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7 Reasons Why Entrepreneurs Can’t Be Perfectionists

What’s wrong with wanting something to be perfect? Nothing, unless it’s leading to your failure and that is exactly what can happen to many trying to be a perfectionist. Perfectionism refers to an all-or-nothing mentality, there is only one right way and the rest are wrong.

Striving for perfection can garner you a lot of great perks. It can lead to immense financial rewards, career achievements and so much more. However, placing that much pressure on yourself can also expose you to a lot of perils that more often than not lead to an eventual crash.

Here are 7 reasons why entrepreneurs can’t be perfectionists:

1. When You’re Perfect, You Don’t Take Risks

Being an entrepreneur is risky; being an industry leader brings tons of uncertainty. Being perfect may make you feel bulletproof, but it’s really keeping you stuck within the status quo. Risks are a necessary part of growing and improving.

2. You Strive To Keep Everyone Happy

As a perfectionist, you are often a people pleaser wanting others to think highly of you. With your all-or-nothing thinking, you see yourself as “good” if people like you and “bad” if they don’t. With people pleasing comes a lot of difficulties in making decisions and avoiding important conversations solely for the fear that you’ll upset someone else. As a result of this, your work may often be crippled.

3. You’ll Be Exposed To Excessive Levels Of Stress

Because your benchmarks for success are unreasonably high, life basically becomes a ground fight between you and the stress you’re placing yourself under. You’ll be exerting so much effort at perfecting even the non-essentials that finding opportunities to relax and get refreshed becomes non-existent. There’s no doubt about it, you’ll eventually burn out and the lows will become much lower.

4. When You’re Perfect, You Cannot Adapt To New Situations

In today’s environment of complex challenges and rapid change, adaptive problem solving is a crucial ability. Adaptability is not just a “nice to have” competency but an important competitive advantage. The addictive nature of perfectionism keeps us from adapting to new situations that can help us evolve.

5. You’ll Waste Precious Time And Opportunities

This is a major reason experts dissuade entrepreneurs from ever becoming perfectionists. You’ll never get things done on time. You’ll spend too much time planning and perfecting a product or feature before launching it. That’s one of the most dangerous business mistakes you can ever make.

6. You Can’t Delegate

Being a perfectionist often means you have a hard time delegating tasks to others. With an all-or-nothing mentality, you most likely believe that there is a right way to do something and that everything else is wrong. By not delegating to others, you limit your businesses growth and overwhelm yourself.

7. You Won’t Find True Happiness

While everyone wants a perfect life, a perfect spouse or the perfect business, nothing of the sort has ever existed. It’s merely your warped perception of how others live that causes people to want to emulate the lives of others. Rather, well-balanced people tend to experience the most happiness by cherishing what they have.

Conclusion

Perfectionism is self-destructive for one very simple reason, there is no such thing as perfect. You need to know what perfectionism may be costing you so that you can find a way to abandon your need to be perfect. In this post, I shared with you the 7 reasons why entrepreneurs can’t be perfectionists.

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