Progress over perfection

Perfectionism has been branded as a bit of a pitfall of humanity. Ok, am I getting a bit too dramatic? But if you go to a job coaching session where you start with a classic strengths and weaknesses analysis, you will leave there with that conviction or at least a confusion. Is it my strength then or a weakness? Am I doomed because of my perfectionism?

Well, nothing is black or white when it comes to our strengths and weaknesses. There will always be times when your best trait will be tested in extreme circumstances where it will not be helpful.

The same is with perfectionism. It gives you a piece of mind about a job well done and you are proud of it. Thus if you have the right job where you can apply your skill on a daily basis then you thrive. But come to a critical situation when you are under time pressure and your 'religious' attention to detail might put you on edge.

In extreme situations, perfectionism makes us give up entirely even before we start something. When we see no possibility to execute something the perfect way we would like, what's the point then?

The progress is exactly the point; and restoring the trust in our own abilities. If fear of not being able to do a good job makes you quit, then making a first small step that is successful will help you move forward.

With that in mind I challenged myself at the start of the new year. Last year was tough and I had to put aside some of my projects, one of them being launching my company with a fully functioning website, promo campaign and all that. So this year I decided not to wait until I'm ready with everything, but instead to put myself out there showing you every step of the way. And of course it is a big simplification, because what you see is still only a tip of an iceberg with lots of work done behind the scenes. But it is still not the perfect version I would normally like to present.

However, a few weeks into the year I can see how much I have done. I put up my website and tweaked it already thanks to some good responses coming from people who viewed it. I grew my confidence and am continuing with new energy and motivation. I actually am proud of myself. And don't be fooled; I procrastinated big time too, fearing the failure. But here I am, my first step already behind me and the second one in front of me even more exciting.

But this article is not only to brag about my achievements. I was just making a point. Now, let me give you some good content that might help you with discovery of your own traits as well as obstacles to look out for. I promised you a tool, didn't I.

When looking at my perfectionism, the 'quadrant of Ofman' proved to be quite insightful for me. The tool is called Ofman Core Quality Quadrant (or variation thereof) and there is even an app with questionnaires to help you figure out your detailed 'profile'.

This is a tool to help you - in the first instance - understand yourself better. It can provide an answer (one of many) to the question "why". Why do you do certain things the way you do them? Why do you react a certain way? Why are some things so annoying to you?

Furthermore, it'll also shed light on your relations with others and why you get along with some people better and with others less so.

Let's jump to the model now.

Quadrant means it is a square/rectangle with four sections which represent respectively: core quality, pitfall, challenge and allergy. Here you can see my very simplified drawing just for the first understanding of it.

There are a few 'movements' that can happen in this model and those explain the following:

• How your core quality can become a pitfall when there is too much of it;

• How to turn your pitfall into a challenge to alter your behaviour to the positive impact;

• How too much of the challenge can turn into a behaviour that is in your allergy field;

• How allergy is experienced as a difficulty and when confused with the challenge will prevent you from taking on the challenge.

Here is a picture of those mechanisms drawn by me.

Now, for better understanding let's look at an example. And what a better example it would be if not 'perfectionism'. And please, note this is how I worked it out for myself. I categorized 'perfectionism' as my core quality. But if you google the model for perfectionism you will see that it is depicted as either core quality or pitfall. I dare to say that this is down to the definition of the word, so I extended mine to clarify what falls under this quality for me.

It is safe to say that the learning we get from this model (among other things) is that we should focus on the positive (see the picture above: area with orange frame). And as mentioned before, it is sometimes very tricky to not to confuse the allergy with a challenge, which - when it happens - may prevent us from avoiding our pitfall. And don't be too harsh on yourself. One time it will work and you will be able to take on the challenge, the other time not. We are all humans, we make mistakes. But the trick is to learn from them and move on.

This lesson about my own 'perfectionism' was for me an eye opener of sorts. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine that you can do the things differently than what your initial predisposition is. But I see that one can learn to adapt. One important thing is, it is NOT about changing who you are! By no means! It is about learning how you work, what makes you tick and when, and then learning to adapt to make things work.

I hope that me sharing this learning with you will help you in self-discovery as well. I would love to hear your thoughts, so don't hold back on those comments or send me a direct message!

And for those hungry for knowledge, here a few more resources relating to the Core Quadrant of Daniel Ofman:

• Website: https://www.corequality.nl/?lang=en

• App: Core Quality (paid, but only one-time charge)

• There are also books as well as a card game for this model (just google it)

For more of similar content, feel free to follow me on social media! And check my website lighthouse-coaching.nl.

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