group dinners, we invite our members to bravely define success and embrace imperfections as part of their career journey and life story. Apply for our next cohort today: https://www.heyuncommon.com/apply 

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