I’ve worked with a lot of high achievers over the years as an executive performance coach. Some were what I’d call positive narcissists – confident, driven and ambitious. Others were wracked with self-doubt and exhibited classic imposter-syndrome tendencies: convinced their own high standards were unattainable and feeling like they should always be doing more. Across the board, they shared a fatal flaw – an inability to prioritize. They became entangled in endless planning, incapacitated by the fantasy of getting everything “just right” and ended up procrastinating ad nauseum. They fixated on what should be done and lost sight of what could be done.
Perfectionists burden themselves with rigid rules, a crippling fear of failure and impossibly high expectations. They resist delegation as if handing off a task is a sign of weakness. Caught in a loop of self-criticism, they bristle at feedback, discount praise and constantly seek reassurance to quiet an inner voice telling them their work is simply not good enough. They inflate a normal sense of responsibility until it blots out common sense. Their affliction is fueled by the dangerous fiction that mistakes are intolerable. And they are enabled by misguided bosses and allies who tolerate chronic delays, grant endless deadline extensions and heap unearned commendation on effort rather than results.
The pursuit of perfection in all things is unhealthy. For some, it’s a pathology. In today’s fast-paced and complicated workplace, it’s a parasite that eats away at efficiency, plunders profit and turns minor errors into all-out crises. Perfectionism is an obsession disguised as diligence – a suffocating fear of failure dressed up in the costume of “high standards.” It doesn’t just slow things down, it breeds analysis paralysis, rigid thinking and a kind of moral puritanism that leaves little room for experimentation, risk taking or error. In today’s uncertain, paradoxical and volatile workplace, it’s a time and resource-eating syphon on productivity and creative problem solving.
In order to find coherence between our principles and our aspirations, we need to impose limits on ourselves and determine the meaning of proportionality in the pursuit of our goals. In simple terms, we must have a sense of what constitutes “enough” in the context of all the variables life throws at us. Knowing what constitutes enough (to move on) makes our choices easier. If achievement is always equated to being the best, then we’re destined to live a life of disappointment. And that is unsustainable. In a world that seeks opportunities but demands trade-offs, the relentless pursuit of perfection does not work as an operating paradigm. We can seek it, we just can’t expect it. In the real world, that romanticized search for ideals is more than exhausting; it’s delusional, naive and sometimes even selfish.
Success is having an operating system for personal and professional growth, one that aligns with our unique definition of purpose, fulfillment and significance. The intersection of our investments of time, effort and resources is complex. It’s also transformational. Stuff happens to us every day and presents us with boundaries, obstacles and opportunities. There’s no such thing as a perfect plan. Everything evolves. Since we can’t have all we may want, we must learn to distinguish between what’s enough, what’s right, what’s necessary and what’s emotionally worthwhile. And, because we are notoriously poor judges of what we really need, no one else can answer that question but us – although the insights of others can often point the way.
Is there a cure for this affliction? The French have a saying: “Once you can discuss your illness, you’re halfway cured.” Or, as we often prefer to say: a problem well defined is half solved. Remedies emerge when people dare to speak candidly about their struggles, to genuinely confront the consequences of their behavior, and to listen – really listen – to one another. Like the first step of any rehabilitation program, acknowledgment is the beginning of healing: if you can’t admit it, you can’t fix it.
The secret to resolving the dilemma between good and great is discovering the difference, then striking a balance, between maximizing and satisficing. Maximizing is the quest to explore every option in search of the best. In today’s world of almost infinite possibilities, that pursuit is overwhelming and counterproductive. There are just too many options worthy of consideration. Ours is a world of limitless choices. The consequence of always searching for the best, easiest or most efficient is the inevitable realization the effort is futile. Too often, the result is paralysis or regret, captured in ruminating questions like: “Why didn’t I…?” It’s why Einstein equated repetition without a change in outcomes to insanity or madness. It’s living the hedonic treadmill: always chasing, never arriving.
Satisficing, by contrast, is the art of choosing what’s good enough and moving forward. It’s making thoughtful decisions, knowing when to stop agonizing over perfection, and recognizing the difference between want and need. Limits are inherent in life. Without a sense of what’s enough, we’re destined to chase endlessly without meaning. The comfort of supreme accomplishment will forever elude us. The goal isn’t to acquire the best of everything – it’s to think deeper and better. Achievement isn’t always a moonshot; it’s a deliberate stretch toward getting stuff that actually matters done. While ambition flexes the mind and spirit, reachability offers contentment.
Enough is not settling for mediocrity. It’s about acceptance – embracing what genuinely satisfies our personal and professional aspirations as they evolve. It’s reconciling what we want now with what we could wait for, what we need for growth with whether the enterprise that buys our time and talent can provide, and what is genuine with what’s necessary or expedient. Until we can calibrate the tension between our ambition and reality, we can’t wisely direct our limited resources amid life’s shifting demands on our time. To paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr: Grant yourself the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
In navigating the trade-offs between more and enough, our desires must be in sync with our principles. Instilled early and shaped by those who guide us, these constitute the engine that drives commitment and perseverance. Achievement isn’t the ultimate endgame. The process of giving disciplined and creative effort every day is. Knowing the parameters of what guides enough is more important than achieving excellence in all things. This determination gives life its richness and coherence. Like a thermostat, it sets the minimums and maximums of our fulfillment – what we can pragmatically expect, accept and act upon. This frees us to worry less but understand more about our choices and relationships. If we can’t acknowledge the limits of our capabilities, we’ll misplace our valued time and effort into overreaching and falling short. Therein will lie perpetual frustration, dissatisfaction and remorse. And that is the antithesis of a life well lived.
A note to longtime subscribers: As you are aware, every summer I take time off to revitalize the brain cells and restock my blog cupboard. I’ll be back in September. Perhaps, in the interim, you might cherry pick the archive and find a topic worth a re-read – over 200 have been posted over the past decade or so. Thank you for your loyal following. Be well, stay safe and remain curious.
Jim