Updates: 07/15/2024

Most people would consider having certain standard of a good thing. Though striving for excellence and perfection could show that you have a good work ethic and strength of character, too high standards will push you into a zone of stress and anxiety when your standards cannot be met. So, it is important to realize your problem and overcome it instantly. This article will reveal to you top 21 tips on how to overcome perfectionism and procrastination at work that you can follow easily. Check them out now!

How To Overcome Perfectionism And Procrastination At Work

1. Identify Your Triggers

The first step on how to overcome perfectionism is to figure out why you strive to be perfect. Some people want to be seen as being perfect as they think that only perfect people are loved. However, in fact, no one is perfect. Remember, there is nothing wrong with having high standards, yet when these standards are too high, they will affect your work, relationships, and enjoyment of life.

Here are some examples of perfectionistic feelings:

• Black-and-white thinking:
• Catastrophic thinking
• Probability overestimation
• Should statements

Here are some samples of perfectionistic behavior:

• Chronic procrastination
• Over cautious
• Excessive checking
• Constantly trying to enhance things by re-doing them
• Avoid trying new things and being at risk making pitfalls.

See: ways to improve communication skills fast and techniques to promote brain functions naturally.

2. Balance Hope And Reality

Perfectionists tend to have expectations as well as target which cannot be met. In order to stop the perfectionism, they should balance great expectations with the reality. The advice is to accept your own limit, and other people’s limit. You simply cannot create perfection.

3. Change Perfectionistic Thinking

As adults with perfectionism are usually so critical of themselves, one of the most effective manners to overcome perfectionism is to replace self-critical or perfectionistic thoughts and beliefs with more realistic and helpful ones. It is a good idea to practice being imperfect regularly. Even, if you do not believe them right away, enough repetition will turn positive realistic thoughts into a habit and help crowd out the negative self-talk. The more you practice being imperfect, the more comfortable you will be with it.

For getting new patterns of positive beliefs and thoughts, see End Limiting Belief guide.

4. Look At A Big Picture

Adults with perfectionism often get bogged down in details and spend a lot of time concerning about “the little things”. One useful strategy to worry less about details is to ask yourself some following questions:

• Does it actually matter?
• What is the worst thing that could occur?
• If the worst thing happen, could I survive it?

If you are looking for a detailed guide that provides you with step by step instructions to overcome procrastination and perfectionism, you should read The 7 Secrets of the Prolific book.

5. Change Perfectionistic Behaviours

The fact of having an issue with perfectionism is like having a “phobia” of making mistakes of being imperfect. Facing fears in a gradual and consistent way is the most efficient way to stop perfectionism. It is also called as “exposure”. For instance, the best manner to overcome a dog phobia is to steadily spend time with dogs so that you will learn that they are not as dangerous and scary as you usually thought.

Similarly, getting rid of your “phobia” of making pitfalls involves doing purposely making pitfalls. This tip on how to overcome perfectionism also involves in putting yourself into situations that you often avoid.

6. Reward Yourself

It is critical for you to learn to appreciate and honor your achievements and efforts. The big picture matters to you much more than the tiny details. In fact, if you completed a task at work, it will matter more than some grammatical errors.

7. Compromising

This is especially helpful tool for dealing with black-and-white thinking. This involves lowering or being more flexible with your high standards.

For instance, if you believe that making a pitfall during your presentation means that you fail or you are stupid. You might ask yourself “what level of imperfection am I willing to tolerate?”. After that, you will find out some reasonable standards that you are willing to accept. Though sometimes it is rather anxious about trying to lower your current standards, you could do it steadily, step-by-step. Once you are comfortable with your lowered standards, you can lower them some more if necessary and proper.

You can refer tips on how to develop self-confidence naturally right here to improve your mental health instantly.

8. Let Your Artistic Side Out

Perfectionists, with their burning desires to control everything, keep a tight leash on their soul. Nevertheless, in order to live a vibrant life, you should follow to take off your masks and be authentic. Do not look for artistic activity that feels comfortable. It is better for you to look for something that excites yet intimidates you concurrently. The combination of slight fear and excitement is a perfect signal of something that will develop you by pushing you out your comfort zone. Here is a general life truth: if in doubt, you should choose the choice that is exciting but slightly terrifying.

9. Turn Gratitude Into A Part Of Your Life

You are blessed. Just look around you, you have a place to live, and an active life in which you can do things you want. You may have expectations of what it should be like or different goals as well as disappointments. That perception of the life can affect your own life in different ways. Your perception is flexible. You are able to choose what to focus on.

Gratitude is about realizing that you have options. Regardless of what happens to you, you have an opportunity of how you interpret it.

Gratitude is also about loving life as it is. You do not have to change the people around you or to control all things. You could appreciate what happens to you as it occurs. Welcome every moment as a gift of God rather than trying to shape it to fit your expectations.

If you are looking for a detailed guide that provides you with step by step instructions to overcome procrastination and perfectionism, you should read The 7 Secrets of the Prolific book.

10. Express Your Feelings

When it comes to learning how to overcome perfectionism, you had better learn to accept your painful emotions, such as depression, disappointment, and regret.  But, do not ruminate on them. It is good for you to express your thoughts verbally or in writing.

11. Take Action Towards Your Goals And Overcome Procrastination

What have you always wanted to do, but didn’t as you were afraid of failing? Try it now!

Many adults tend to cope with their fear of making mistakes by procrastinating. When you set “perfect” standard, sometimes it may feel easier to procrastinate doing a task rather than spending hours trying to do it. However, the fact is that procrastination is just a temporary solution. Here are some tips on how to get rid of procrastination:

• Creating realistic schedule. It means you should split or breakdown large tasks into manageable steps.
• Setting priorities. If you are meeting trouble deciding on where you should devote your energy and effort initially, then make priorities by deciding which are more important than others.

Do not worry if you fail and have to try again because no one is perfect. Maybe, you can might make mistake, just simple realize what your mistakes are and how to fix them as much as you could.

12. Develop Humor

Do it often. Having a sense of humor about yourselves and your actions, especially disappointing or embarrassing experiences, does not have to be a shield or form of protection. Humor could heal or at least create enough endorphins and dopamine to get you through the hard and tough moments.

Check out tips to relieve anxiety quickly and safely here.

13. Forgive. Most Of All, Yourself

As you know, forgiveness is really a selfish act. This is not a bad stuff. Forgiveness relieves you from fear-based emotions and thoughts. It is the way to surrendering your perfection of control over your life and over the actions of other people.

14. Delegate And Let Go

Have faith in other people’s abilities and delegate works to them. If they do not seem to be doing a certain task right, teach them and help them instead of taking over entirely. Teach a person how to feed so that you will have more fish for everyone instead of doing all the fishing yourself and reducing the total output.

15. Focus On The Ride Not, Not Just Destination

We resist enjoying what we are doing by insisting: “I have no time for enjoyment, I have a job to get done!”. When you are tensed, you feel threatened, it narrows your field of vision and you are more likely to get stuck and cranky on insignificant details. When you are enjoying what you are doing, your vision will be expanded and your enthusiasm will help you do better.

16. Do Not Compare, Just Connect

Perfectionism is fueled by comparing yourself with heroes you admire. This comes from your idealizing their life as perfect. You cannot see those people for whom they actually are. They might own some charmed factors of their lives, yet even celebrities also have tough times in their memoirs. So, if you compare, try to compare with someone realistic. Yet, the most important, you should not compare, but connect. What you desire about another person – their job, their marriage, or their sense of humor? If you want to have it for your case, just try to be a good “student”. Then, smile and keep going.

If you are looking for a detailed guide that provides you with step by step instructions to overcome procrastination and perfectionism, you should read The 7 Secrets of the Prolific book.

17. Positive Mental Health 

Learn to accept your mistakes. Just think that the mistakes teach you and help you experience beyond your thinking. Don’t blame yourself or forget all your effort. If you are positive and patient enough, you finally will get successful. So, feel more relaxed and start your work with positive thoughts and actions.

Recommended: Top 21 Easy Ways To Improve Mental Health

18. Be Aware Of Motivations For The Perfection

How to overcome perfectionism and make it become your new perspective? Actually, it takes you a long period of time to form this point of view.

Firstly, if people say you think like a perfectionist, you should find out why people say that. What your behaviors make them think that you are a perfectionist. If your perfectionism gives you more achievement in life and people love you for that, you should find more motivations to reach the perfection.

But if you just desire for the perfection without action, and you haven’t had any success and impress other people, they may stare at you and your failure. Then, it’s time for you to think about your perfectionism. Of course, everyone wants to become a perfect one but if can’t master the techniques to drive your life, you won’t never satisfy with yourself. Accordingly, you will easily get bored at yourself, lose your self-esteem, self-confidence and lose more motivation for the perfection.

19. Respect & Love Yourself

As a rule, if you can’t love yourself, you can share your love with other people. So respect yourself first. If you just see yourself with negative thought, low-esteem, you won’t have motivation to be better. Instead of that, don’t think bout the self-depreciation and self-abuse. Treat yourself well with respect that you deserve.

20. Reward Good Relationships

Perfection does not come from one side – from you, it is formed by other people’s evaluations. The perfection is like an unchangeable truth that people use it to compare things. When people give you a truly evaluation, you should find out they evaluated like that. If they evaluated correctly and you learnt from that fact, you should change yourself for better work and behavior. Then, don’t forget to reward people who said the truth and helped you repair your mistakes. Actually, this is a good way that good relationships are formed and maintained.

21. Improve Quality Of Your Life

Last but not least, when it comes to ways on how to overcome perfectionism and procrastination at work, instead of thinking about the perfection like an abstract concept, why don’t you think about practical things to improve quality of your life? There are a lot of think for you to start immediately. For instance, there are different ways to earn money. Don’t just think about your main job, don’t simply think about your main salary. Any way, salary is money to exchange foods for your family members’ survival, so if you have a small garden, why don’t you grow vegetables to improve your daily meals and get rid of some risks of commercial products in the market? I think this is one of the most practical ways for you to overcome your perfectionism.

Read: Life Purposed Revealed

Do you have any further idea about this topic of how to overcome perfectionism and procrastination at work? If yes, share it with us at the comments section. In order to eliminate your perfectionism, it is critical for you to follow step-by-step the tips above, and stick to them for a long time. Then, you will see a huge improvement in the quality of your life.

If you are looking for a detailed guide that provides you with step by step instructions to overcome procrastination and perfectionism, you should read The 7 Secrets of the Prolific book.

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