My trick for overcoming perfectionism

If you're the kind of overachiever who painstakingly fine-tunes every detail, this video is tailor-made for you. Today, we're addressing a common struggle many perfectionists face — the relentless pursuit of excellence becoming a thief of time, efficiency, and even well-being.

Watch this video to learn the new tactic I've adopted that's helping me combat the clutches of perfectionism.

• Read the video transcript

  Well, today's Two-Minute Tip is for all of my fellow perfectionists out there, you overachievers who pay attention to every little detail. And yes, you deliver with excellence but it does come at a cost, right? And typically that cost is time, your own wellbeing, maybe even frustrating other colleagues with how much time you are taking to perfect something. So if that's you, this video is for you today.

  Now my daughter, my oldest one, fits in this category. She is a perfectionist, and last night, very late she was working on finishing up her history homework assignment. This history homework assignment was for her to create some artwork, a picture demonstrating some of what they've been studying and what she's learning.

  Obviously, the history teacher is looking to see that she is retaining and understanding the content that they're studying. She's probably not going to actually judge the artwork, right? This isn't an art class, but Kennedy didn't care. She wanted to perfect every detail in that artwork. And yes, it looked beautiful, but she was up way too late.

  And I was tired too. And so my initial statements were not helpful at all. You know the statements like, "Oh honey, that's good enough." Right? "It looks great!" Didn't help. "Your history teacher's not gonna be judging or scoring that piece, that little picture you're drawing right there." Didn't help, right?

  Finally, I admitted to her, "You know what? I get it, honey, if I were in your shoes, if I were working right now on a training presentation, and I just didn't feel like all the little details were just the way I wanted them, I would continue to power through like you are doing right now. So I'm going to stop telling you what to do, and just let you be."

  So if you can relate to this, I want to share with you a new statement that I have been practicing saying in my head. When I find myself getting slowed down by this tendency of perfectionism and I know that I need to move faster and I know that I'm being unproductive, the statement is not, "It's good enough," because that one doesn't work for me and it doesn't work for most perfectionists.

  The statement that I have been repeating in my mind is, "How can I make this easier?" "How can I make this easier?" And I say it before I step into working on something. I say it when I'm in the middle of it, and for some reason that statement helps me let go of some of the perfectionism. Not all of it, but it does help me think okay, how can I actually simplify this? Because so often that perfectionism causes us to over complicate things. So, "How can I make this easier?"

  If you resonate with anything I said in this video today, I want you to give this statement a try and let me know how it goes.