Leverage Your Perfectionism (Don't Abandon Your Superpower)

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HEARTSET

Sunday, January 2008. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs called Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice President of Engineering about an issue that bothered him at length. He explained:

Talk about the need to be perfect. This was weeks ahead of Apple’s 2008 MacWorld keynote, where Jobs introduced custom home screen icons along with other new features.

• Did he have to call on a Sunday?

• Did he have to change the logo on the phone?

• Did he have to get it resolved the next day?

For Jobs, yes. He was a perfectionist and his standards were extraordinarily high.

So what happened? Apple developer Greg Christie followed-up with Vic the next day and helped rectify the colors.

As crazy as it may sound, it’s this level of obsession and perfectionism that brought us the products so many people love today.

So, is perfectionism all bad?

I don’t know about you, but this story lights a fire in me.

Having high standards isn’t all bad, right?

But all the “gurus” on your Instagram TikTok feed talk about overcoming perfectionism and banishing it from your life - branding perfectionism as an evil.

Turns out, perfectionism is nuanced 👇🏽

MINDSET

There seems to be two sides to the story. Some arguing that holding ourselves to high standards can reap us big rewards, while others point to studies and show that perfectionism can lead to paralysis and a procrastination-inducing fear of failure. So which side is right?

Let’s turn to research.

In a meta-analysis of 43 previous studies on perfectionism led by Andrew Hill, a professor at York St. John University in England, it turns out that there are two types of perfectionism:

The good kind and the bad kind. The difference? It’s in how high the standards are. The good kind has a high but reachable bar, whereas the bad kind as a bar so high that no human can ever reach.

Bad perfectionism:

• Constantly worry about making mistakes

• Anxious about letting people down

• Continuous thoughts of not being enough and not measuring up

• Contributes to health problems including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders

• Prolonged perfectionism of this type can also lead to early mortality

Good perfectionism:

• Insist on giving it your best

• Setting high personal standards and working towards it

• Set boundaries for the pursuit and strife of these standards

• Motivates you to push through discomfort

• Does not rely on results to feel valuable about your work

Instead of banishing everything about perfectionism, lean into the good kind and harness its power.

Good perfectionism: Set yourself a high bar and strive with no expectations.

During my research on perfectionism, I also found five different archetypes of perfectionism from the book, The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing control: A Path to Peace and Power by psychotherapist and former on-site therapist at Google Katherine Morgan Schafler.

Which one are you? (I’m mostly the Messy Perfectionist with some Intense Perfectionist) I provide you a link where you can take the super short quiz yourself.

SKILLSET

Which type of perfectionist are you?

Complete the 1 minute quiz HERE (seven questions)

Here are the 5 types of perfectionists and what you can do temper their dark sides:

1/ The Intense Perfectionist

• Motivation: Striving for success at all costs

• Strategy: Razor-sharp focus and directness

• Dark side: Lashing out at the first sign of trouble

  • What to do: Ask yourself why you are striving for these goals - seek a purpose that is bigger than yourself and direct your energies to that.

2/ The Classic Perfectionist

• Motivation: Adding structure and reliability

• Strategy: Highly organized and buttoned-up

• Dark side: Stress out when people disturb their organized world

  • What to do: Establish a mindset of agility. Being rigid doesn’t mean success, as it doesn’t allow for growth.

3/ The Parisian Perfectionist

• Motivation: Pleasing people and making them feel seen

• Strategy: Easy going and uncomplicated

• Dark side: Avoiding conflict that results in self-sacrifice and resentment

  • What to do: State your wants and needs more clearly, knowing that relationships can blossom even when your needs are met. The most crucial bit is to voice them.

4/ The Procrastinator Perfectionist

• Motivation: Want everything to go swimmingly well

• Strategy: Wait for the perfect conditions before they start

• Dark side: Nothing gets shared and no one benefits from their brilliance.

  • What to do: Establish a mindset that the best time to ship is now. And while you can plan for everything, the real data comes when the rubber meets the road.

5/ The Messy Perfectionist

• Motivation: The excitement of starting something new

• Strategy: Enthusiasm and momentum at the start

• Dark side: Projects fizzle out due to lack of follow through

  • What to do: Practice doing less, so you can focus on one project to bring to the finish line. Line up all the ideas as a series of projects, rather than parallel pathing all of them.

So if you’re someone who has high standards, don’t feel bad about it. Instead, leverage its power to do great things.

The trick is to stay on the good side by avoiding having unrealistic expectations of the outcomes and establish time boundaries where you stop once you’ve met them.

Live your perfect legendary 🤘🏽,

Howie Chan

Creator of Legend Letters

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Sources:

1. Vic Gundotra: Steve Jobs Asked Me to Fix the Yellow Gradient of the Google Icon on the iPhone, 9to5google, August 25, 2011 - LINK

2. Stillman, Jessica, Are You the Good or the Bad Perfectionist?, Inc, August 13, 2015 - LINK

3. Newport, Cal, Perfectionism as Practice: Steve Jobs and The Art of Getting Good, Cal Newport Blog, November 25, 2011 - LINK

4. The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control, Katherine Morgan Schafler - LINK

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