High Performance or Perfection

Have you given any thought about the difference between someone focused on being a perfectionist or a high performer? The difference is quite remarkable. Let's talk about the drive to be perfect and what it can cost you.

There is nothing bad about being very good at what you do. However, trying to be perfect can cost you a lot in terms of mental health and harmonious relationships. People who can mobilize themselves in the face of tough problems are usually people who don't worry about being perfect. They are happy to move ahead with a partial solution, trusting that they will invent the rest as they go along. Obstacles are just bumps in the road to maneuver around to achieve the ultimate goal.

Many perfectionists, on the other hand, will try to tell you that their relentless standards drive them to levels of productivity and excellence that they could not otherwise attain. Most often, however, the opposite is true. Perfectionists typically accomplish less, because they waste so much time, often paralyzed by fear of failure.

Many perfectionists will not start anything until they know how to finish it without any mishaps, and that, in my opinion, is wrong thinking. Also, while perfectionists seem to have a positive attitude toward whatever they are doing, sometimes it is just creative avoidance with a different face.

High-performance people, even though they don't know exactly how they are going to do something, keep their vision of the end-result uppermost in their minds and they forge ahead anyway. They believe that they will get the help they need, find the resources they need, and figure out the how-to's as they go - and they usually find the way to move forward.

If for some reason high-performance people do not achieve the outcome they wanted, they don't waste energy beating themselves up. They simply learn from the experience and move on. High- performance people are resilient and persistent, stay on target, and have confidence in their ability to see it through. Give me a team of high-performance people any day because they will consistently outperform a group of perfectionists! Which group would you prefer?

Think about it…