Is Your Perfectionism Keeping You Away From Being Perfect? Or Is It Propelling You Towards Excellence?

Have you ever felt overwhelmed and burned out, overcoming one challenge after another, only to feel exhausted from chasing after perfection? Yet, you still believe in striving for excellence and don’t want to settle for second best. This same dilemma comes up whenever you are on a significant project. Should you expect less so you can achieve more, and be happier?

"The quest for perfection doesn’t have to be self-destructive."

We are often so caught up in the frantic rush of being successful and perfect that such pursuits can lead to self-destruction and burnout. You may begin to doubt yourself, so your self-confidence suffers, or push so hard that others find you impossible to keep up with, damaging your work relationships.

Is perfectionism self-destructive? Or is it more about better time, stress, and relationship management?

4 Secrets to Achieving Excellence Without Burnout

Here are the 4 secrets and some practical tips to achieve perfection without being burnt out in the process, which I have discovered over the years.

1. Desperation (Fear) vs Inspiration (Love)

2. Perfection vs Excellence

3. Use your strengths instead of being used by them

4. Release the attachment to the outcome

#1 Desperation (Fear) vs Inspiration (Love)

I believe all decisions and actions we take are created from either of these two sources - Desperation (Fear) vs Inspiration (Love). We dance between the two when making decisions and taking action throughout the day.

Desperation (Fear)

If your need for perfection is driven by desperation/fear, i.e. fear of failure, fear of looking bad, fear of not being good enough, fear of not being loved and accepted, then perfectionism can lead to self-destruction and is unhealthy.

When driven by desperation:

It creates self-doubt, lowers self-confidence, stirs envy, makes you an impossible person to work with
You are in the paradigm of ‘in-order-to’, because your basic survival is constantly threatened.
Behind every fear, there is usually an unfulfilled need related to the fear or similar negative experiences from the past i.e. the need to look good.

Inspiration (Love)

On the other hand, if you strive for perfection from the source of inspiration, from the love for excellence, and doing what is possible in your vision:

It will give you a great source of power because you are inspired to create, not because you need to. The energy generated from inspiration is powerful and unstoppable.
It won’t hurt as much if you fail to reach your perceived perfect outcome because your life does not depend on it. It doesn’t threaten your survival.
You are more likely to forgive others’ mistakes and be more patient and effective in recruiting others to your vision.
The source of inspiration is love. Anything that is created out of love will produce positive and powerful results.

The bad news is that it is not easy to tell if you are truly coming from desperation or inspiration, especially if the fear is residing at the subconscious level. It is possible to feel like we are inspired to our perfection, but in reality, it comes from the need to be approved by others or from the fear of failure.

But the good news is that you can develop a strong self-awareness. Learn to catch yourself when you are feeling stressed, angry, and fearful, and ask yourself where those feelings originate from and let them go. Although we will never be able to fully get rid of the stress and anxiety when striving for perfection or excellence, they can be short-lived.

#2 Perfection vs Excellence

It is critical to understand the distinction between perfection and excellence. This paradigm shift could pivot us from chasing to creating excellence. This is how I define the distinction between perfection and excellence, which shifted my paradigm and helped me to achieve success.

Striving for excellence, (not perfection)

Having built a multi-award-winning recruitment company over 16 years, especially when recruiting for the top industry players in the Biotech and Pharmaceutical industries, one of our key successes was being able to identify the leadership talent who strove for excellence and also was able to lead and inspire their teams to the same vision. Many of them were once “perfectionists”

"When I let go of perfection and replace it with excellence, I find liberation in my pursuit of success."

Gives me the freedom to create outside the box
Gives me pleasure, regardless of how stressed I was when striving for excellence
Forces me to let go of my attachment to a particular result and thus removes self-limiting belief to achieve an even greater outcome

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.” - Vince Lombardi

#3 Use your strengths instead of being used by them

“Use it” means to apply your desire to strive for excellence to achieve the outcome. It’s a strength when you can use it and have control over it.
“Being used by it” means you are striving to get to perfection for the sake of making it perfect, possibly because it is a habit, regardless if there is any impact on the outcome by pushing that extra mile.

#4 Release the attachment to the outcome

What robs us of happiness is not the quest for excellence or perfection, but the attachment to an outcome. To a perfectionist, nothing is ever good enough, but we can choose to be happy with a Work in Progress and make it more perfect the next round. Not being attached to a particular outcome doesn’t mean you don’t have an end goal. You still need to be very practical and realistic. You need to constantly ask yourself how much more perfect this project needs to be at a given point to impact the objectives. It is an art to be able to have a goal and not be attached to it. I will leave this topic for another day.

“When you release the attachment to an outcome, you might end up going beyond it."

Being too attached to a fixed outcome is one possible reason why many successful people are not happy. They may not realize that they have achieved success, so they are unable to own it. Excellence and success can appear in many forms.

“Whatever you fail to achieve comes around in another form”

5 Practical applications to achieve excellence without burnout.

First of all, Own it - recognize that you are a perfectionist.
Catch yourself (make it a game). Ask – “Am I using my strength, or am I being used by it?”
- How much more impact will the extra 20% make?
- What are the objectives of this project again?
Release the Attachment with Releasing - When you catch yourself being attached to the outcome,
you can use this Lindwall Releasing process which I have found to be very effective. Just say out loud :
“I release my attachment to the outcome I expect.”
Then, breathe in and out deeply with intention".
“I open myself to know that if I release my attachment to the outcome, I might go beyond
the outcome. Even if the project fails, I will, at a minimum, gain a learning experience. So it is."
Take a deep breath and breathe out.

4. Enjoy the process - Whenever you catch yourself not enjoying the process, just bring yourself back to love and inspiration, and remember why you are doing this. Move away from desperation and fear. You can say out loud,

“I release my fear of failing in this project and that all the hard work and sacrifices I made will go down the drain. I release my worry about looking bad or incompetent, a failure in the eyes of others. I release all these right now.”

A deep breath and breathe out “I choose to enjoy the process and be inspired by the end goal. So it is."

Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix – Urgent vs Important

This is a very useful chart that I used for myself and had also incorporated into our Bootcamp training for rookies. For a start, create two charts, one to prioritize your day, and on another chart write down exactly what you did for the day. I have changed the “Not Important” to “Less Important” given that we should know not to do what is not important during working hours.

Key takeaways

Be driven by inspiration, not desperation. From love, not from fear.
Choose to strive for excellence, not perfection.
Use your strengths, but don’t be used by them.
Release the attachment to the outcome.

My conclusion is that a desire for perfection is not a weakness; it is a strength that very few possess. This is the talent that can transform the world, make things better, innovate, and create new solutions to problems. Do not give it up; if you have it develop it and train it to the maximum potential.

"A desire for perfection is not a weakness if you use it, instead of being used by it."

Written By: Karen Tok Mullins

Karen Tok Mullins is an inspirational speaker and founder of the award-winning biotech recruitment firm ScienTec Consulting Pte Ltd. From overcoming academic failure to building a $10 million company, her journey is a powerful story of resilience and reinvention.

She was nominated for Woman’s Weekly’s Great Women of Our Time Award in 2018 and received the Shell LiveWire Young Business Start-up Award in 2005. Her story has been featured in The Straits Times, Her World, and radio programmes like 93.8FM’s The Breakfast Club.

Today, Karen is passionate about helping others overcome fear and unlock their full potential. She speaks regularly at schools, universities, and women empowerment events, including Lancôme’s Find Your Light and the African Women Leadership Forum.