Step 3: The How

As a perfectionist it is tempting to crave a fresh start.  The need to completely scrap everything and get a clean, no baggage run at achieving this new thing is all too common.  But as someone who is committed to overcoming perfectionism, listening to that urge is not what I want to do. 

Instead, the goal is to focus instead on revamping what has worked before. There is no need to invent anything new, but instead I focus on tweaking past successes so perfectionism can be left behind when shifting to living my life more on my terms. 

There are 3 categories/steps to focus on in this endeavour:

Routines and Habits

Routines are a whole bunch of habits stuck together, that we often do in the same order, every day. They require less decisions in the moment because we have already decided we do them a certain way, or they are so “habitual” we’ve forgotten when we even made that decision. A routine doesn’t have to be complicated, but can be incredibly supportive to us when it comes to efficiency, prioritizing tasks and creating space for us in our lives. 

Similarly, habits are a great tool for perfectionists to use, as habits (good and bad) often set the tone for our lives, dictate what we do (or don’t do) and are a challenging test for our perfectionist mindset. 

Planning and Tracking 

Us perfectionists love the idea of a plan, but often struggle to create a plan we actually stick to.  We have unrealistically high expectations for ourselves and often find we can’t live up to the plans we create - so why bother? Planning though, is a great skill to master as a perfectionist, as it can help us create the space in our lives we truly need. It can help set priorities and maximize follow-through on what we want to be spending our time doing. 

Tracking is the second step of planning, and often a forgotten one. When we neglect to keep track of what we actually get done, we focus instead on all that we didn’t do and end up in a perfectionism dug rut.  Tracking gives us the opportunity to focus on what we did do, and boosts motivation to do it again.  It limits the default guilting and shaming that we so often resort to as a motivator. 

Journaling and Evaluating 

Journaling is my favourite habit I’ve cultivated over the years. It is my #1 tool to combat perfectionism and I will always encourage others to try journaling.  Journaling is an opportunity to learn a new habit in a low risk setting, it’s a space where you can be yourself and let down the perfectionist guard, it’s an opportunity to explore prompts, self-coach and just make time for you. 

Evaluating is another skill us perfectionists need to master - we are so good at giving ourselves negative feedback and criticizing what we didn’t do, that we have yet to learn how evaluating ourselves, lives and plans can benefit us positively. Without needing to rely on negative evaluations to create change, we can instead harness accomplishments, lessons and moments of self-coaching to tweak our plans, routines and habits for the best.  We can use it to continue to live our own lives and continue to evolve again and again. 

Bonus: connect with people who will support you on this journey. They can be:

A friend who is on a similar journey, who wants to do the same things as you, who will be able to relate to your struggles and triumphs.

A friend who isn’t on the same journey, but cheers you on regardless.  Maybe from a distance, but encourages you nonetheless. 

A role model or mentor who you can extract wisdom from and who can help you stay accountable and inspired (whether you know them personally or not).

And we can’t forget to support ourselves, connect with our authenticity and listen to our own wisdom too. 

Remember the focus of this step is: revamping what has worked before, adapting it to a different situation or tweaking it for a new phase of life. 

Picture a time when you had a routine and focus on what worked. Then ask yourself:
What were the main components/tasks? What kept you on track? What made it possible? Brainstorm answers to these questions, write them down.

Then get creative and shift those answers to today’s life. Ask yourself:
Can you start with similar components? Find similarities between different tasks/strategies? Can you use the same accountability tools?  Can you believe that today’s endeavour is possible for you because you’ve done something similar before? 

The bottom line: can you use past examples of success to inspire today? Can you take a model that had working parts and tweak it instead of needing to start from scratch? We sure can.