“I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God’s business.” – Michael J. Fox
Are you a perfectionist? Or, do you just strive for excellence? If you think these are the same thing, I’m afraid you’re a tad mistaken. In fact they are so opposite of each other that the best way to actually achieve excellence is by NOT trying to be perfect! Let’s work to understand the big differences between the two!
Perfectionism is focused on “doing the thing ‘right’”, where excellence is about “doing the right thing”. It is focused on the why behind a task, and the overall results of it to be a success. Perfectionism is the individual’s belief that he or she must be perfect to be acceptable. Perfectionism is black and white with absolutely no gray area. Anything other than perfect is considered a failure. Perfectionism is an attitude, not necessarily a behavior. In other words, two people can engage in the same behavior, but one can be pursuing excellence and the other is demanding perfection. The difference lies in the thought process about the goal or behavior, not in the goal or behavior itself. Perfectionism is a thief of our time, which as we know is our most prized resource. Draining you of every bit of your energy. It literally bullies you around, and demands unachievable outcomes – since whatever you do is never good enough. It makes you try to live up to some version of yourself that doesn’t exist. Perfection is always out of reach!
The pursuit of excellence is the desire to attain a goal of excellence, to achieve at a high level, to be the best that one can be but without the demand attached to the goal or desire. Pursuing excellence may require tremendous effort and focus as well as other resources. But, unlike perfectionism, it does not demand a sacrifice of self-esteem as it tends to focus on the process of achievement rather than the outcome. The pursuit of doing things with excellence keeps you focused on what matters, fills you with proper energy, and can act as your number-one fan! Perfectionism diminishes your productivity, your efficiency and effectiveness, and worse still, damages your inner peace. On the other side, more productivity is built into the pursuit of excellence.
Often perfectionists will not complete things on their to-do lists, nor even start things, or not take on things at all, for fear of not being able to do it completely perfectly. Perfectionism often causes us to procrastinate. Fear of being unable to deliver to some unachievable standard often causes perfectionists to completely avoid doing what needs to be done. Perfectionists are terrified of making a mistake, and consequently find themselves stressed, anxious, and desperately focused all the time on not failing. They’ll maintain unrealistic expectations of themselves and of others and will often become micromanagers, causing unneeded stress on themselves and those they lead.
Pursuing excellence focuses our attention on what’s right and working well, rather than what’s not working – and this keeps our attention on the positives and how things could be even better. Excellence is limitless and progressive, since we can always strive for continuous improvement. Whereas perfection can simply never be achieved. Pressure to be perfect may come from ourselves or from others, but it is rarely constructive and can cause problems from the depression it creates within us!
Develop continued excellence by using my favorite motto of the 80/20 rule. Use 20% of your effort to produce 80% of your results, this liberates you to focus on each 20% that makes the difference. But take this even further! If it took you 1 hour to do 1 thing ‘perfectly’, in that 1 hour, you could get 5 things done to 80% of perfection. Achieving 5 things to an “excellence” level will lead to greater success than by doing just 1 thing perfectly. Only doing “1 thing perfect” usually leads to analysis paralysis.
Take a dynamic stand for excellence, rather than the continued pain and insecurity driven into you by trying to strive for perfection. Embrace what’s “good enough” to be considered a success! Understand the damage that perfectionism does, and the benefits of aiming for excellence, then ask yourself where perfectionism has taken hold in your personal life or business. It might be a trait of yourself, your spouse, your children or an employee you are leading. Deal with it at all levels, and nurture a core value of excellence instead. Accept the fact nobody is perfect. Accept that excellence is a continued process, rather than an ending point. This really spoke to me when thinking of the way we raise our kiddos — We want to make sure that we are not just correcting the bad behavioral traits, but actually working to change the heart! That same holds SO true in those we lead in our organizations.
I’ll land the plane with this – There’s no fear attached to excellence; anyone of us can do it, and it’s very realistic to achieve the success you want in all aspects of your life. I strongly encourage you to focus on excellence. This way, your results will ALWAYS be that of greatness – and you can always aim for even better! As a result, you will be more successful than the perfectionist because you will not paralyzed with fear of failure and will be able to enjoy the process, and therefore, pursue more risks and goals, increasing even more your chances of success!
Remember this my amigos… Life is much more rewarding and enjoyable this way! For all you “perfectionists” that are reading this blog, I pray this viewpoint has changed your thinking a bit!