446: When Good Enough Feels Like Failure And How Perfectionism Creates Pressure A Podcast For Accountants And High-Stress Professionals
446: When Good Enough Feels Like Failure And How Perfectionism Creates Pressure A Podcast For Accountants And High-Stress Professionals
You may not call yourself a perfectionist, but have you ever had a simple thought like I care about doing things right? You want your work to be accurate. You want your clients to be happy. You want to be dependable. You want to make good decisions. You want people to be able to count on you. Don’t get me wrong. Those are all good things. But sometimes, that desire to do things well can easily turn into something else. You start believing that mistakes aren’t acceptable. You spend way too much time checking and rechecking. You have trouble letting go of a project because it could always be a little better. You worry about what someone might think. You replay conversations after they happen, and sometimes you don’t just want to do a good job. You feel like you need to do a perfect job. That’s what I want to talk about today. Because perfectionism can look like excellence but it can often feel like pressure for accountants, CPAs, bookkeepers, tax preparers, business owners, or high stress professionals that never turns off. Let’s dive in…
Whether you’re an accountant, CPA, bookkeeper, tax preparer, business owner, or other high-stress professional, this episode will give you practical ideas you can use to think more clearly, respond more intentionally, and get more out of life.
FREE RESOURCE
Feeling The Pressure? Start here.
Get the free 10-Minute Pressure Reset. A practical resource to help you pause, identify what’s creating the pressure, shift your perspective, and choose your next best step. Get the free 10-Minute Pressure Reset here:
LOOKING FOR MORE SUPPORT?
If you’re ready to stop simply managing the pressure and start leading yourself through it, learn more about The RE*INVENTION™ Process Private Client Experience here:
MORE FROM THIS EPISODE
SHOW NOTES:
You may not call yourself a perfectionist, but have you ever had a simple thought like I care about doing things right? You want your work to be accurate. You want your clients to be happy. You want to be dependable. You want to make good decisions. You want people to be able to count on you. Don’t get me wrong. Those are all good things. But sometimes, that desire to do things well can easily turn into something else. You start believing that mistakes aren’t acceptable. You spend way too much time checking and rechecking. You have trouble letting go of a project because it could always be a little better. You worry about what someone might think. You replay conversations after they happen, and sometimes you don’t just want to do a good job. You feel like you need to do a perfect job. That’s what I want to talk about today. Because perfectionism can look like excellence but it can often feel like pressure for accountants, CPAs, bookkeepers, tax preparers, business owners, or high stress professionals that never turns off. Let’s dive in…
Welcome Back…There's a Difference Between Excellence and Perfectionism. Let's start here. I don't want you to hear this episode and think I'm telling you to lower your standards. Especially if you're an accountant, that's probably not going to work very well. Accuracy matters. Details matter. Deadlines matter. Your clients are trusting you with important things. There are situations where "good enough" genuinely isn't good enough. So I'm not talking about becoming careless. I'm talking about understanding the difference between having high standards and believing you must be perfect. High standards sound like, "I want to do a great job." Perfectionism sounds more like, "I can't make a mistake." High standards say, "I want this to be accurate." Perfectionism says, "If I get this wrong, it means something bad about me." High standards allow you to finish. Perfectionism keeps moving the finish line. And that difference matters. Because when your standards become tied to your identity, work can become incredibly exhausting.
I want to talk about the hidden cost of trying to get everything right. Think about what happens when you believe you can't make mistakes. You might check an email three times before sending it. You might spend an hour rewriting something that was already perfectly fine. You might put off a decision because you don't have enough information. You might keep working on something that is already good enough because you're afraid someone will find something wrong with it. You might avoid trying something new because you don't want to look inexperienced. Or you might have a difficult conversation you've been thinking about for weeks because you're trying to figure out exactly what to say so there is no possibility of discomfort. But when you do this, there is no way to eliminate uncertainty. There is no way to guarantee that everyone will be happy with you. There is no way to guarantee that you won't make a mistake. And there is no way to control exactly how another person will respond. So when you make perfection your goal, you're chasing something you can never completely achieve. And that creates pressure.
What is it that you are trying to protect yourself from? Here's a question I want you to consider. What do you think will happen if you aren't perfect? Take a moment and think about it. Maybe the answer is something like, "They'll be disappointed." "They'll think I'm not good at my job." "I'll lose the client." "My boss will think I'm incompetent." "I'll look stupid." "I'll disappoint someone." "I'll make a mistake that I can't fix." "People won't trust me." Or maybe it's something even deeper like, "I'll feel like I failed." This is where perfectionism gets interesting. Because often, perfectionism isn't really about the work. It's about what you believe the work says about you. If I make a mistake, maybe I'm not good enough. If the client isn't happy, maybe I did something wrong. If I don't know the answer immediately, maybe I'm not as capable as I thought. If I can't keep up with everything, maybe I'm failing. And now a simple mistake isn't just a mistake. It becomes a threat to your identity. That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself.
Did you know you can be responsible without being perfect? One of the most important things I want you to hear from this podcast is that you can take your work seriously without taking every mistake personally. You can care about doing excellent work without requiring yourself to be flawless. You can take responsibility without taking on blame for everything. You can correct a mistake without deciding that you're a failure. And you can learn something without beating yourself up for not already knowing it. This is what leading yourself under pressure looks like. It isn't saying that nothing matters. It’s saying that this matters, and I can handle the possibility that it won't go perfectly. That's a much more powerful place to operate from.
I want you to start thinking differently about making mistakes. Let's use the first part of my framework from The RE*INVENTION™ Process, THINK. Pay attention to the thoughts you have when something doesn't go the way you wanted. Maybe you hear yourself saying something like, "I should have caught that." "I can't believe I did that." "I should have known better." "Why didn't I think of that?" "I'm better than this." "I need to make sure that never happens again." Some of those thoughts might seem harmless. But notice what happens when you pile them on top of a mistake. The original problem may be small. But now you're not only worrying about the problem, but also the criticism, the worry, and the fear about what it all means to or about you. Instead, try asking yourself, "What is actually true here?" Maybe you made a mistake. Okay. What needs to be corrected? What can you learn? What can you do differently next time? And then ask yourself if you can allow this to be a mistake without making it a statement about who I am? That's a very different way of thinking.
Then you get to choose how you want to respond instead of simply reacting. Perfectionism often creates automatic reactions. You make a mistake, and you immediately start working harder. You get critical feedback, and you immediately start defending yourself. A client is unhappy, and you immediately assume you've done something wrong. You realize you've forgotten something, and you start beating yourself up. But you don't have to react that way. You can pause. You can breathe. You can get the facts. You can decide what actually needs to happen next. Maybe your response could be, "I made a mistake, and I'll correct it." Maybe it's, "I don't have all the information yet, and I need to find out more." Maybe it's, "This person is disappointed, and I can handle that." Maybe it's, "I did the best I could with what I knew at the time." That's not making excuses. That's responding instead of reacting. And there is a tremendous amount of freedom in that.
Then we move from RESPOND to LIVE by asking yourself what would you do if you didn’t have to be perfect. This is where perfectionism can really cost you. Because when you're constantly trying to get everything right, you may spend a huge amount of your life trying to avoid discomfort. You avoid the difficult conversation. You avoid making the decision. You avoid trying something new. You avoid delegating because nobody will do it exactly the way you would. You avoid taking time off because there's too much to do. You avoid enjoying what you've accomplished because you're already focused on what's next. And here's a question I'd love for you to think about. What would you do differently if you didn't have to be perfect? Would you take the vacation? Would you leave work on time? Would you finally start that project? Would you delegate something? Would you have the conversation? Would you try something you've been putting off? Would you allow yourself to enjoy something before everything else was finished? This is why this matters. Perfectionism doesn't just affect your work. It can take up space that belongs to your life.
Here’s my simple experiment to try this week. It’s not a giant assignment. Just something to notice. This week, look for one situation where you notice yourself thinking something like, "I need to get this exactly right." And pause. Ask yourself three questions. 1. What is actually required here? Not what would be ideal. Not what would impress everyone. Not what would make you feel completely safe. What is actually required? 2. What would "good enough" look like? Not careless. Not sloppy. Just good enough to accomplish the purpose. And then, number 3, what would I do if I trusted myself to handle whatever happens next? That last question is important. Because sometimes perfectionism is really a lack of trust. You don't trust yourself to handle the mistake. You don't trust yourself to have the conversation. You don't trust yourself to deal with someone's disappointment. You don't trust yourself to recover if something goes wrong. So you try to prevent everything from going wrong. But you can't. You don't need to trust yourself to make everything go perfectly. You need to trust yourself to handle things when they don't. That's a very different kind of confidence.
I want you to understand something really important today. I'm not asking you to lower your standards. I'm asking you to stop making perfectionism the price of feeling okay about yourself. You can still do excellent work. You can still care about your clients. You can still check your numbers. You can still meet your deadlines. You can still strive for growth. But you can also make a mistake. You can have a difficult day. You can make the wrong decision sometimes. You can disappoint someone. You can get something wrong. And none of those things have to determine your worth. You are allowed to be a human being while doing important work.
This is what Leading Yourself Under Pressure is really about. You can't always control the workload. You can't always control deadlines. You can't always control your clients. You can't always control whether someone is disappointed. And you certainly can't control whether everything goes perfectly. But you can change how you lead yourself through those moments. THINK. Remember to notice the story you're telling yourself. RESPOND. Choose what actually needs to happen instead of automatically reacting to the pressure. LIVE. Remember that your career is only part of your life, not your entire life. So the next time you catch yourself thinking, "I need to get this perfect," pause. Ask yourself, "What is actually true here?" Then ask, "What would good enough look like?" And finally, "Can I trust myself to handle whatever happens next?" You may discover that you don't need to eliminate the possibility of making a mistake. You just need to trust yourself enough to know that if you do, you'll figure out what to do next. And that may be a much more sustainable way to live and work. Remember, you don't have to be perfect to be successful. You don't have to get everything right to be proud of the life you're creating. You can care deeply about your work without letting your work determine how you feel about yourself.
Comments