KEY BEHAVIORS THAT HOLD WOMEN BACK FROM CAREER SUCCESS – part 2 – too perfect and not enough focus

April 16, 2022 Katharina Engelhardt

We all want to be more successful - in one way or another.

There is a problem, though. There is often a lot working against us and our success. We might have had a chance at a big promotion, but there were too many other good candidates. Sure, we could switch careers, but there never seems to be the right time. Sometimes it feels like everyone and everything is conspiring to steal your success! To top it off, we haven’t even mentioned everyone’s biggest impediment to success: themselves.

It’s true. We are often the authors of our own demise. We engage in behaviors and habits that hold us back from true success. That is why I wrote this blog series. Over time I will examine eight key behaviors that typically hold people back from success.

In part one I did define what I mean by success. In a nutshell: “Being more successful” means accomplishing more of what you set out to accomplish. It is as simple as that. I want you to accomplish the things you want to accomplish. It’s important to note the term “you want” from that last sentence. That’s the most important lesson in life. You define what success means to you. Don’t let anyone else decide that for you. I did establish what a “success blocker” is. It is simply a behavior or habit that you engage in that negatively impacts your chance of success. These behaviors hold us back from achieving what we want to achieve. We started to s look what these success blockers are and how to deal with them.

The starting point was seeking approval. Another great way to achieve more confidence is to limit your negative self-talk. Whenever you catch your mind running wild with negative thoughts, tell it to shut up! You could also add positive affirmations to replace these negative thoughts. When you notice a negative thought brewing, replace it by saying something positive about yourself aloud.

Let´s continue to look into

Too Perfect - needing perfection

In a vacuum, the idea of seeking perfection seems fine. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do the best job possible. How can doing our absolute best hold us back from success? That’s the thing – you aren’t doing “your best.” You aren’t looking to do the “best job possible.” What you are trying to achieve is perfection – and that is impossible. Perfection is a myth. There will never be a perfect time to do something. There won’t ever be a perfect moment to act. Your products, services, or offers won’t be perfect before you go to market.

That’s OK, though. What you really want to strive for is excellence. Excellence is attainable and within your reach. Striving for perfection is just holding you back. It is costing you time, opportunity, and energy.

Real-Life Examples

There has been an open position at your workplace for a while. It’s a great opportunity. Sure, it pays more, but it also challenges you in new and unique ways. You want to talk to your manager to let them know you can take it on, but the perfect time never comes. Every time you run into them, they seem busy or annoyed. Sometimes there are other people around, and you don’t want to ruffle feathers. To your horror, one day in a circle of people, one of your colleagues tells the manager about a great idea they had for the role. The manager loves that they showed initiative. When it is time to apply for the roles, your coworker gets the new opportunity.

How to Address

Become Aware

You need to be aware of when you are slipping into perfectionism mode. When you start thinking something isn’t quite good enough, examine why. Why do you feel that way? What is the worst that can happen if you are right? A good way to achieve this is to keep a journal. Get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper. This will help you understand and organize your thoughts better.

Experiment With Excellence

If you struggle with perfectionism, experiment by aiming for 80% perfection and see what happens. 80% is an arbitrary number. It isn’t possible to quantify how perfect something is. The idea is to aim for something slightly less than perfect in your eyes. You might be surprised how well people react to whatever you are working on. The more often you do this, the more comfortable you will get forgoing perfection.

Identify Positive Mistakes

Think of some of the mistakes you have made in the past. Yes, you will be hit with some feelings of regret, but if you dig a little deeper, you might find some silver linings as well. Often, mistakes lead us towards different and better outcomes. This is another great time to use that journal we mentioned earlier. Reminding yourself that small mistakes aren’t the end of the world will help you get more comfortable with imperfection.

Focus On Meaning

It can be hard to do this, but you can break free from perfection by reframing your attitude towards your achievements in general. Instead of focusing on the result, focus on the progress you make and what it means to you. For example, instead of obsessing over if the latest report you wrote is perfect or not, think about why you wrote it in the first place. Who are you helping? How did you learn so much about this topic? What did you learn as you worked on it? What does it mean to you to make this report available to your audience?

Focus on the bigger picture is a great way to stop obsessing over perfection.

Lack of focus - not focusing on the essentials

Are you the type of person who likes to “do it all?” Do you fail to prioritize your tasks and just fly by the seat of your pants? If you answered yes to either question, you might be hurting your chances of success.

If you are the type of person who takes on everything by yourself, then you are likely spending way too much time on tasks that don’t really move the needle for you. Ideally, you prioritize the most important tasks, where most of your energy goes. Focusing on the essential – or as it is called in some circles: essentialism – will help you succeed more.

It’s tough, though. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t need to talk about it. One of the hardest things for some of us is giving up control. We don’t want to get someone else to deal with it because we know what we want and how best to do it. The problem is we get stuck in the minutia of every task. Instead of taking decisive steps that move us forward in life, we are fiddling around with tasks that anyone could do.

You must break this habit. You must first figure out what tasks are important, and then you need to find ways to focus most of your time on those.

This will require giving up control by delegating the task to someone junior to you or outsourcing the task to someone else. This way, you are still in control of the important things, and you have a team of people handling the smaller details.

How to Address

Track How You Spend Your Time

If you are struggling with your tasks or want a clearer picture of how you spend your time, then start tracking it. Plenty of apps can help you do this, but you could also get good results with a simple notebook. Tracking your time will help you quickly realize what important tasks you aren’t doing enough and what simple tasks you waste too much time on.

Define What is Important

The most important step – and easiest way – to address your lack of essentialism is to define what tasks are most important to your success. Prioritize tasks that have the biggest impact on whatever you want to achieve. These are the tasks you should be focusing on the most.

Define Routine Tasks That Aren’t Vital

What low-impact tasks or chores do you find yourself doing routinely? You need to do these tasks regularly (likely daily), but they don’t really move you forward.

These types of tasks are the best to consider outsourcing or delegating because they are low priority, steal your time/energy regularly, and should be easy to systemize.

Conclusion

Success isn’t as tricky as everyone makes it out to be. While success means different things to different people, at the end of the day, a successful person is just someone who achieves the things they want to achieve. No one can create your roadmap to success. That is something you have to seriously think about and create for yourself.

However, as a career and leadership coach I can help you avoid behaviors that typically hold people back from achieving what they want to achieve. If you can remove – or at least mitigate – these 8 behaviors from your life, then you will see better results all around. If you want to overcome perfectionism reach out to me. Here is the link to a free discovery call.

You will achieve more of the things you attempt to achieve. …and that’s success! The next blog will talk about your inner circle and fearing failure.

Best of luck on your journey. My group coaching GLOW UP! can help you to overcome the success blockers. Reach out to me to learn more.

Pin this graphic if you liked the post.

Katharina Engelhardt talks about behaviors that hold you back from career success- part 2 - needing perfection.