Julian’s Business Tips: Are You a Perfect Business Person?
We all want to do things right, but is your perfectionism actually a problem? We’ve talked about being decisive before, but in our
world, most situations do not have one ‘right’ way to doing things, often several responses can work given the demands of the situation.
Unfortunately, a lot of talented people naturally think in terms of black or white, right or wrong, yes or no – and the more you do it, the harder it is to see the grey areas in between. The world isn’t binary, most life situations vary in degrees depending on the context in which we act. The key is what is known as ‘good enough thinking’. When doing a task, we need to know when our response or performance is ‘good enough’ or know which option among the alternatives is good enough.
Over time, people become competent in measuring what is good enough. With honest self reflection you can match, monitor, and modify your behaviour accordingly. ‘Good enough’ is measured by matching your performance to meet the task’s objectives at hand. Some people have trouble with ‘good enough’ thinking – they pride themselves on problem-solving, so feel answers are right or wrong. Unfortunately, this leads to a strong need to be perfect – any performance that is not perfect is a failure.
And THAT can damage your confidence, lower your self-esteem and introduces self-doubt. As such high expectation is impossible to reach, these feelings of incompetence and anxiety can actually feed your drive for perfectionism. It’s a vicious circle.
So don’t try to be perfect – be happy with good enough. Look at what the situations demands – what is actually necessary – and make decisions to achieve that.
Finally, use honest self-reflection to fine tune your ‘good enough’ thinking!
