Do your friends, family and your employees shy away from you? Is it hard for you to have a conversation with a staff member without them thinking, “what did I do wrong this time?” Do you have a toxic personality? It’s not a question many people want to ask themselves.
Do you have a propensity for toxic perfectionism? They go hand in hand. Perfection is certainly not a horrible trait, but taken to extremes can be detrimental to your health and the health of your business and relationships.
I’m not saying you want to put out shoddy goods or services, but you do sometimes need to adopt an attitude of, “this is good enough.” This is especially true if you’re seeking happiness and satisfaction in your business and your life.
If you have recognized that you have a perfectly toxic syndrome, what can you do to break it? Well, to take a step back… you need to recognize it in yourself before you can address it.
Do you have a toxic personality?
- Are you competent and experienced but believe that is more crucial to success than perfection? As an entrepreneur, you can easily drive away staff and vendors if you’re striving to continually be perfect rather than competent. Competency may not be the only factor to your success but if you’re striving for only perfection that certainly holds you back. Instill confidence in your team through your actions, not through unreasonable demands for perfection.
- If you don’t have all the answers and if you can’t see all the potential ways for success and failure, does that mean you don’t do anything? You don’t have to know everything — life and business are trial and error. Just because you write the paycheck doesn’t mean you need to have all the answers. It’s all right to say, “I’m not sure, let me find out.”
- Do you believe that only perfect people can be business successes? That is a lot of pressure to place on yourself and those around you. Don’t let a toxic personality and a toxic drive for perfection stop you from achieving your goals and growing your team. Success means you may stumble along the way and that’s all right!
Do you have any limiting beliefs that are holding you back from success? How have you overcome them or are you still struggling to rid yourself of the perfectionism trap?