Everyone wants to do their job to the fullest! We all work hard to succeed and to achieve our goals, but some people can reach an extreme level as they seek perfectionism in work. When you hear the word perfect, you instantly think it’s nice, complete, and nothing is wrong with it, but did you ever think about what it takes for something to be perfect?
Being perfect at your job can actually harm it and harm your productivity; so, if you seek a perfect performance, here’s why this could be a bad decision.
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Why Perfectionism Is A Problem
Some employees or managers think that their work has to be perfect all the time, and sometimes this thought becomes an obsession.
Making mistakes is a part of being human and it will always happen during your career; some people accept that while others always seek perfection! Being a perfectionist at work means that you don’t allow yourself to make a mistake, and if you did, you would always beat yourself up for it.
Instead of accepting failure and learning from it, you will feel worthless and that you’re incapable of making any accomplishments.
This can lead to the downfall of your career!
What Makes Someone Want To Be Perfect?
There are many factors that can drive someone to achieve perfectionism at work including the fear of failure.
It also can be because of anxiety, low self-esteem, always comparing yourself to others, and not facing many moments of failure. All of these can be factors why someone wants to achieve perfectionism at work.
Anxiety and low self-esteem can make an individual constantly think that they need to do more and put more effort because what they did is not enough. They tend to worry if their manager might criticize their work so they would want to avoid any criticism.
Other people always aspire to be the best and compare themselves to others, which always drives them to achieve perfection so they can top other colleagues.
How It Could Negatively Affect Your Performance
If you think being a perfectionist at work will enhance your performance, we’re sorry to tell you that it might do the opposite.
Always seeking perfectionism at work might reduce your productivity and your performance. There are many situations that you will go through if you’re trying to be a perfectionist that will cause harm to your work.
Hard To Be Satisfied
No matter what you do, you won’t feel fully satisfied with your work.
You will always feel that there’s something missing and you won’t like the final result of any task or project you work on. You will always feel that there is more to be done and that you’re capable of doing more and this will affect your performance.
You’ll Always Want More
If you finished one task perfectly and were satisfied with the results, you’d always want more.
As we mentioned previously, this might turn into an obsession; you will start obsessing over the idea that you want everything done perfectly and you will always stress yourself and push it to reach the result that satisfies you!
As it was said before, you will barely feel satisfied with what you do.
Your Tasks Will Take A Long Time To Be Done
Spending too much time on a simple task or not being satisfied with your result will make you take a longer time to finish a task than usual.
You will always keep going back to the task until you reach what you want; this might make you miss a deadline and it will negatively affect your performance.
24/7 Of Stress
All of the mentioned above will make you live in a stressful time 24/7!
You will always feel stressed when you start working on a task; not feeling satisfied with your work will make you stressed and will affect every aspect of your life because you will find yourself spending more time at work than your social life.
So, most of the time you will feel tired and you might reach a point where you can’t get anything done.
It Will Affect Your Colleagues
Being a perfectionist might affect your colleague or team, especially if you’re a manager.
If you’re managing a team, you will not be satisfied with their results as well, so you’ll end up pushing them to meet your expectations. You will find yourself interfering in their tasks and in how they work on them, which might push them away because you will use the wrong management style to deal with them.
So, you might drive them to leave or their productivity and performance will be negatively affected.
So, the right way to deal with being a perfectionist is to accept that you will fail and make mistakes; it is the best way to learn and to improve.