“For every pathology there is an underlying biochemical defect.”—Scientific American During the intake process for new clients I have a Client Intake Questionnaire (CIQ) that delves into their mindset, thinking, imprinting, and their own biases. Clients often tell me upon onboarding how much it helped them become self-aware and how much it helped them where they struggle, now with much better clarity than they had, before even our first meeting, as result of their own honest responses to the CIQ. One of the items that comes up often in response to the questions is on their Development, Barriers to growth, where they feel stuck, or Performance Review sections in the CIQ. In responses to any of these items, some admit how pursuing “perfectionism” in their jobs has not only held them back, but also has caused deep internal struggle in their everyday functioning, often resulting in stress, resentment from others in their workgroup, and performance issues for them (“I never finish a task; my manager has to yank it out of my “To-do list”). Over the years after working with thousands of clients this illusory “pursuit of perfectionism” has come up with so many clients that I thought it might be worth writing about, just in case there are others who suffer from it, but are afraid to admit that they do. Let us first see the dictionary definition of perfection: OED defines Perfect (adjective) as “free from any flaw or defect of quality; in a state of supreme excellence.” If you now take this definition and apply it to your everyday tasks you can at once see the problem creating or delivering anything perfect (and, who cares?). To create anything free of flaw or defect is near impossibility. Even nature fails to produce perfect examples of what she creates with her infinite resources and patience. So, who are we, as mortals, to challenge that paradigm? Most perfectionists fail to realize that by pursuing perfectionism they have unwittingly surrendered themselves becoming more imperfect, since they can never achieve it; all the grief that it causes everyone involved in its attainment, aside. Part of the problem, too, is that their view of what perfection is, is also subjective, thus attaining perfection can be an illusory pursuit. So, what are some of the ways you can deal with this “disease” (see the blog’s title and the Sci-Am quote)? Here is my prescription: When taking on your next task clearly understand the requirements that define what makes that task complete. Most people do not bother to delve into the task’s requirements from the “customer” and then compound their own problem in dealing with it by making assumptions about what constitutes the completion of that task. Once you meet the requirements given to you and agreed by both parties you apply your common sense and mutually refine them (if needed) BEFORE you start working on it. Remember that for you to deliver quality outcome you must meet the agreed requirements and nothing more. Exceeding the requirements does not make the outcome of that task better; it can, actually, make it worse in many ways. As an example let us say that you are a physician and you have a patient walking in with high fever (104°F or 40°C). Your immediate job is to bring that down to the “normal” temperature (“requirement”). Normal temperature can be about (98°F or 37°C). As a perfectionist what are you going to do? Just think about its implications with you as a practitioner of medicine and as someone there to heal sick people. If you encounter problems meeting the set requirements (timeline, resources, and other unforeseen situations) you must immediately regroup and forge a new plan to fashion the best solution to meet the critical and changed parameters of delivering your task. Most “perfectionists” fail here. They inevitably box themselves into their own little perfect mindset and concoct all sorts of approaches that constrain their efforts to attain what they consider to be their ideal solution to the problem. They further exacerbate their situation by often keeping it to themselves. If, instead, they escalate this to the team or their leader, chances are that someone—or collectively—there will be a “workable” solution. Most perfectionists have deep insecurities about their capabilities and they often manifest them through their arrogance or insolence. This creates a barrier for others—even their managers—to intervene when some remedy is possible to bring the task back on track early in the process. One countermeasure is for them to be open about their progress, need for help, and willingness to collaborate. If you take the quotation at the top of the blog to heart you’ll realize that striving for perfection is a disease. Instead, striving for excellence is a virtue. So, see if you can re-program your mindset from perfection to excellence and work at it by using some of the ideas I have listed above. Good luck!