Perfectionism and Procrastination with Audrey Holst
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
I have a very good friend who has, for years, described himself as a perfectionist procrastinator. We have had many conversations about this topic, as I find it fascinating how one’s fear of making a mistake or not being perfect on the first try results in procrastination and missing opportunities entirely. I am certain I have done this myself when the stakes seemed very high, and absolutely when I was younger and felt the need to always be on point.
At this point in my journey, I am much more aware of the importance of trying and learning than getting it perfect right off the bat. And truth be told, I have had the absolute benefit of people around me who encouraged experimentation and celebrated mistakes, missteps, and failures (I see you, Kyle and Tom).
Now, I am the first person to own my mistakes and focus on doing things differently going forward, as well as acknowledging the reality of what I’m dealing with and what happened to get me to a particular point. But, it wasn’t always that way.
For years I, like so many of you (I would imagine), was rewarded for being right–for getting things right on the first try. It’s how I excelled at school when I was younger and powered through information and learning.
When I got it right on the first try, everyone celebrated me. But, you know what I learned from that? You get ONE shot to get things right. Otherwise, it doesn’t count.
Talk about pressure. 🤯
Thankfully, I had a lot of opportunities to be humbled along the way, which helped (probably out of necessity, let’s be honest) to change my perspective.
Today’s guest, Audrey Holst is a coach who specializes in transforming perfectionism when it no longer serves a person.
In this episode, she points out a really key difference between operating from a place of excellence vs a place of perfectionism: with perfectionism the behaviour is tied to the human, whereas with excellence the beahviour is an action of the human.
The way she explains this difference reminds me a lot of the difference between guilt and shame. Shame’s talk track being “I am bad” and guilt’s being “I did a bad thing”. It’s a subtle difference but, much like that of excellence and perfection, it makes a WORLD of difference in how we show up, how we operate in the world, our ability to learn, bounce back, and do something different next time around.
The truth is, until perfectionism isn’t serving us, starts to burn us out or has a negative impact on those around us, it works. And, we aren’t likely to make it a priority to change something that is working when it’s working. But when it no longer works, that’s the opportunity to make a change.
As Audrey so beautifully puts it, it’s all about the Perfectionist 2-Step:
See it, and fix it.
Listen in to hear what makes perfectionists great and see if there are some slight shifts you can make (whether you consider yourself a perfectionist or not) that might serve you better.
-----
To learn more about Audrey Holst, and to get her guide on the Perfectionist Archetypes, visit https://fortitudeandflow.com/perfectionist/. She is also on Instagram (@fortitudeandflow) and LinkedIn.