How to Overcome Perfectionism (for High Achievers)

"What if it's not good enough?"

"What if I make a mistake?"

"I'm not ready yet. I just need to check one more thing."

Does this sound like you?

You rewrite the email five times before you hit send. You check the proposal again at 11pm, even though you've already checked it twice. From the outside, you look like you have it all together. On the inside, it feels heavy, and you can't quite work out why.

And then there's the bigger thing.

The business you've wanted to start for years. The promotion you keep "preparing" for. The dream holiday you'll take "when things calm down". The wardrobe that finally matches the person you've become. You know you're capable of it. The people around you know you're capable of it.

And yet it's no closer than it was a year ago.

Another year goes by. Then another.

That's the real cost of perfectionism. Time. Years of it, spent getting ready for a life you keep postponing.

If that's you, keep reading.

In this article I'll show you what perfectionism looks like in high achievers, why the usual advice doesn't work for you, and the steps I use with my clients to overcome perfectionism. Without lowering your standards.

Perfectionists rarely look stuck. They look busy, capable and reliable. Underneath, this is often what's going on:

• You stay in research mode for weeks, because you're "not ready yet".

• You delay launching, sending or asking until it's perfect. (It never is.)

• You think in all-or-nothing terms. Either you do it 100%, or you don't do it at all.

• A small mistake keeps you up at night.

• You find it hard to delegate, because nobody will do it as well as you.

• You hold yourself to standards you'd never expect from anyone else.

Picture a copywriter about to send a first draft to a new client.

"What if they hate it? What if they regret paying me? What if they think I'm terrible at this?"

So the draft gets polished for another week. The deadline slips. The stress grows.

After years of coaching high achievers, I've come to see perfectionism as a problem with your relationship with yourself. When you attack yourself for every mistake, making a mistake feels dangerous. So your mind does the sensible thing. It stops you from taking bold, messy action, because bold action could lead to a mistake. And a mistake leads to an attack.

From you.

That's a lot of pressure to live with every day.

Let me be clear about one thing first. I love high standards.

I love an eye for detail. I love people who strive for more and aim for excellence. And I'll say something a little unpopular here: we've become far too comfortable with mediocrity. Kids get participation certificates for turning up. Somewhere along the way, wanting to be excellent started to sound like a problem.

Why don't we love excellence anymore?

So if you're worried a coach will tell you to lower the bar, relax. I won't.

What I will do is help you tell the difference between high standards and impossible standards. Because they feel very different from the inside.

High standards come from your values. They're a choice. They sound like: "Yes, this is hard. However, this is important to me, therefore I choose to do it." They stretch you, and you can keep them for life.

Impossible standards come from somewhere else. Other people's expectations. Your idea of what someone at your level "should" be doing. They run on "should" and "must". They're rigid and black and white. And they keep showing you that you're not good enough.

Think of two people who want to be fit.

The first decides, "I want to be someone who takes care of their body for life." They train most weeks, eat well most days, and stay in good shape all year round.

The second wants to get fit for the summer, so they change everything overnight. New diet, gym every day, no treats. Three weeks later they drop the plan because they can't sustain it.

Same goal. Very different standards.

Or take the 5am club. You read that a hugely successful person gets up at 5am, so you force yourself to do it too. Never mind that your best work happens in the afternoon and you need your sleep. That's an impossible standard: borrowed from someone else, and never checked against your own life.

High standards are a free-will choice.

Yes, you might be pushing yourself to do something outside your comfort zone, or something you're just not very good at yet, so it doesn't feel good. But last time I checked, nobody is pointing a gun at you and forcing you to do it. Slow down, look a little deeper within yourself, and you'll realise it's a choice after all.

"I know I don't have to do this. But actually, I choose to."

Free will is your divine privilege. Use it.

Impossible standards, on the other hand, slow you down. You procrastinate, you criticise yourself, you feel worse, and from that feeling you're even less likely to act. Perfectionism can become a very sophisticated excuse not to move forward.

Search for "how to overcome perfectionism" and you'll find plenty of tips. Lower your standards. Set a timer. Done is better than perfect.

They sound sensible. And if you're a high achiever, they probably haven't worked for you.

Lowering your standards feels wrong, because your standards are part of who you are. And the tips skip the real issue. Most people think they need a better strategy, when really it's a feeling they can't handle.

That feeling shows up in your body before you even notice it in your head. A tight chest. A knot in your stomach. The sudden urge to check your emails, or clean out the fridge.

That's the moment you back out. Often without realising it.

I need you to realise something. Every time you don't follow through on an action you say you want to take, there's an emotion behind it. Either you don't know how to handle it in your body, or you're not prepared to feel it.

So that's where the real work happens. With the feeling.

Let me tell you about a client of mine. I'll call her Betty.

Betty ran her own business and was raising a young family. She was trying to fit everything in, with no boundaries, and she found it hard to ask for what she needed. She was so much in her head, with a constant flood of thoughts, that she couldn't feel she was heading for burnout.

On our first call, she broke down in tears.

"From the outside it looks like I have this perfect life. And I'm breaking down on the inside."

She couldn't pinpoint what was wrong. "I'm just trying to do my best. What am I doing wrong? Why does it feel so heavy?" Success, she said, should feel different.

As we worked together, we found the answer. Betty was hypercritical of herself. She treated everyone around her with kindness and support, and gave herself none of it. No rest. No boundaries. Because she "should" be nice and supportive to everyone.

That's how perfectionism leads to burnout. You hold everything to an impossible standard, you never let yourself rest, and you keep pushing until your body pushes back.

Every client is different, so in coaching I always tailor this. These are the steps I come back to again and again.

On the outside, perfectionism looks much the same in everyone. Underneath, there's usually one main block driving it. The most common ones I see:

• Your relationship with failure. Failing feels like proof you're not good enough.

• Fear of making a mistake. One error, and you attack yourself for days.

• Fear of judgement. "What will people think?"

• Needing approval. You have to be liked, so everything has to be perfect.

• Your worth tied to your results. You feel only as good as your last achievement.

Knowing which one is yours tells you where to start. (Where these blocks come from in the first place is a big topic of its own. I cover it in Where does perfectionism come from? Link to Article 2 once it's live.)

I always say you can't change what you're not aware of and what you don't understand. So start by getting curious. Ask yourself:

• How does perfectionism show up for me?

• What is it costing me in time, money, energy and relationships?

• What am I missing out on because of it?

"Oh, I'm such a perfectionist."

Sound familiar? A lot of us say it with a little smile, like a badge of honour. As if it proves we care more than everyone else.

I'm going to say this with love, but I need to say it.

There's nothing to be proud of in never pulling the trigger on the thing you say you want so much.

"I just want it to be right."

"I'm not ready yet."

"I need one more course first."

"My clients deserve the best."

They sound so noble, don't they?

Let's be honest about what this is. It's fear.

And while you're perfecting, polishing and preparing, someone less experienced than you is launching. Someone less capable than you is getting the client, the promotion, the opportunity you've been "getting ready" for. You've seen it happen. Probably more than once.

Ouch. I know.

There's a saying I love, and I want you to read it twice:

So, one question to sit with. If you stopped calling yourself a perfectionist tomorrow, who would you be instead? And what would you finally do?

Make the conscious choice to drop the label. Expect it to take practice, because you're learning a new way of being. That's fine. You'll be learning in action, for once.

As a perfectionist, Betty believed everything was equally important at all times. She was trying to change every area of her life at once. So she froze, procrastinated and left projects unfinished.

We put some positive limits around her mind. She chose one major priority for this season of her life, and let everything else run at around 70%. Good enough, for now.

That was a revolutionary idea for her. The main thing is the main thing. Once it gets easier and becomes a habit, you reach for the next one.

This is where self-compassion comes in. At first, Betty didn't even know how to be kind to herself, so we gave her the language: "How else could you speak to yourself in this moment?"

She swapped "You must do this" for "What do I need to show up for this at my very best?"

When the anxiety comes ("What if you mess it up?"), notice where you feel it in your body. A tight chest. A knot in your stomach. Heat in your face.

Then let the physical sensation be there, and don't make it a problem. It's simply how this emotion feels in your body.

The more you allow the feeling to be there, the faster it passes through you. And the fewer escape signals your system sends you.

Because when you treat the feeling as a problem, your subconscious takes over: "We can't survive this feeling. We need to get away from it." And suddenly you have a very convenient thought: "Hmm, how about I go and rearrange my sock drawer? Right now."

Can you see how treating an uncomfortable emotion as a problem hijacks your behaviour?

When you slow down and get conscious, you can let the sensation be felt. And then you simply carry on with what you were doing.

Feelings pass. The more you practise, the less they get to decide what you do.

Praise yourself for doing difficult things, and for trying again.

And yes, I already know praising yourself feels almost impossible. Practically illegal, right? But hear me out.

Your brain needs evidence that you're becoming someone who follows through. And your brain learns through reps, so every small win counts.

So every time you catch yourself, give yourself credit: "I just caught myself wanting to rearrange my sock drawer to avoid sending that email. And I sent it anyway. Well done, me!"

Yes, it feels a bit silly. Let it. You're learning a new skill, and new skills feel awkward at first.

We call this positive self-reinforcement. Every time you do it, your brain takes a snapshot.

As a perfectionist, you'll want to dismiss something this small as not worth noticing. Yet this is exactly how new behaviours get wired in: tiny choices that are different from what you'd normally do, repeated again and again.

That's how transformation happens.