That Time I Realized My Own Perfectionism Was Killing Me
Alright, so it hit me hard last quarter. My boss pulls me aside after a project wrap-up. She wasn’t mad, but she looked kinda… tired? Said something like, “Look, your work is spotless. But the endless tweaking? We missed the client deadline by 3 days because you kept finding ‘one more thing’ to fix.” Ouch.
It was textbook Virgo stuff, right? That critical eye. Always hunting for flaws. Suddenly I saw it everywhere. I’d rewrite emails five times before hitting send. I’d question teammates about tiny spreadsheet details at 9 PM. My own hyper-focus on being flawless was stressing everyone out – including me. Felt like running in sticky mud.
How I Started Chipping Away At It
Knew I had to actually try stuff, not just brood. First step? Brutally honest note-taking. For a whole week, I scribbled down every single moment where I caught myself doing the Virgo Overdrive thing.
- Monday: Spent 2 extra hours redesigning an internal slide deck graphic nobody else would care about.
- Tuesday: Interrupted Sarah mid-sentence in a meeting to correct a minor date typo in her shared screen. Felt her glare immediately.
- Wednesday: Held up finalizing a vendor quote because I was researching one more potential option… even though the first was perfectly fine.
Seeing it all written out? Embarrassing. Illuminating. My brain loved finding problems way more than shipping stuff.
The Tricks That Sorta Worked (After Trial and Error)
Okay, plan time. First rule I made: Define “Good Enough.” Seriously. For each task, before starting, I forced myself to write down what “done” looked like. Just three bullet points max. “Email drafted. Info clear. No glaring typos.” DONE. Close laptop. Walk away. Hardest thing ever the first few tries. Felt physically itchy not to reopen it.
Second trick: The 80/20 Time Lock. If I knew a report should take maybe 2 hours tops? I set a timer for 90 minutes flat for the main build. The final 30 minutes? ONLY for one proofread pass and fixing actual errors, not rephrasing everything again. Timer goes off? HIT SUBMIT. No take-backs. This one hurt, but it worked.
Third thing: Shut up & Listen. Started noticing when my critical brain wanted to pipe up in meetings about non-critical stuff. Made a pact: Zip it unless it was truly going to cause a major problem, right now, or break a rule. Paused. Took a breath instead. Wrote it down privately if it REALLY nagged at me. Mostly? By the meeting end, the urge had passed. Saved me a rep as the nitpicky jerk.
Fourth experiment: Imperfection Practice. Sounds dumb, but it worked. Sent out an internal team update email with one tiny typo left in on purpose (something harmless). Nobody died. Nobody even noticed. Ate lunch at my desk without wiping down every single speck first. World kept turning.
Where I’m At Now
Not cured. Definitely not. That Virgo scanner? It’s always humming in the background. But managing it is way less exhausting now. Deadlines? Hitting them consistently. Team vibe? Less tension, more “get stuff done.” Boss gave me a nod last week about improved delivery speed. Honestly? Getting stuff “good enough” out the door frees up SO much brain space. Used some of it to finally clean out that nightmare of a downloads folder instead. Baby steps.
