Fear is the root of all perfectionism

I have a tendency to want things to be very good. I wouldn’t use the word perfect the Wikipedia description is pretty accurate.

In psychology, perfectionism is a broad personality trait characterized by a person's concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations.

This seems kind of harmless at a glance. You might even think it’s good.

The thing is perfectionism can grind progress to a halt.

I know several other people who lean perfectionist. I’ve asked them about their general anxiety toward work and the result is universal. All of us dread something being wrong and affecting others.

We worry about bugs in our code. We worry about giving people bad experiences. There’s fear of being judged. Fear of being blamed for mistakes. Fear of just about everything that can go wrong.

Perfectionism isn’t striving for perfection. It’s dread of imperfection.

In their work, the perfectionists I know tend to be top performers. It’s personal projects and goals where progress is blocked.

At work, a perfectionist is trapped.

They have to do something or else they affect others through inaction. So, they over-scrutinize their own work. They check and check again. They research and pull extra hours. This is why they turn into top performers.

When this trap doesn’t exist they tend to avoid progress. They avoid doing things that would lead to scrutiny. They delay starting until they have the perfect idea or plan.

Perfectionism is useful sometimes so I wouldn’t want to get rid of it completely. A little paranoia and fear is useful when you’re about to release something.

A good start is to be aware of how it can keep you from moving forward.

Then you need strategies to deal with it. I’ve been experimenting with ways to manage this trait. Progress trackers. Daily goals.

Sometimes I do projects focused on quantity more than quality. For example, this month I’m writing every day on Substack. Each one may not be great but at least I did something.

Perfectionism is the fear of imperfection. If we’re aiming for progress, we need to fear inaction instead.