Don’t aim for perfection
When we think of successful people, we often picture inventors, international leaders, or well-known business executives like Steve Jobs.
The iMac G3’s inside color is just one example of how Steve is notorious for demanding his staff to be as meticulous as he is while creating Apple products. In some cases, this results in higher product costs or missed deadlines.
We may argue that if he weren’t this way, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy fantastic Apple products. The earliest iPods and Macbooks, for example, were of astounding quality even by today’s standards. But at what cost? Employees at Apple at the time are reported to have experienced significant levels of stress and anxiety due to their ongoing conflicts with Steve.
We’ve all had that “Steve Jobs” moment where we stay up all night trying to perfect a detail that, in all honesty, nobody was going to notice. But after that, the real issues arise: stress, anxiety, and even depression may be issues that we inherit for being “perfectionists.” This is because, while perfectionism is associated with higher levels of motivation for work, it is also associated with the disorders we mentioned earlier. Since we all have different degrees of demand because we want to deliver the finest product or service possible, we will describe what perfectionism is in order to make it clear that having high levels of demand is not the same as perfectionism.
A person is a perfectionist when their standards of demand are high beyond reach or reason — David Burns, psychologist
Now that we are aware of what it means to be a perfectionist and the issues it might lead to, let’s look at ways to prevent it: 1.- Have reasonable expectations: While doing research for this article, we came across a quote from Martin M. Anthony’s book “When Perfection Is Not Enough” that states that in order to be a little less of a perfectionist, you must view your standards or requirements as possibilities rather than as absolutes. Sometimes we assume that people’s expectations of us are excessive when they are not, therefore we should approach situations more calmly and attempt to enjoy the process.
2.- Attempt to organize your time: To do this, we should remember the 80/20 rule, which states that only 20% of all efforts result in 80% of the results. As a result, we must understand how to pinpoint that 20% effort.
3.- Be imperfect on purpose: One way to overcome a fear is to expose yourself to it, so if we want to apply this strategy to this issue, we must be imperfect on purpose. As an illustration, when we write a posting, we set a limit of two edits, which saves us from spending three hours perfecting it and ensures that the outcome meets our standards.
Tell me if you are a perfectionist and at what? :)
