Introduction
Welcome to The Overachievers Podcast, for those times when achieving everything is still not enough.
Most perfectionists don’t think of themselves as perfectionists. They think of themselves as thorough, careful, someone who takes pride in getting things right. Which is a reasonable way to see it, except that somewhere in the middle of all that thoroughness, things stop getting finished.
The work stays almost ready. The email gets redrafted one more time. The project sits at ninety-five percent for months, always one more tweak away from being done. And because it all feels like diligence, the pattern rarely gets questioned.
In this episode, we look at what perfectionism actually is underneath the virtue it wears, why the voice driving it sounds so much like standards, and what it costs you when finishing the thing keeps feeling like giving up on it.
Key Themes
- When high standards become a reason to delay
- Why perfectionism wears the mask of diligence
- The work that never quite gets finished
- What finishing actually asks of you
- Perfectly imperfect: a different way through
If You Prefer Video
Connected Blog
The Voice That Sounds Like Standards
Perfectionism doesn’t sound like criticism. It sounds like care. That’s exactly what makes it so hard to question.
Related Blogs and Episodes
Perfectionism : It’s Not About Quality
Perfectionism and high standards are not the same thing. Understanding the difference is where the real work begins for overachievers like you.
Seeing Your Own Pattern
Recognising a pattern in general isn’t the same as seeing your own. Here’s how to move from abstract understanding to genuine personal clarity.
Episode 006 – When High Standards Turn Into Self-Pressure
Why do high standards feel heavy? Discover how to spot when they turn to self-pressure, and the mindful shift for sustainable success.
Episode 009 – Operating From Inherent Self-Worth
Discover how to build lasting self-worth beyond achievements and create a stable foundation for sustainable success.
Transcript
This is the Overachievers Podcast for people who want success without the burnout. Most of the perfectionists that I work with don’t think of themselves as perfectionists, not really. They think of themselves as thorough, careful, someone who takes pride in getting it right, and then somehow the thing never quite gets finished. Today we’re looking at why that happens and what it actually costs you. Welcome to the Overachievers Podcast with Keith Blakemore-Noble. Because success shouldn’t cost everything. Welcome back. I’m Keith Blakemore-Noble, the Overachievers coach.
Welcome to series three of the Overachievers Podcast. In this series, this series of 12 episodes, we’re going to spend some time in the inner landscape of overachievement. We’re going to look at the internal machinery that keeps capable people like you stuck, often without even realising that it’s there. And we’re going to start off with perfectionism. Not because it’s the most dramatic pattern that will cover this series, but because it’s usually the first one that gets missed entirely. Before we dive in, if you haven’t already, please remember to give us a Like a follow, subscribe to us on your favourite platform, wherever you’re listening. It’s the easiest way to make sure that you do not miss an episode. Thank you.
Here is the thing about perfectionism. It rarely announces itself as a problem. Ask most overachievers if they’re a perfectionist and you’ll get one of two answers. Either they’ll say no, not really. They just like to make sure that things are done properly. Or they’ll say yes. And they’ll say it quite proudly, as though. As though it’s something to be admired.
I am a bit of a perfectionist, they’ll say, wearing it as a badge of honour. What neither answer tends to include is the actual pattern underneath the work that never quite shapes, because there’s always more to fix. One more correction, one more tweak that would make it so much better. The project that stays almost ready for months, the email that gets redrafted six times before it’s sent, if even it gets sent at all. That’s not thoroughness. That is something else entirely. So let me tell you about the client that I worked with. I’m going to call him James, although obviously that’s not his real name.
James was sharp. He was genuinely good at his job, but he had a habit that was quietly wrecking his career. Every piece of work his boss handed him came back late. Not wildly late, just late enough. Every single time that it became a pattern that people noticed when we talked about it. James didn’t see himself as someone who struggled to deliver. He saw himself as someone with high standards. He told me with real conviction that he simply refused to hand over any work that wasn’t right.
Trouble was, right kept moving. Every time he got close to finishing, he’d find something else that needed adjusting. A phrase that could be sharper here, a section that could be tighter there, a detail that might not even be visible to anyone but him. His deadline slipped. His manager grew frustrated. James stopped getting the assignments that would have led to promotion, not because his work was poor, but because nobody could rely on when or even if it would arrive. He genuinely believed good enough was not good enough, and that if he delivered something that was merely good enough, then he believed he’d failed. Where does this show up for you? Not in someone else’s story, but in yours.
Where is there something that you haven’t quite finished, you haven’t quite sent, you haven’t quite started because it isn’t ready yet? There’s an important distinction here, and it’s one that many overachievers have never been taught. Perfectionism is not the same as considered care and attention. Doing a good job means checking your work, thinking it through, catching the details that matter, and that is a strength. There is nothing wrong with having high standards. Perfectionism is different. Perfectionism is what happens when checking becomes a way of avoiding the finishing line. It’s finding reasons again and again to not actually complete the thing. Sometimes that’s fear of what happens next.
Sometimes it’s the fear of being judged once the work is out in the world. And sometimes it’s simply fear that finishing means it’s over and now it can be evaluated. High standards ask, is this good enough to serve the purpose it needs to serve self? Punishment asks, could this theoretically be better forever, no matter how good it already is? And that’s where perfectionism creeps in. These are two very different questions. And far too many overachievers have spent years answering the second one whilst believing they were answering the first one. Here is what makes this pattern so hard to spot in ourselves. Perfectionism dresses itself up as a virtue. It doesn’t feel like avoidance, it feels like integrity.
It feels like refusing to cut corners, refusing to let people down, refusing to put your name to something less than your best. And because it feels that way, it rarely gets questioned. Nobody sits there, capable, conscientious colleague down and says, I think your commitment to quality is actually sabotaging you. I mean, that would sound absurd, right? Surely wanting things to be right is a good thing. But overcoming perfectionism was never about lowering your standards. It’s about accepting something that’s genuinely uncomfortable for a lot of overachievers to hear. And that is, nothing you make will ever be perfect. Nothing.
Not because you’re not good enough, but because perfect doesn’t exist anywhere outside of the imagination. Life is imperfect. People are imperfect. Every piece of work anyone has ever shipped, admired, or built a career on is in some way imperfect. Heck, even this episode is imperfect. That’s life. Which is why the work isn’t. To become someone who produces perfect things, the work we need to do is to become someone who can let go of something that’s good, knowing it will always be a little unfinished, a little improvable, and release it anyway.
With James, this is where things actually shifted. He didn’t need a productivity system. He didn’t need someone to tell him to just submit the work already. He needed a different way of understanding what he was doing to himself. So I introduced him to a phrase. Everything he creates will always be imperfect because life itself is imperfect, but it can still be let go of because it is perfectly imperfect. When I introduced that phrase to him, perfectly imperfect, something landed for him. You could see a light bulb moment.
I watched it happen. He stopped needing good enough to feel like failure. He started seeing it for what it actually was. Enough, complete, ready to be judged on its merits rather than endlessly protected from judgment. Within a year, he was not missing deadlines at all. His output went up, not down, and he got the promotion that had been out of reach for years. Not because he’d lowered what he was willing to deliver, but. But because he’d finally let himself deliver it.
And that’s worth thinking about. Letting go is not the opposite of caring. Sometimes it’s the only way your care actually reaches someone. In the next episode, we’re going to go further into this. We’re going to have a look at why finished is. Is ultimately better than flawless. And we’re going to look at what done costs you when you refuse to accept it. That’s in episode 26, “Done is not a Failure.”
That’s coming up next. But for now, here’s what I’d like to suggest that you think about and reflect upon over the coming week. Where in your own life are you delaying something because it isn’t perfect yet? And what would it look like to call it perfect, imperfectly perfect, and to let it go anyway? If this episode resonates with you. It would mean a lot to me if you left a review or a rating on your favourite platform. It really does help other people see the show, and it helps me to realise and see how the show is helping you share it with someone you think would benefit. And if you haven’t already, give us a like a follow. Subscribe on your favourite platform so that you are here for every episode. Head over to KeithBN.link/TOP
You’ll find all of the episodes, including this episode. Click on the episode. You’ll find the show notes, along with some additional resources that are very much worth exploring. I’m Keith Blakemore-Noble, the Overachievers coach, and I will be your guide as we explore a healthier way to succeed. Catch you in the next episode.
