Many of us believe we aren’t good enough („I am not pretty enough, smart enough, witty enough, successful enough...”). And because we feel we aren’t enough the way we are, we try to become perfect, so that we’d finally feel worthy of love and recognition. We might want to have a perfect body, or follow a perfect diet (or, follow a diet perfectly!), or try to be perfect at our job, or be a perfect parent, spouse, child, friend.... However, we all know how that ends – we regularly fall short of living up to the self-imposed standard, and end up judging and blaming ourselves even more.

The secret to let go of perfectionism is to have a sense of self-worth. If we know we’re worthy, we don’t need to prove ourselves to others by becoming some idealized version of ourselves. We don’t need to be 10 pounds lighter in order to be lovable. We don’t need to earn more money before we can gain self-esteem.

Although perfectionism can be a drive for improvement (e.g. to be more fit, to advance in our career, to earn more money and improve our living standard), it’s fueled by a sense of lack, and that’s why it can never make us happy. Rich Litvin, a well-known coach, said it eloquently „You can never have enough of what you don’t really need.” If we suffer from perfectionism, what we really need is a sense of self-esteem and self-worth. The perfection we’re chasing can’t really give us fulfillment, even if we somehow manage to achieve it.

So how do we approach self-improvement? In such a way that we first develop a sense of self-esteem, and then we look at our life through that lense, we evaluate it and see if we want to improve something, be better at some skill, lose weight, etc. We do it not because we feel unworthy the way we are, but because we genuinely want to grow and realize our potentials. It is in human nature to want to grow and improve, it’s just important that the motivation is right.

Letting go of perfectionism is one of the preconditions to prevent workplace burnout as well. If we give up perfectionism, we won’t be driven by a sense of "I am not good enough" and we won’t allow to work ourselves to death. We can still strive to do our best and aim for excellence, however this drive and ambition will come from a much healthier place.