The other day, a client in my Career Clarity Group asked this question:
What are the most effective ways for me to continue to work at letting go of perfectionism?
She wrote:
“Perfectionism really permeates every area of my life, from the utterly mundane—making sure I remember to buy everything we need at the grocery store, do the laundry as efficiently as possible, and not waste a single thing from the garden—to the professional—not making any mistakes or political missteps in my work and always maximizing my time—to the profound— ‘Am I the best partner I can be to my husband? Am I doing everything I can to protect democracy?’
I feel like these past few weeks have been helpful in recognizing my perfectionism and accepting that some things are just not going to always be perfect, without judgment.
But it is really an ongoing struggle for me, with deep roots.”
Perhaps you can relate.
I see perfectionism keeping people stuck in so many ways:
- Stuck in conflict—Setting rigid and unrealistically high expectations rather than acknowledging missteps and offering grace.
- Stuck in disconnection—Refusing to ask for help, and as a result, isolating themselves.
- Stuck in bad decisions—Only seeing either-or solutions rather than getting curious about how to honor multiple needs.
- Stuck in uncertainty—Trying to find the best or right steps forward rather than making the best guess and learning from what happens.
- Stuck in burnout—Overworking and overstressing to get projects to perfection, rather than allowing things to be good enough.
Here are three fundamental shifts that I’ve come to rely on when helping my clients free themselves from perfectionism. Let’s dive in.
One: Naming Your Inner Perfectionist
Perfectionism is one of many survival strategies we humans learn in an attempt to meet our needs, especially our need for belonging.
When we were little, we practiced some of these strategies so often that we began identifying with them. For instance, we might say, “I am an overachiever,” or “I am a people pleaser,” or “I am a perfectionist.”
A key shift from feeling like we’re victims of our survival strategies to reclaiming a sense of agency and choice is to see these habitual strategies as parts of ourselves and to give them names.
When we identify with our survival strategies, it’s like looking through a mask without realizing the mask is there. When we give the struggling parts of ourselves names, we take the mask off and can examine it.
So, from now on, I invite you to notice when perfectionism shows up in you and call this part by its name. This part’s name could be as simple as The Perfectionist, or something else might resonate more.
Make sure to choose a name this part would want to call itself, a name that is free from judgment. If you don’t find a name that resonates completely, go for good enough.
After you choose a name for your inner Perfectionist, do your best to refer to it in the third person, using its name. For example, rather than saying, “I’m afraid of letting people down,” you might say, “My Perfectionist is afraid of letting people down.”
Talking about our parts in the third person can feel awkward at first. It certainly did for me. But when we stop identifying with our struggling parts, it becomes easier to take back the steering wheel and reclaim our agency.
Two: Witnessing Your Inner Perfectionist
I invite you to imagine that you’re a great big bus driving through life and that all the different parts of yourself—your inner Perfectionist, the part who cries yeah but and what if, the part that wants everyone else to like you, the part that wants to be left alone, and so many other subpersonalities with their own desires and beliefs—are passengers on the bus.
Sometimes, you’re driving along the path through life, aligning with your values, reaching your goals, and navigating the twists and turns smoothly, with the various parts of yourself getting along with each other. Other times, a part of you slams on the brakes, hijacks the bus, or careens off the road.
When your Perfectionist is active, it’s holding the wheel of the bus, steering through life. When you shift and witness the Perfectionist, you take back control of the bus, and the Perfectionist can take a back seat.
This second shift is to compassionately witnessing your inner Perfectionist. Rather than seeing the road through the eyes of the Perfectionist, you sit it down in a backseat and look at it through your rearview mirror. Rather than drowning in the waters of perfectionism, you’re standing beside the water. You watch it from the balcony rather than being the actor on the stage.
Three: Listening to Your Inner Perfectionist
This last step may seem counterintuitive, but remember, perfectionism is a survival strategy. If you try to get rid of the Perfectionist without first getting curious about the needs it’s trying to meet, it’s apt to cling even harder to its strategy of perfectionism.
The last shift is from trying to figure out how to get rid of perfectionism to listening to what it wants to tell you.
See if you can notice where your inner Perfectionist lives in your body, then imagine coming beside it in your mind’s eye, saying “hello” to it like a good friend, and asking what it wants to tell you.
If you’d like, write down what your inner Perfectionist says, and let it know that you hear it. Acknowledge, with compassion, what it tells you.
The more the Perfectionist knows that you care and are listening, the more you will likely notice that it releases its clinging and opens its perspective to what might be possible next.
Try playing with these steps now and notice what arises. If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to send me an email.
I wish so much grace and warmth for yourself and all that you’re working to accomplish.