Productivity Genius Podcast Episode 36 How Perfectionism Slows You Down—and How to Stop It
Hello, welcome to the Productivity Genius podcast. I'm your host, Kelly Fifield, and in this episode, we are talking about perfectionism. The reason this is important is that it can seriously slow you down. Now, a lot of my super high-achieving listeners may identify with being perfectionists. In some ways, it serves you really well. People who identify as perfectionists are often super hardworking and willing to put in long hours and extra work to create excellent output.
The problem is that very often, they don't put much content into the world because they're constantly trying to perfect it. They don't want to put work out that isn't top-notch. Now, this may sound like a good thing—doesn't everyone want to produce top-notch content? But if you think about it, if you put that requirement on everything you produce, you'll probably produce a lot less.
Probably, if you were willing to produce B-minus work, you'd be able to produce a lot more and get a lot more helpful things out into the world. The best way to improve on things that you've created is to get them out there, get some feedback, and fix it.
Now, if you think of yourself as a perfectionist, then for sure, this episode is for you. If you love a perfectionist or know one, then this episode will be really helpful for you as well.
The first thing you have to know is that being a perfectionist is not something that comes naturally to you or that you were born with. It's a habitual way of thinking. It's practiced habits, and it's a protective mechanism. So what is it protecting you from? It's protecting you from criticism, but probably not the criticism you think it's protecting you from.
Today, I'm going to show you the three levels of perfectionist awareness and why getting to level three is going to be an amazing gift for you or whoever you know and love who is a perfectionist.
Now, if you remember—and I'm sure you wouldn't—but last year, I dedicated 2024 as the year of imperfection. I knew back then that I would say I was at level two of awareness. I thought that perfectionism was slowing me down and that I was just nervous about how I would be judged by content that might not be perfect.
But I've now reached level three, and I want to share that with you so that you can get there too.
Level one perfectionism is the level where you're actually proud to be a perfectionist. You're proud of it. You think maybe you're a little superior because you're such a perfectionist, and you kind of take a little bit of pride in it. You think, "Well, I'm just so meticulous, and I like to do things so well." If someone were to call you a perfectionist, you're kind of proud of it.
This is not where you want to stay. If you're identifying with that, keep listening so you know why this is holding you back.
Level two awareness is realizing that being a perfectionist might be protecting you from criticism. And it's very natural to think it's protecting you from criticism by others. You're trying to create flawless work so nobody judges you. And if they do judge you, they only judge you positively. This is where most people's understanding of perfectionism ends. They're half right there. It is a fear of criticism. But when you get to level three, you realize what actual criticism you're fearful of.
When you get to level three awareness of perfectionism, you realize that the true fear is self-judgment. Now, stay with me here.
What I realized is that when I make a mistake, I thought the problem was that people were not going to think as highly of me. People would think I'm dumb or I'm incompetent or some other negative thing.
But it turns out this is what the root of the problem is. For me, it's making a mistake. It may be something similar for you. When I make a mistake, the connection I was making was actually very childlike. And I think you'll find that some of your biggest obstacles are tied to juvenile.
And I don't mean that in a judgmental way. I mean in the literal sense—like childlike emotions and fears. When I was growing up, I had the best parents, and they were constantly telling me how wonderful I was. And I got a lot of praise for things like school and sports and stuff like that. And, of course, I loved it.
The connection I made in my little kid brain is, "I do good things, and therefore, I'm good."
You can see the natural negative connection that my brain also made: if I do bad things or if I mess up, I am bad.
Perfectionism usually connects to a much deeper, more painful emotion than we notice, more than just criticism by others.
There is a little kid version of you, and if you can look at a picture of yourself when you were little, what an adorable little love you were. Picture that little version of you feeling shame and pain and just wanting to hide. That's what you're trying to avoid when you are perfecting things.
Now, what's so good to know is that this is what you are trying to protect yourself from. You are trying to protect that little child from feeling that pain.
And so you can see why you might work so hard to make sure everything goes well, to make sure everything is as perfect as it can be. Because who wants that little child to feel that shame, pain, or isolation?
So here's the amazing thing about getting to that level three awareness: You can know that when you are pushing and pushing and pushing to get this, whatever it is, improved more and more, you keep adding to it, fixing it, up leveling it, editing it, revising it... you're just trying to protect that little kid version of you that is so scared to feel those emotions that they might feel when you judge them.
If you put something out in the world and someone criticizes it, how are you going to take that?
For those of us who are perfectionists, most of us will make that mean something negative about us. Somehow, we're not that good. We are flawed. We should feel shame.
Logically, we know this is not true when we make mistakes. It's totally fine. Everyone makes mistakes, right?
But just knowing this logically isn't all we need. We need that reassurance. We need to reassure that little kid part of us that is so scared to do something wrong. We need to let that part of us know that it's okay, that we're not going to beat up on them when they're sad or feeling scared or hiding because they made a mistake. We're going to comfort them. We're not going to berate them. We're going to protect them.
And that means protecting you from you. Because if you have a background of being a perfectionist, like I do, then I'd bet the house that you also have a past of being really, really hard on yourself.
That part of you that is really hard on yourself has created these other parts of you that have to work really hard to try to create situations where that critic doesn't have the opportunity to show up.
And then it's also created and reinforced that scared little kid who's had the experience of being scolded and judged by ourselves so many times.
Once you get to this level three awareness and you see that the reason you try to perfect things is to protect that little kid part of you from you, from you being so hard on yourself, this can be completely liberating.
This does not mean, unfortunately, that you're not going to beat yourself up anymore. That's a decision you have to make. And making that decision still isn't going to break this whole cycle.
In order to break that cycle and be able to produce work that isn't perfect, you have to practice.
Reacting and actively monitoring your thoughts when you make a mistake. Notice, maybe for the rest of your life, when you make a mistake, you're likely going to have some automatic negative thoughts that come up of judgment: "How could I be so stupid? I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I think of that?"
Whatever those thoughts are that you've been habitually thinking in the past, they're probably still going to come up.
These are very easy thoughts for you to think; you've thought them so many times that it's just a reflex.
But with this new level three awareness, you can now interrupt those thoughts, protect that inner child in you, and say, "Wait a minute. Yes, this was a mistake, but we're also human. Humans make mistakes. And it's okay. That doesn't make me a bad person. It just makes me human."
One thought that you can practice thinking that has helped me is that when I make a mistake, I was doing the best I could with the thinking available to me at the time. Maybe it wasn't even a great situation. Maybe I was cranky or tired. Maybe I flew off the handle and said something I wish I hadn't. But at the time, that's where my brain was at.
I had all these experiences that day, or all of these different things had lined up. And the way I was thinking, I did this thing because this is what I thought the outcome was, and I was wrong.
Everyone's always doing the best they can with the thinking they have available to them.
Yes, some people have some pretty crappy thinking and do some pretty crappy things, but that's not you. You're always doing the best you can with the thinking you have available to you.
And what you can decide right now, going forward, is that when you make a mistake, you're going to support yourself.
When those negative thoughts come up, you're going to see them and answer them and treat yourself with compassion.
If you're having trouble thinking about how you can respond to yourself with compassion, think about how you would respond to someone you love: your best friend, your mom, your husband, your kids. If they made that same mistake, would you say to them what you're saying to yourself?
Probably not.
And that little kid part of you that's scared of what you're going to say to them, if you picture that little kid, would you say that to that little kid? Probably not. I hope not. Of course not.
I know for me, picturing the little kid version of me makes this process a little bit easier.
I still naturally have thoughts that are pretty mean when I make a mistake. But thankfully, now I notice them, and I recognize them as just the way I used to think.
And when you can become the watcher of your thoughts, it gives you a little bit of power over them, and you can use that power to support yourself.
The more you practice this, the easier it becomes, and the more evidence you provide to yourself that, in the future, you're going to be kind to yourself. As you get more and more of that evidence, it will get easier to do things and produce things that maybe aren't so overly produced and perfected.
This would be a great thing for you because it would make you move faster, get things done faster, and also get all of the amazing things inside of you out into the world so you can help all of us.
If you're not a perfectionist but you know one, I hope this episode helps you be a little bit more compassionate and understanding of their situation. If it frustrates you that they spend so much time doing things, I hope this helps you understand why.
There's a scared little kid inside of them that they're just trying to protect.
It's actually very sweet.
And now that you know that, you can be there to support them when they do make a mistake and they start to spiral into that negative self-talk.
I've said it before, but it's definitely worth saying again. You absolutely can decide today, right now, that you'll never beat yourself up again.
If you've lived a lifetime of beating yourself up over and over again, it's going to be natural for you to do it. But once you decide you're never going to do it again, you can notice when you start to go into it and stop that.
Just because you decide you're never going to beat yourself up again doesn't mean your brain isn't going to try to take you down that path. If this is how you've operated your whole life, it's still your natural inclination. But once you make that decision, you can kind of see it coming. You can see it starting, and then remind yourself, "Oh yeah, I don't do that anymore."
If just one of you uses this episode to decide you were never going to beat yourself up again, I would say every episode of the podcast that I've ever produced or ever will was totally worth it.
Maybe 2025 can be your year of self-love and compassion.
Having an amazing week.
