[ad_1]
Despite beliefs to the contrary you may very well be a perfectionist. In some domains, being a perfectionist is seen as positive. In others, being a perfectionist is seen as negative. Someone in the latter camp is Tony Robbins:
People always try to be perfect. That’s Why they don’t start anything. Perfection is the lowest standard in the world. Because if you’re trying to be perfect, you know you can’t be. So what you really have is a standard you can never achieve. You want to be outstanding, not perfect. ~Anthony Robbins
Stated differently, a standard of perfection will lead to procrastination — better to adopt a standard of outstanding. While some tasks can be done perfectly (e.g., 1 + 1), for any nontrivial task, Tony’s perspective holds. And, if most of your tasks are of the nontrivial variety, Tony’s point of view will serve you more than the perfectionist view. Under the outstanding standard, tasks that can be done perfectly in all likelihood can be done perfectly. So, I’d count that as a win. For tasks that cannot be done perfectly, the outstanding standard saves you needless worry and frustration. And, this too, I’d count as a win.
If we buy into the outstanding standard, then all we have to do is drop the perfection standard for the outstanding one and we’re done right? If only it were that easy. It turns out that perfectionism emerges in ways that you may not classify as being a perfectionist. For starters, you may never utter the phrase “perfect” in your head or from your mouth and still be a perfectionist! What follows are two undercover ways that perfectionism rears its unwelcomed head:
All-or-nothing. Do you ever consider doing something important, but upon realizing there isn’t enough time, you don’t start? If so, you’ve used the “all-or-nothing” mindset — a kind of perfectionism. Reluctance to start the task stems from anxiety of knowing you will have to stop before you want to. And when you want to stop is the “perfect” stopping time in your mind — whether you’re consciously aware of this or not. “I only have 15 minutes until my next meeting. Can’t do anything meaningful with that! *Starts scrolling through Instagram*”
Prework-over-work. Most tasks benefit from prework. Preparation is valuable. However, there is a point where preparation goes into the state of diminishing returns. More preparation will not yield a better result — yet it’s being prioritized over the real work. The opportunity cost of you continuing to prepare is higher than if you just started the work itself. A separate problem that compounds the issue with Prework-over-work is it’s not always possible to know what you will need in order to properly prepare a priori. In these cases, you discover what things you need to look into more closely only from engaging in the work itself. The most insidious form of prework is the kind that takes place completely or primarily in one’s head. This is because, in our heads, we can, without noticing, construct a level of perfection that could never be translated into reality.
In Procrastination: Why You Do it, What To Do About it Now, Drs. Burka and Yuen propose a compelling strategy for dealing with the All-or-nothing (a term I got from them!) mentality. The idea is to add a different conclusion to the premise of the excuse. The way the All-or-nothing approach often shakes out is something like: “there’s not enough time, so I’ll do it later.” The premise is that “there’s not enough time.” The conclusion is that “I’ll do it later.” What Drs. Burka and Yuen suggest that you simply change the conclusion to “I’ll do a little bit.” So the excuse would now look something like: “there’s not enough time, so I’ll do a little bit.” That simple change works surprisingly well.
Dealing with Prework-over-work is less straightforward to deal with. The nature of the work matters. If it’s a scenario where the cost of mistakes is high, you are probably well served to spend a lot of time preparing. If the cost of mistakes is low, you probably want to lower your level of preparation. This strategy requires you to have the ability to accurately assess the stakes associated with the work. Another approach to address Prework-over-work is to ask yourself with any prework task: “do I really need to do this?” You then must be able to answer honestly. If the honest answer is no, drop the prework and do the work.
As Dr. Steele points out, if you’re a perfectionist, you probably don’t have a chronic pervasive procrastination problem. However, Steele also points out that “dilly-dallying” is common. To me, that reads as there are still some things that one procrastinates on. Under this view, one way to take your performance to the next level is to reduce that “dilly-dallying.”
Hope this post gets you part of the way there.
[ad_2]
Source link
