Cultivating Excellence vs Perfectionism
For professional women, perfectionism often runs deep. Many of my clients struggle with how it shows up in their personal lives and careers. It's a classic double edged sword, driving us forward towards achievement and excellence, while also keeping us mired in anxiety and shame.
It's understandable why women learn to adopt a perfectionist mindset in the professional world, especially in positions and fields dominated by men. Our successes can feel precarious, and our mistakes can feel overly scrutinized, even dangerous. That's not in our heads—research has found that women are criticized more (and in more personal terms) than their male counterparts in the workplace.
Unfortunately, perfectionism itself can hold us back. It keeps us from going for promotions, or from taking on work that will expand our abilities, or speaking up in situations where we're not 100% certain. It can fuel procrastination and avoidance.
Cultivating excellence over perfectionism at work
Letting go of perfectionism doesn't mean becoming a slacker or giving up on your career ambitions. It means developing a more flexible mindset, orienting yourself towards excellence and growth, rather than the safety that perfectionism represents.
Instead of using self-criticism to motivate yourself, try self-encouragement.
Is your internal self-motivator harsh or critical when you're attempting to do something hard? Some of my clients have an internal monologue that we'd correctly label as mean, even abusive, if the words were coming from anyone else. We think we're giving ourselves ‘tough love’, but often we're sending ourselves into fight-or-flight. That makes it harder to think, plan, organize, and tap into our creativity.
Try encouraging yourself the way you would a friend, a mentee, or even a child who is trying their best. Affirmations like, “I know this is hard, just take it one step at a time,” or “You got this, it's tough but you've gotten through tougher things before,” can motivate without tearing down. You'll probably feel corny at first, but stick with it and it will become more natural with time.
Instead of sticking to your areas of expertise, seek out opportunities to do things badly.
One way to build resilience against your inner perfectionist is to actively seek opportunities to do things you're not good at. Have no rhythm? Sign up for a dance class. Can't even draw a stick figure? Start a sketchbook.
You might find a hobby you enjoy, despite being thoroughly mediocre. And you might even discover a hidden talent that you wouldn't have allowed yourself to consider. Regardless of the outcome, letting yourself be bad at things gives you the opportunity to practice failing and moving forward with grace.
Instead of focusing on success and failure as black-and-white, cultivate an appreciation of growth and learning as part of the process.
Most likely, you're not in a position where your successes and failures are life-or-death prospects. (And even if you are, black-and-white thinking doesn't actually improve our ability to perform well.) Cultivating a more flexible mindset that recognizes growth and learning as positive outcomes supports our development.
This is a mindset shift that takes time and persistence to make. Your instinct may be to avoid even thinking about past failures and setbacks. Try choosing a small one at first, and checking in with yourself about what you learned from the experience. If the answer is nothing, is there something you might take away from it moving forward? (If the answer is still no, you might be mislabeling this situation as a personal 'failure’ when it was actually something quite out of your control.)
A Deeper Self-Confidence
Perfectionism tells us that in order to build confidence, we just need to get better. Be better. And yes, there is something to the importance of building our skill set. Our abilities, our knowledge, and our experience matter. We're not working off vibes, and unfounded confidence in our actual abilities can be as disastrous as self-doubt.
That said, confidence exists in layers. On the surface level, we become confident in skills and abilities when we've had success with them. I am confident in my ability, for example, to write a blog post because I've done lots of them and gotten good feedback in the past. But if I wrote a post that was widely mocked and panned on social media, that confidence would probably take a big hit. I'd probably question my writing abilities or my judgment. I might be very hesitant to publish something again in the future. This level of confidence can take time to build, and can be shaken by a single failure.
But on a deeper level, confidence comes from knowing we can weather the ups and downs of our successes and failures. Knowing who we are, and that we have something worthy to contribute. It's this deeper type of confidence that allows us to take risks and put ourselves out there. Cultivating a drive towards excellence, rather than perfection, can help us achieve that.
Want to work on building healthy ambition and deeper confidence in your own life?
Dr. Maya is currently offering a free first therapy session to qualified Femme Factor members, a $260 value.
Due to licensing laws, this offer is available in California and New york only. 