Expecting too much of ourselves

I was chatting with a colleague today and she said she hadn’t completed a task to ‘her standards’. I enquired what the standards were. They existed in her mind but not on paper and not in writing. She'd said: ‘It has to be neat, look professional, be better than anything I’ve ever done for them before, be the best I can do, be me at my best.’

Do you see how difficult it will be to reach each of these unmeasurable, undefinable targets?

As she's working on her task she’s also not so complimentary about her progress. She was denigrating and rejecting it. ‘It’s just not good enough yet’, she said.

And here it is. This is perfectionism; the ’not good enough yet’ drug.

The drive we have to make things better because we wrongly believe: - people are paying more attention than they are, - that it matters more than it really does, and - that what we’ve done so far won’t cut it. We're too critical of our ideas, work and success.

We berate, scold, criticise and reprimand ourselves. Repeatedly. Would we do this to another human? This harshly? I doubt it. It's time to firstly define the standard... and then be kinder to ourselves.

Q: What are you 'beating yourself up' over right now? 

An empty email box is the wrong measure of productivity

And likely a waste of time. I think it’s crazy that we would try to get to the bottom of our email inboxes and empty them as a priority.

Yes there are are fans of it, religious fanatics of getting to 'zero'. It’s an accomplishment indeed ... and damn it if we humans aren’t fired up, inspired and encouraged by progress we make. It makes us feel neat and tidy and organised and we know what's going on.

The control freak in us loves the control we gain over all that information, flicking it off to folders or ticking it off for filing or trash. But here's the question: how are you progressing on your goals, projects and initiatives? The stuff that really matters? I get it that an empty email inbox might seriously matter to you.

But might you possibly, maybe, potentially, be using the time and activity of "controlling" email as a distraction or procrastination from time spent on other more worthy, worthwhile and noble projects?

I'm not suggesting ignoring your email; but what's the measure of success with all your other projects?

Reply all with your thoughts! 😜 Are you a fan of living in your email inbox or are you facing out, making progress on other projects?

You could be working too long and hard on that thing

You could be working too long and hard on that thing. 

True. Shocking but true.

Working too hard for too long can lead us to burnout. The World Health Organisation recently categorized, called out and flagged that burnout is an actual thing, not just a cliched word or simple behaviour that could be remedied if we’d only manage our time better.

So why are we burning out? We’re working too long and too hard on things. We're often striving for some unattainable perfection, trying to make something better or neater or prettier because it’s 'not good enough' yet.

But hello! Effort doesn’t equal reward. Well, not equally anyway.

> Because something was hard work doesn't make it good.

> Because it took a long time doesn't make it better.

> Because we worked on it for hours and hours doesn't make the quality better, or necessarily reflect better on us.

Our relationship to time, effort and our own activity is distorted. Stop burning yourself out and start trying some of the newer ways of thinking and working that involve working in increments and iterations, and allowing imperfections.

Are you working long and hard on something at the moment that could fall into this category?

You don’t have to be the perfect leader

In fact you don't need to be the 'perfect' anything: friend, parent, partner, colleague, companion. Setting yourself an expectation to be perfect at anything is a journey to disappointment.

And that's what disappointment is : it's the gap between what happens and what your expectation is.

Ease off.

You don't need to try so hard, work so hard or work so long. This drive for perfect anything or everything is making us way too hard on ourselves.

Where might you benefit from easing off on an expectation you have of yourself?

Careful how you answer this popular job interview question!

Next time you’re preparing for a job role interview, think carefully. If a potential employer asks the classic question about weaknesses, what will you say?

Many people offer in response to the ‘What’s your greatest weakness?’ question that they're a perfectionist. They think it still sounds positive, not too bad a weakness.

Saying you're a perfectionist can sound like you're a hard worker and that you have high standards. But beware! Perfectionism isn’t turning out to be a good trait after all.

Recent data from PhD researchers Curran and Hill have uncovered that perfectionism is on the rise globally and it's a behaviour that's not making us feel good about ourselves nor helping us bring our best to a job role. Perfectionism has links to depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, migraines, asthma, insomnia and plenty of other nasties.

It's time to stop putting our hand up for something that isn't helping us or a potential employer.

What's a weakness you'd rather share in an interview ... that's not perfectionism?