How to Let Go of Perfectionism

From Tantra Is Not What You Think, by Daniel Sutton

You let go of perfectionism by dropping the belief that you are only acceptable if the result is flawless. Aim well, then let good-enough be enough. Perfection is a demand on reality that reality never meets, and the strain it costs rarely improves the work.

Perfectionism is fear in a respectable coat

Perfectionism likes to present itself as high standards, which is why it is so hard to question. But look underneath and it is usually closer to fear: a quiet belief that you will only be safe, or worthy, or beyond criticism, if nothing you produce can be faulted. The flawless result is meant to be armour. So the stakes of every small task swell, and a one-hour job takes four, and some things never ship at all because finished would mean exposed.

That is the hidden cost. Perfectionism does not usually make the work much better. Past a certain point it makes the work later, smaller, or stillborn, while making you miserable in the process.

The demand reality never meets

Perfection is a fixed picture in your head of exactly how a thing must turn out, with your okayness riding on the match. But reality does not produce flawless. It produces real: good in places, rough in others, finished enough to be useful. When you demand flawless, you guarantee a gap between the picture and the result, and then you punish yourself for the gap you yourself created.

The book has a gentler instruction for this. Let it be a maybe. Aim for the thing, lean into it, do genuinely good work, then loosen your grip on it landing perfectly. A finished, honest, good-enough thing in the world beats a flawless one that never leaves your desk.

High standards without the strangle

• Separate the standard from the strangle. You can care deeply about quality and still release the demand that it be beyond all criticism. Caring is fuel; the strangle is just fear.
• Define good-enough in advance. Decide what “done” honestly means for this task before you start, so the goalposts cannot drift forever.
• Ship, then learn. A real thing out in the world teaches you more than an unfinished perfect one ever can. Done and improvable beats perfect and imaginary.

Letting go of perfectionism is not lowering your standards or settling for mediocre. Loose is not limp. You keep aiming high; you just stop strangling the work, and yourself, with a demand that no real thing can meet. You will usually do better, not worse, from the looser grip. The free 7-day guide practises this open-handed way of working, and the fuller method is in the book Tantra Is Not What You Think.