Page 86 - Free Yourself From

Embracing Good Enough 69

ued my time. But as my company hit another growth spurt, I began
to step back and identify my key business goals. Then I weighed the
tasks I was doing against other tasks I could have been working on.
The deciding factor in this exercise was simple; if I couldn’t tie a task
directly to the organization’s core growth goals, I delegated it to one
of several work buckets and transitioned it to my team. One of these
buckets covered day-to-day work that involved administrative details,
basic paperwork, and loose ends like proofing PowerPoint presenta-
tions and letters.
It seems obvious but it was amazing how much I learned from
this process. Primarily, once I stopped doing them, I saw the large
amount of time I had been spending on workday details. I also saw
how lucky I was to have a very competent team that was actually
much better than I was at those tasks. I had to accept that the
memos and the emails would not be written the exact way I would
have written them, and my PowerPoint slides would not have my
preferred graphics and clip art. I learned that was okay because these
were things where “good enough” was fine. We executed off that
standard and saved perfect for when it really mattered.

The Root of Perfectionism

So, where does this perfectionist trait come from? Some will say that
certain people are born with a predisposition for it. Others will say
we’re socialized for it. I believe that for many women it came to the
forefront in school. Nothing would do except straight As and being
the best in everything they did. In at least a small way, it was a
response to the demands of teachers, coaches, and parents who had
high expectations and who praised and rewarded and held out as
good examples the students who met their high standards.
Girls, more than boys, are often raised to be people pleasers. So
it’s natural for the inner achiever and the inner people-pleaser to con-