Recovering perfectionist, don’t fall into this trap with your online business

Let's get into today's video: The common trap that I see many online business owners falling into when they are a recovering perfectionist…

The trap that I see them falling into — and this can be any kind of business owner, online businesses, freelancers, any other kind of solopreneur — what I really see them falling into is an attempt to do the opposite of your perfectionist tendencies, without actually fixing the root issue. 

If you are a perfectionist, what you might be doing is the polar opposite of that. So, for example, what I've seen specifically — and what is really sparked to the concept of doing this video today — is the surprisingly large number of online business owners, especially those in the business consulting or the teaching or the coaching industries, I've seen a lot of them recently starting to brag about how they create content and publish it without reviewing or rereading it. 

They're talking about it often through this lens of, you know, “People overthink things, they overthink their content, they are too much of a perfectionist, so the fix here is to create content and immediately publish it. Don't even look it over.” 

So I'm seeing a lot of them basically bragging about how they don't proofread their work and how they aren't looking at it! They're just creating it and they're saying, “Good. Now I'm gonna put it out there, I'm gonna release it to the world and post it on social media, or send that email without proofreading it,” or whatever it happens to be.

I'm not being salty here! …But I do think that it's a very odd trend, like kind of a weird flex, but it actually makes a lot of sense that these people are saying that because what I have really found is that these people who are talking about how they're doing this (how they're creating content without reviewing it and publishing it), a lot of their other content that they create seems to be contradicting the things that they say. They often seem to have this habit of contradicting themselves in their different social media posts. 

If you go through and look at their entire, you know, Instagram feed, you'll often see that what they're saying now doesn't match up with what they maybe said a couple of months ago — they often seem to be contradicting themselves, almost like flip flopping on different different concepts and things like that. So I assume that that flip flopping is happening because they aren't taking the time to think through their content before they publish it. 

…So it makes sense that they would have these sort of contradicting things that they keep on posting, because they're not really reflecting on their thoughts and their ideas before sharing them with the world! That's a huge problem. 

What I want you to know is that overcoming perfectionism doesn't mean that you stop proofreading your work, or that you just start half heartedly putting an effort into things. 

Overcoming perfectionism is not about doing half done work and then sharing it with the world. 

That is not going to fix the root problems with your perfectionism! 

Rereading and reviewing your work, putting effort and thought into your work, is entirely different from perfectionism. These are two completely different things that, again, what I'm seeing is that a lot of online business owners are mistaking them. They are thinking that *putting in thought and effort into their work* is the same thing as *perfectionism* — and it is NOT. That is not true.

What I want you to do is to not lose sight of that. Don't lose sight of that difference. 

Understand the difference between *putting thought and effort into your work* versus *perfectionism* so that you can create high quality work and share it with the world; so that you don't hold yourself back and let perfectionism get in the way when you produce “good enough” content.

“Good enough” work should still be quality. It should still be quality work.

And yes, your work will probably have typos in it at some point or another. Even professional editors who are reviewing other people's work have a standard error rate of, I want to say it's like 5%, I think it's between two to 5% is the norm for professional editors reviewing other people's work. So if you are not a professional editor and if you are reviewing your own work, then yes, you're going to have typos; you're going to make mistakes. 

So this is really about accepting that mistakes will happen and also doing your best, putting in that effort and that thought, while being kind to yourself and forgiving and understanding of yourself when any mistakes do happen to come up. 

THAT is the difference between perfectionism versus putting in the effort and the consideration to do a good job and create high quality, high value work. 

So, these people that I mentioned, who are now doing the OPPOSITE of overthinking their content —they are creating content and publishing it without looking at it — they're selling it as the cure for perfectionism. But it's not actually dealing with the problem at all! It's just flipping the problem around. 

The answer to perfectionism is NOT to stop caring or to stop putting in the effort for doing your best work. This is very short sighted and frankly, it is exactly why so many people struggle with internal bottlenecks. You've been given bad advice from people who don't actually have a good understanding of the underlying problems at play. 

Publishing content that hasn't been proofread is not solving the perfectionism issue. 

Let me explain this: So if you, for example, are worried about being judged, and that has led you to your perfectionism — you are worried about being judged by other people — so, then you keep on perfecting content and you're not sharing it with the world because you're really worried about how it's going to be perceived and received from people. 

In that case, if you go this route of not proofreading your work and not looking at your work before sharing it with the world, then that means that you get to bury your head in the sand rather than overanalyze your work. 

In other words: You still have unresolved problems related to judgment, because you're still worried that people are going to judge you or that you are going to judge yourself.

That's why you're not looking at your work. 

If you haven't proofread your work, then you're not working through those feelings of, “What if people judge me,” or you're not going to be judging yourself because you're not looking at your work. You're just publishing and getting it out there.

…So that issue of you fearing other people's judgement or you having a lot of self judgment issues, that issue is still there — even if you have done a 180 on your behaviours. 

I hope you can see that in either instance, the issue of judgment is still there and has not been dealt with. Whether you are such a perfectionist that you are continuing to tweak your work and never sharing it with the world, or if you're on the other end of the spectrum where you are creating one draft and sharing that first draft with the world, you're still having this issue of judgment that has been unresolved.

What I want you to take away from this video is this: When you are a perfectionist, you need to dig deep to understand the underlying root issues of your perfectionism tendencies. Dealing only with the behaviour — so, in this case, with an example of the behaviour of never publishing your content because you're worried about being judged — if you “fix” that by changing your behaviour and then publishing content without rereading that, that's not fixing the actual issue of your concerns around judgment either from other people or within yourself. 

So this behaviour of publishing content without reviewing it means that your hangups and that judgment are still there. And they're going to hold you back; they’re going to continue to get in your way in other ways. It's an unresolved issue that really does need to be dealt with because you haven't fixed it at all yet.

…Whereas if you do dig deep to work through those fears and those concerns you have about judgment, what you're going to find is that it's going to be 10 times easier to be visible and to produce that high quality, “good enough” content.

Now, an important note here is that the root reasons for perfectionism will be different for everyone — and the process to overcome it and unpack it will be unique for each individual. So you might not have judgment at play as your underlying root issue. That might not be your reason for perfectionism. 

Perfectionism is always a symptom of something happening beneath the surface.

For you, it might not be judgment, it could be something else. Even if it IS judgment for you, how do you handle that? And your particular feelings around judgment, your concerns around it, will be different than someone else who also has the same problem, that same issue of being concerned or worried about judgment. There is no one blanket theme that is automatically going to be your cure for perfectionism.

Perfectionism is something that is very common for all kinds of online business owners, for all kinds of freelancers and solopreneurs. It is very, very common. You are not alone if you're struggling with perfectionism, AND you also don't need to continue struggling with it. 

There is no one size fits all, but *you can deal with it* when you a) focus on what your particular issues are underneath the surface, and then b) address what will be necessary to work through it.

This is where I can come into play and help you work through this: We can do a one on one success and life coaching session where we will really get to the root of your particular type of perfectionism.

What is beneath the surface of the perfectionism that you are dealing with?

We will unpack it, we will process it and we will identify and implement practical actions that are fully customized and personalized to your unique situation so that you can overcome this perfectionism issue once and for all. 

We're not just changing the behaviours: We are changing the underlying root issue, we are actually tackling the real problems that are leading to your perfectionism. 

Book your spot for coaching at SaganMorrow.com/coaching. And I will pop that link in the show notes. I cannot wait to help you overcome perfectionism so that it stops getting in your way!