Is There a Middle Ground?

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Perfectionists tend to think that there's no middle ground. When you do something non perfection nistically, or when you give up a little bit of control, often the person doesn't do it acly how you would want it to do. The other thing is recognizin that sometimes when you let other people do a task, you can really benefit from that. So so you can see that they might not do it the same way as you, but they might do it in a different way that's actually really interesting,. Or that by handing it off to somebody else, you actually manage to stream line the task a lot more down to something that's more manageable.

If you’ve worked your way up in a competitive field — or are anxious by nature — you may have perfectionist tendencies. Maybe you’re a hard-driving, obsessive worker who thinks a task is never quite done. Or maybe you’re avoidant, struggling to start a project because you want it to be done just right.

We all know society holds women to a higher standard than men and rewards us for not making mistakes. But internalizing other people’s expectations — or what we think they expect — will only burn us out. To keep rising in our careers, we need to get in tune with our own standards for what’s a good, or good enough, job.

It is possible to keep our perfectionist tendencies under control. We talk through tactics with Alice Boyes, a former clinical psychologist turned writer and author.

Our HBR reading list:

“How Perfectionists Can Get Out of Their Own Way,” by Alice Boyes

“How to Focus on What’s Important, Not Just What’s Urgent,” by Alice Boyes

“How to Collaborate with a Perfectionist,” by Alice Boyes

“Perfectionism Is Increasing, and That’s Not Good News,” by Thomas Curran and Andrew P. Hill

Get the discussion guide for this episode on our website: hbr.org/podcasts/women-at-work

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Email us: womenatwork@hbr.org

Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.