Bold, Sustainable Leadership for Social Impact Leaders in a Time of Crisis

So I've been thinking a lot about perfectionism lately.

I'm a perfectionist.

I'm sorry, everyone.

This is exactly who I am, and I'm sure the listeners can relate to it too, right?

Yeah.

Like, there is a lot of pressure that we put on ourselves to-

Mm-hmm

... show up a certain way.

Now I feel like perfectionism is actually a way of people-pleasing.

I don't wanna get anything wrong, I don't wanna upset anyone, I don't want to disappoint my board.

Perfectionism often comes from early in our lives.

It comes from how we were trained in school, it comes from our families of origin.

It's like all those messages that said, "Don't make waves.

You're a joy to have in class.

You always manage to get everything done.

I never have to worry about you." And particularly to women, although not only.

And then you add into that, like, the pressure of your role expanding.

You really do have more responsibility.

It feels like you're under the spotlight.

People are looking at you.

It is a hard time, and you are having to make hard decisions, and that pressure just builds and builds.

Mm.

And so the idea of perfectionism is like, I can prepare myself out of ever making a mistake, or getting caught, or getting in trouble, or getting something wrong.

It's really a self-preservation and a coping mechanism so that you don't let anyone down, including yourself.

So part of what we get to do in order to have a standard of excellence instead of a standard of perfection is build our capacity to manage uncertainty, because we actually can't control everything that's gonna happen.