Excellence Over Perfection

I used to wear perfectionism like a badge of honour—until I realized it was quietly holding me back from everything I actually cared about. While it is absolutely okay to give your all and strive to do things well, I needed to learn that doing something well does not mean that it needs to be perfect.

When Perfection Backfires

For years I would say "I am a perfectionist" or "I have perfectionistic tendencies" when asked about weaknesses in interviews. Because it kind of felt like one of those weaknesses that is not really a weakness. In the end, an employer should like perfection in work, right?

I know I am not the only one who answers with "perfectionism" as a weakness, not really thinking of it as one. But here's the bad news:

• Employers actually see it as an answer that shows lack of self-awareness

• It is actually a huge weakness

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Both of them were true in my case because if I had only once been asked how "perfectionism" negatively impacts my work, or what I am doing to improve it - I could not have given an answer. Because I didn't really want to change it.

However, I would find myself being way less efficient than other people, feeling unable to ask for help or feedback, and generally not performing well as a team player.

All of these could be signs of other weaknesses as well - but they were mostly rooted in my perfectionism.

How Perfectionism Stalled My Life

While I started to see the impact perfectionism had on my work life, I also began to see how it limited my personal development and the life I was dreaming of beyond work. For years, I did not actually do things for fear of them not being perfect, or I would not complete things knowing I could not complete them perfectly.

For instance, when creating new habits, I often started a new habit and then fell off the wagon after a couple of days or a week and then just stopped because now it was not perfect.

Journaling was a big one for me. Not only did I need to do it every day, but the pages also needed to look perfect - pretty much the same every day. So, I would try to set up the journal at the beginning of the week - a page a day and then fill it out. But at some point, I would have a day where I was too tired to write a whole page or fill out each of the parts I had prepared, and then I just stopped for the rest of the week - because it would not be perfect. I got frustrated and just wrote it off as something that wasn't for me.

Another example was losing weight. I wanted to lose some weight and get a bit fitter for years - not that I really needed to, but I just felt like I could feel better. For years, I started over and over again with a calorie deficit, setting up a training plan. But often, by the end of a week on a deficit, I would just fall into a binge and then throw out the whole idea because "I just could not do it perfectly."

Other things - like a blog -I didn't even bother starting unless I was sure I could post weekly, make it beautiful, and ensure every post was impactful.

That was an impossible ask, and while I did start once before this blog, it died very quickly because it did not meet the perfection standard I had set for it.

Back to square one: not writing, not blogging - but dreaming about the perfect blog.

From Perfection to Excellence

As a non-native English speaker, excellence was not really a word in my vocabulary. The first time I really took note of it was during my discipleship school in New Zealand, where a speaker talked about perfectionism and excellence. I think that was the first time I started to think differently about perfectionism.

Here is the thing: I really like to do things well, to have an eye for detail, and to be proud of the outcome of what I am doing, be it cooking a dish, getting work done, or writing a blog post. I want those things to be as good as possible - and for a long time, I thought that meant they needed to be perfect.

For the first time during that teaching, I encountered another word that better describes this desire: excellence.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines "excellence" as:

"The quality of being outstanding or extremely good."

This was exactly what I was feeling, and so, in a way, I put it in the same basket as perfectionism. For me, they became the same. It took another couple of years for me to learn the difference, so that today, my definition of excellence looks like this:

"The quality of being outstanding or extremely good, given the skill, circumstance, resources and ability."

Why did I add to the OED? For me, excellence understands that we don't do things in a vacuum and that for almost everything we do, we have outside influences that we cannot control. And it "judges" an end product in light of those circumstances. In other words, the bar is not fixed; it moves based on the circumstances. Perfection does not take that into account.

For example, it would be really good for a three-year-old to colour a colouring page with 80% of the colour inside the lines - that is excellence for a three-year-old. For an adult, on the other hand, not so much, unless maybe they had a stroke and are learning to use that hand again - then it can be excellent again.

Perfection requires that the colour not cross the line; excellence understands the skill and circumstance.

Excellence also understands that improvement and growth can only happen if the three-year-old continues to colour outside the lines until they master the skill. Perfectionism leaves no room for learning because it leaves no room for failure. But both are essential for us to learn and grow.

Excellence, on the other hand, promotes learning, improvement, and growth in skill because mistakes and failures are not seen as "proof" that you are not good enough but as a chance to learn and become better.

How Letting Go Of Perfectionism Changed My Life

I'm not completely over perfectionism, but I'm recovering, and the impact it's had on my life is massive. Being okay with things not being perfect allowed me to actually make progress in so many areas of my life, but I want to revisit the examples I've given earlier.

I am now journaling daily - not a whole page, though, and the pages are not prepped to be filled out. It's just a very simple, very messy-looking journal. It is far from perfect; the handwriting is not great most of the time, and some days, the entry is only two or three sentences. But journaling has helped me so much to remember what I experience, understand how I am feeling, and wind down to be able to sleep faster instead of spending hours thinking about the day. I've learned and adapted how to journal so it meets my needs and fits in the timeframe I have.

I've lost the weight I wanted to lose and remained in a calorie deficit for almost two months to do so. I did not stick perfectly to my diet, and there were days when I definitely was not in a deficit. But the next day, I got back on track - my streak was not perfect. But I made progress nonetheless; I reached my goal even when the way there was not perfectly executed.

As you can see, this is now the third blog post I've written. It has not been perfect. I have the idea to post every week, which I have definitely not achieved. There have been weeks when sitting down and writing a post was impossible because work and life just had too much going on. Instead of writing off the whole idea, I just adjusted my posting schedule and am still continuing to write and post. I am finally doing what I've always dreamed about doing.

So, I can only encourage you to let go of perfectionism. But how?

For me, it was the little things I started with. With journaling, I did not have the same pen to fill it out and was learning to be okay with the ink changing colour or having a different hue of blue or black. Those were little steps that had a huge impact in realizing that for things to work, they don't have to be perfect.

Instead of starting with a huge deficit and a whole bunch of restrictions, I limited some foods and aimed to balance others out a bit more. It was far from a perfect diet, but these were little adjustments that still made an impact, and I chose to be patient with myself if I "messed up." I also learned or understood that one day of eating over the deficit would not ruin a whole week's worth of eating in a deficit.

"I think it's hard to give a "here's your road map out of perfectionism" because it looks different for everyone. Changing the pens was a huge step for me, which started the process. I encourage you, if you want to walk away from perfectionism, to start with something similarly small - and be patient on the journey.

Remember: Excellence celebrates progress, while perfectionism demands the impossible. Every time you choose "good enough" over "perfect," you're not lowering your standards—you're choosing growth. Your journal pages might be messy, your meals not macro-perfect, and your blog schedule inconsistent—but they exist.

And done is what transforms dreams into progress.

What's one small area where you could let go of perfectionism today? Your future self will thank you for starting, even imperfectly."