On Perfectionism

One of the vivid memories of my childhood is handwriting practice. I remember my parents making me copy out letters again and again, through my tears, until every line — and my handwriting — came out perfect.

Later, at school, I started to take pride in the fact that almost everything I touched, I did nearly flawlessly. When I learned the word “perfectionism,” I began, with a certain sense of importance, to call myself a perfectionist.

No question, perfectionism helps you reach heights — but not without side effects. At the root of it lies pride: the feeling of one’s own exceptionalness, of standing above everyone else.

The drive to do everything perfectly is one of the ways we lift ourselves above others. And pride breeds its own offspring — the fear of failing, the fear of being rejected if the results of our effort turn out imperfect and our ego takes a hit from the criticism.

The trouble is that perfectionism pulls us into a closed loop, where we start to see our whole identity only through the prism of our achievements: without them we’re nobody, and each new success has to outdo the last. Thoughts of possible failure throw us into stress, we grow more and more self-critical, and we lose the joy of what we’ve already done — drowning instead in the endless list of improvements we haven’t made yet.

How do you keep perfectionism in check?

Instead of fighting the symptoms, it’s worth dealing with the root of the problem — pride. The first step is recognition and acceptance. We’re all prone to pride, and that’s normal!

But we need to build practices aimed at realizing that every person is unique and valuable in their own way. Gratitude, volunteering, owning our own mistakes, growing our empathy for others — all of it helps dial down our self-exaltation, and with it the self-criticism and the inner tension.

At times it’s worth following a principle popular in the startup world: “Done is better than perfect.”

In the modern pace of life, quantity can matter more than quality, and when there are a hundred things to do and we get through only ten — flawlessly, sure — we miss a great many opportunities.

Here’s to a sensible balance, and to enjoying both the process and the fruits of our work! 😎

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P.S. What about my handwriting now? I’m the only one who can make out what I wrote.