The fastest way to overcome perfectionism — and yes, everyone knows the concept. Not everyone knows how exhausting it can be.
It tends to hit ambitious people hardest. Partly because they start attributing their successes to “perfectionism” — when often it contributes far less than it costs.
For some people it touches almost every area of life. For others just a few. But when it hits — it hits hard.
Nobody close to me would ever call me a perfectionist. Quite the opposite — they’d describe me as someone who frequently doesn’t overthink things and does plenty of things “good enough.”
And yet.
There are areas where perfectionism catches me too — precisely because of ambition. A large part of that tendency I’ve already worked through. It took effort — but it moved faster than I expected. And one simple method made the difference:
Find the benefits of doing something below your own expectations.
How? What possible benefits could there be in doing something “worse”?
I’ll explain through examples — it’ll be most practical that way.
The Work Call
A few days ago I had an organizational call for work. And true to my perfectionist tendencies — during the call itself I was already mentally listing the things I hadn’t quite nailed:
- I wasn’t the one who brought up my project first
- I took initiative well in one area — but probably not in the most natural tone
- I didn’t bring up one topic (a minor thing, worth one private message) — but I didn’t manage the narrative around it the way I’d have liked (something I hate doing but sometimes necessary in teams)
Overall the call was fine. Nothing went wrong. Nobody noticed the “shortcomings” my mind had catalogued — because honestly, it’s hard to even call them shortcomings.
And yet those thoughts were still sitting in the back of my head two hours later — barely noticeable but quietly nagging between other things.
That’s when I started asking myself: what did not being fully switched on actually give me?
- I can see that despite all of it — the world didn’t fall apart
- I remembered another period when I started caring a little less — not neglecting anything, but bringing less energy to calls. And interestingly, that made my boss pay more attention to me. He became more careful — clearly not wanting me to consider leaving. He adjusted conditions even more in my favor, gave me even more space (and I already have a lot of it), started thinking about how to give me more independence. Better offers.
So maybe not being “perfect” once in a while is actually better?
The Productivity Schedule
Another example: at one point I tried to fill my schedule perfectly with valuable activities and self-development.
The result was the opposite of what I expected. I was losing intuition and lightness in exchange for keeping up with my own “productivity.”
What did I gain when I stopped doing it perfectly?
Lightness. Time for reflection. Getting to my own conclusions. Doing what I feel like in the moment. Less tension. Real energy and creativity when it’s actually needed. The realization that genuinely less productivity gave me more mental clarity and instinct. Enjoying life.
Ambitious people get caught by perfectionism from time to time.
The key is to recognize quickly what’s happening — and use the ability to see the real downsides of that thinking and the benefits of letting it go.
The method mentioned here isn’t medical advice — professional help is absolutely necessary for strong symptoms of perfectionism.
But for the milder version — the kind that isn’t clinical and often catches ambitious or talented people — it helps. It shifts you from attributing your successes to perfectionism, to stopping feeding it altogether. You start to know that dropping it gives you significantly better results.
Perfectionism tells you that if you just try a little harder, do it a little better, everything will finally be okay.
It won’t. It never does.
The uncomfortable truth is that the things you’re most proud of probably happened despite your perfectionism — not because of it.
Let it go. Not because it doesn’t matter. But because it’s costing you more than it’s giving you.
