In this episode of INSIGHT: Scaling lessons from the street, mindset expert Megan O'Neill has picked a topic that most of us can probably relate to: Perfectionism. 🤔

Megan and her co-hosts, Andrea Henry from Henry Business Law; Shelagh Cummins, shelaghcummins.com; Wendy Brookhouse from Black Star Wealth; and Susan Diaz, cp.digital are going to share some hard truths. What is even UP with perfectionism? Why is it so insidious? And WTH with its tendency to rule every single aspect of our lives? 😡😡😡

Here’s what we know about perfectionism and perfectionists (hint: it’s NOT good):

🌟 Their standards are so high they either can’t be met or are only met with great difficulty

🌟 They lean toward the idea that anything short of perfection is a horrible catastrophe

🌟 Over time unreasonable, difficult to meet goals can cause mental and/or physical illness

🌟 And entrepreneurs who are perfectionists, who should seek constructive criticism from others when growing a company, will often instead get defensive, discouraged, and angry

It goes without saying that NONE of the above is ok. So why do us women struggle with this so much? How come fewer men seem to get blocked by perfectionism?

And why do people actually believe being a perfectionist is something to AIM FOR??

If you tend toward perfectionism, you’re not alone, as these five incredible entrepreneurs and business leaders can attest. 👯‍♀️👯‍♀️👯‍♀️

But it’s also time we ALL take steps to put a stop to it. 🛑 For more, click here and have a listen to today’s episode.  

Or, keep reading, for a sneak-peek at the perils of perfectionism! 😈😈😈 

You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Have an Impact

“On the technical side of things, I'm still a perfectionist. People telling me you should do video. And I was like ‘You have to be an artist to do video, I need to have, you know, I need to hire a videographer and they need a special place in the background looks needs to look nice. And I'm going to have to have a copywriter do the script…’ and I had so many things that needed to happen. And so, it never happened. And then one day, I promised that I was going to put out a video by the end of that month - and so I did it. And the reaction was really good. And that really was a bit of a turning point in my head. And what I put out, it was good. It certainly wasn't perfect. It wasn't what I had envisioned in my mind of what it would look like. But the response! It was impacting people, people were listening and reacting in a way that they had not been to my written words. And so that experience helped me move past the idea of perfectionism because the perfectionism was stopping me from reaching the people that I wanted to reach!”

Ask For – and Learn From - Feedback

“I think that one of the by-products that I've seen, a consequence of perfectionism, has been the micromanaging which will burn you out. And essentially, your team will hate you.

What helps is asking for feedback. I know that we all talk about, getting feedback from your clients and people you've worked with, or various types of collaborations and partnerships. But I don't think that the understanding existed for me at least on how much that can help feed into my, whatever was causing me to try to be perfect within myself, right. So, opening up questions - whether it's clients or other types of people who aren't engaging with us - and asking them what it is that they want. How will we different than somebody else who might have delivered the same service? Well, that sounds like the same old boring research questionnaire. It's humbling and what you get out of that kind of thing, is it feeds into considering that, you know, I have to do everything I possibly can!! Because if I don't, this project will self-implode, you know, that kind of thing. So those proof-points, that feedback, ultimately helps me.”

Cut People Who AREN’T Perfect Some Slack!

“As much as I'm a grammar Nazi, I've bought from people who've had typos, I bought from people who've made mistakes in their marketing, because I thought that they could help me. And more importantly, I thought that they could understand me because that, for me, that's really important when I'm working with someone. So, you know, I kind of gave myself I try to give myself the same grace that I give to other people. So, if the fact that they made a mistake didn't stop me from working with them, I trust that the people who are going to work with me understand that it's a mistake you know, want to work with me regardless.” 

Perfection DOES NOT Equal Professionalism

“I think we could all do with letting go of the belief around being perfect and I have actually eliminated that from my language with my kids. Because I noticed that when I was talking to them that I would say ‘You need to do the job perfectly.’ And I was like Ding, Ding, Ding, this is something that is not going to serve them well, because what is perfect?? You know, what does that even mean? So, I raised a generation whole new generation with this, but, um, yeah, I think that the one of the things that I noticed was maybe that perfection is is, people will associate professionalism with perfection.” 

That last one is so important. Perfection doesn’t equal professionalism. Don’t flog yourself for days over a small error. Click and have a listen. Then accept you have a million other things to offer beyond perfection.