This is the tale of a recovering perfectionist – me, to be exact.

Throughout my life, perfectionism has never been far from my side. Like a nasty little creature, I’ve carried him around on my shoulder, spending way too much time listening to his incessant babbling: you suck, you’ll never be good enough, why bother?! On and on and on. You could say I aimed for absolute perfection in my perfectionism. Which would be kind of funny, were it not such a debilitating personality trait.

For me, it started way back at school. Fear of failure meant I’d put off assignments until the very last minute. And anything less than an A+ was a dismal failure.

I’m ashamed to admit that I was also pretty obsessive about my appearance: needing my wardrobe to be just so, throwing out shoes if they were slightly marked and refusing to leave the house if my skin wasn’t completely clear. I plucked and plucked my eyebrows trying to sculpt them into the perfect shape, despite my Mum telling me to “Leave your poor eyebrows alone!” Of course, I only succeeded in ruining them completely, and have spent years since trying to grow them back. I still rely on my trusty Almay eyebrow pencil to fill in the bare patches. Turns out you were right, Mum. But then, Mums are somehow always right, aren’t they!

At university, I kept mostly to myself and graduated with a distinction average and entry into the Golden Key International Honour Society. Still that wasn’t enough. There were a few credits and one pass (shock horror!) on my academic transcript that taunted me.

Once I moved out of home, I fell into a rather obsessive cleaning routine: spending a big portion of my weekend ensuring the floor was meticulously vacuumed, cupboards clean and orderly and ceilings clear of cobwebs.

At work, I would obsess (there’s that word again!) over the tiniest details – proof reading completely unimportant emails multiple times to ensure they were free of typos. I once accidentally wrote ‘accept’ rather than ‘except’, and nearly died of embarrassment. I remember sitting at my desk with my face on fire and heart racing. How could I be so stupid?! Of course, I sent a (carefully proofed!) follow up email explaining that I did in fact know the difference and was sorry for the error. My lovely and always-supportive colleagues thought this was hilarious – in fact, my eye for detail (read: borderline OCD obsessiveness) became a recurring office joke.

It wasn’t always funny though. Whilst I prided myself on being professional and in-control, I took constructive criticism very much to heart – feeling that I’d let myself and the team down when I could have done better, and beating myself up about it for days (sometimes weeks) afterwards. When it came to my team members making mistakes, I was generous and supportive – encouraging them to see it as opportunity for improvement, rather than a failure. I had one set of standards for them, and another (completely unrealistic) set of standards for myself.

I left my corporate role when I returned from my wedding and month-long honeymoon (the best time of my life), and realised that in my ‘real’, 9 – 5 life, I’d become completely miserable. Not surprising when you consider how I was treating myself. All work, no play. Impossible standards. Non-existent self-care. Never good enough. Ignoring my creativity. Sick and tired (literally – my blood protein level was shot).

I decided I wanted to be brave. I wanted to return to my passion for writing and create something out of nothing. And, most of all, I wanted to be kinder to myself.

Creating my own business has been the hardest and best thing I’ve ever done. There have been many, many times when things haven’t gone to plan or run to schedule, and I’ve caught myself falling into old perfectionist habits. I’ve held strong though: reminding myself to be kind, to be patient and to trust that I am making progress. And that progress is enough.

I even declared loud and proud that I’m a ‘recovering perfectionist’ on my homepage. I had a brief moment of doubt, wondering, ‘What if potential clients think I’m lazy and careless?’ But I quickly put that to bed, concluding that my website (hopefully!) gives the opposite impression.

I remain your classic, type A, detail-oriented, eldest-child, over-achieving personality type. There’s no escaping that, and that’s okay. I take great pride in the standard of work I deliver. I’m genuinely driven to delight my clients, and that will never change. But, what do my clients need from me? Really simply: they need me to do the work. And they need it to be excellent – not perfect. Because, of course, there’s no such thing. And that’s the great irony of perfectionism. Typically, I think us perfectionists are a rather smart bunch, and yet we expend so much energy relentlessly pursuing something that simply doesn’t exist. Go figure.

Just like my clients need me to do my work, the world needs you to do yours. So, what are you putting off because you’re scared it won’t be perfect? A new career? Your own business? A novel? A painting? A podcast? Please – give yourself permission to be imperfectly perfect and tackle your life’s work. The world will miss out if you don’t.

I know it’s easier said than done, so here are some tips to get you started:

• Remember: perfection is an impossible goal. No matter how many hours you put in, how many times you proofread, how much you prod and poke and adjust, it (and you) will never be perfect. So, let it go.
• Celebrate how far you’ve already come. Feeling paralysed by fear? Remember all those times when you felt that same fear, but kept going and ultimately succeeded. You’ve done it before and you’ll do it again. Keep going.
• Make it easier for yourself by breaking down the next steps. What’s one achievable thing that you can do today to move yourself forward? Start where you are and take the right next step. And then the next, and the next. Suddenly, it’s not so hard.
• Practise making mistakes. This is not easy! But it’s important in order to become more comfortable with imperfection. These days, if I’m writing an unimportant email, I don’t proofread it. It takes every fibre of my being to press ‘Send’ without reading it over, but it’s getting easier. And I have so much more time as a result!
• Remember, no matter what happens, exactly as you are, you are enough. So, please don’t punish yourself. Above and beyond everything else, treat yourself well and be kind.

Recovering from perfectionism is definitely a process, but I’m making progress – and my life looks very different as a result. These days, if it’s not necessary for me to work a 9-hour day, I don’t. If I feel like doodling for an hour for no good reason, I do. If I’d rather spend time with my family or friends than vacuum, I leave my trusty Dyson in the cupboard and do my best to feel at peace with the crumbs on the kitchen floor. Best of all, I look in the mirror and see somebody new. Somebody who’s kinder, braver, perfectly imperfect and a whole lot happier.