Do you feel held back in your professional life because of perfectionism? You’re definitely not alone.
I struggled with perfectionism my whole life and it wasn’t until I overcame it that I realized how much it limited my potential.
What helped me get over it was content creation. For years I had wanted to start making video content, whether it be on YouTube or Instagram, but I raised the bar so high for myself that I couldn’t even start.
Once I started studying viral educational content on TikTok, I noticed a pattern – they were just average looking people, talking very plainly, mostly shot on their selfie camera and there was often an element of obvious imperfection to it that nobody ever complained about, in fact it was expected.
I thought to myself, I can definitely do this. I already had a video I was going to comment on that had gone viral before. So I got out my phone, recorded myself commenting on the video with the green screen filter, posted it and watched it take off to nearly 2 million views! You can watch it here.
No script, no podcast mic, no fancy camera equipment, no video editing software. It was all done in my poorly lit kitchen with my iPhone.
So why did I think I needed to be a professional film maker with high end equipment?
I was afraid that the quality would not be good enough to put myself out there. I thought nobody would want to click on my video when they have no idea who I am. It was all irrational fear.
That’s all perfectionism is – an irrational fear of failure. Expecting perfect outcomes is robbing you of even trying because it causes anxiety and “avoidance procrastination”.
Why would avoiding failure be a bad thing?
Because failure is a necessary ingredient to success. You have to fail a bunch of times to collect valuable data on what doesn’t work, so you can make modifications and try again with new strategies.
Resilience is the enemy of perfectionism because it means accepting failure as part of the process.
Allow yourself to fail because every successful person that you’re comparing yourself to has failed hard in the beginning and may still be failing in many other ways that they aren’t showing you.
Stay curious my friend.
Your very imperfect coach,
Tony Ramella