One of my coaching clients and I were analyzing the ways in which his perfectionism paralyzes him at work sometimes. He talked about the cost to him and to his workplace of perfectionism. He will not “close out” a lecture or project until the last possible moment-reviewing, tweaking, making minor modifications up until the last minute. Consequently, this very prepared person, who has always done his work far in advance, always has the experience of having procrastinated …because HE IS NEVER READY in his head. The fallout from this is that as a deadline approaches, he experiences a change in his usual upbeat, positive disposition and becomes flat and even grumpy, and easily frustrated. He feels overworked and overwhelmed. He feels guilty because he realizes that he is missing out on precious moments with his small children by his unilateral focus on work, getting caught up in the swirl of his thoughts that he is never “prepared”.
When I asked him “What would you gain by changing this behavior?” he answered- I would become more “enlivened”. As we walked through the specific behaviors that he wanted to change this is the acronym –“ENLIVEN”- that he has crafted as a replacement behavior for his perfectionism:
E- Enjoy the journey.
N- Nibble- Take small bites off the to-do list. Don’t wait until you have large blocks of time. Be incremental in your approach to you “to- Do’s”.
L- Leisure- Make time for it. If you have to, schedule in or block off your personal time… otherwise that “one last review, edit ” will consume every free minute of your time at home.
I- Internal deadlines. Allot a certain amount of time for a task, complete the task it by the “internal deadline” and be done. Don’t keep nursing it along to the last possible moment, “external deadline”.
V- Vibrant- What he gives up when he becomes consumed by the myth for perfect.
E- Expectations (internal vs. external). Understand expectation setting in detail. Have a process for setting expectations for others and realize how we set them for ourselves. He realized that the expectations he sets for himself are not only inconsistent with those that he sets for others but unrealistic and unfair to himself.
N- New. Try something new without fear of failing. N-joy it!
I had this acronym engraved on a beautiful river stone that he carries with him to remind him of the paralysis of perfectionism and the joy that he finds when he is able to “Enliven” his worklife.
One last thought. If you look in Wikipedia for “Perfect” it does not exist. If you look for “Perfection” you will find that the word comes from the Latin for finished from the Greek for completeness. Think of it as closing your circle.