How Perfectionism Holds You Back from Changing Career and What to Do About It

Are you stuck overthinking your next career move because you’re afraid of getting it wrong? In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens unpacsk how perfectionism, that voice telling you your next job has to be 100% right, can keep you stuck in place. You’ll learn how to think differently about it so that you can release the pressure and stop feeling paralysed. 

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why striving for the perfect job keeps you paralysed
• Why your next job doesn’t need to be your forever job
• How to embrace uncertainty and see mistakes as progress

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/
Free Coaching Consultation: https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free clarity call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Transcript

Hello, today we’re going to talk about perfectionism and how it can hold you back when you are thinking of changing careers. 

What do I mean when I say perfectionism in this context?

So if you are thinking of changing careers - whether you are just curious about what that change could be or whether you have no idea or lots of ideas and potential routes you are exploring

l, or maybe  a kernel of an idea but you are scared of committing to it - if you’re in any of those positions one thing that stands in the way for so many people is this idea that they have to get this next move right - they have to make the RIGHT decision. That they can’t get it wrong. 

Most people I talk to start out by thinking I have to make this next decision 100% perfect so that I pick the thing that is 100% right for the rest of my life.

We’re going to unpack all of that. Because that is so much pressure to be putting on yourself. This perfectionism - setting yourself this impossibly high standard for yourself translates to you putting so much pressure on yourself - and this pressure so often leads to paralysis. An inability to make any decision for fear of it not being right, fear of it not being perfect.

It also stops you from exploring your options, it means you limit yourself even at the exploration phase.

And do you know what else, typically comes hand in hand with perfectionist tendencies - a whole heap of self criticism. When you are constantly setting the standards really high for yourself, or constantly raising the bar every time you get close to achieving something - you get really good at criticising yourself. Telling yourself you are not making it or doing it right. And you miss out on opportunities to acknowledge and recognise what you have achieved. You typically won’t be your own greatest cheerleader. And this has an effect on your confidence…. Making it even harder to reach for those high standards you are setting.

If this is something you recognise, I don’t want you to get all judgy with yourself. We’re just going to notice it and then be grateful that awareness paves the way for us to change. 

The good news is just because you have displayed perfectionist tendencies and behaviours in the past doesn't mean this is the way you will always be. No. You can change how you think about yourself and what’s possible for you, and when you change how you think, you can change how you feel about yourself and then you can change how you act and behave. So you don’t have to be trapped in a web of perfectionism.

So let’s talk about how we can change our thinking about this perfect next job when you’re changing your career.

1. THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A PERFECT JOB

Let’s start with what feels like an obvious but important point to make at the outset. It’s worth reminding yourself that there is no such thing as a ‘perfect job. Nothing you do is going to feel 100% amazing and perfect all of the time. It’s not going to tick every single box at all times. Jobs ebb and flow, our lives ebb and flow - sometimes things will be great, sometimes they’ll be challenging and sometimes they’ll be just ticking along. So stop telling yourself that you need to find perfection - I want to offer, that it is much more helpful to think about the best match for you for now.

What is the thing that best matches the criteria that you have for your lifestyle and your working life right now? In terms of money, flexibility, fulfilment, learning, being valued, community, recognition - whatever it is that you want or need most of right now. Is this role fulfilling most of your criteria? And Are the compromises worth it? Because there will be compromises - there always are in every job and every opportunity. That’s not a bad thing, that’s just life. So are the ones you are considering worth it? Are there enough things that fit what you’re looking for to make any downsides feel manageable?

1. THe NEXT JOB IS NOT THE FOREVER JOB

And this brings me on to the second point which relates to this criteria I’ve been mentioning. At various points in your life what you want and need from work will change. That’s OK and that’s normal and what it means is that you may well find certain jobs are no longer a fit at certain times of your life. Do you know what this also means?

The job you pick next doesn’t have to be your forever job. I’m going to say that again because it really is crucial that you hear and understand the implication of this - Your next job is not the forever job

You are potentially putting so much pressure on yourself to get this next job decision 100% right and telling yourself, maybe because you’re in midlife “I have to really get it right this time” but why?

This next job is the next stage of your career journey, it doesn’t have to be your final destination - in fact I would like to suggest that it is highly unlikely that it will be your last and final job. Because you are likely to change again, the world is going to keep changing, industries are going to keep changing and all of that is OK…. if you just release all that pressure on yourself to find the perfect next job.

If you’re in midlife, let’s say you are in your 40s - maybe you are 42 - as a woman you still have at least 25 years of working life left. That’s great news - that’s loads of time to learn new skills, grow your career in new directions, evolve - try another new career later on

So how does it change things for you if you tell yourself that this decision about what to do next is about finding your next job, that’s right for this chapter of your life, not your forever job?

Maybe think about that this week, or even write down your answer to that

1. IT’S OK TO MAKE MISTAKES

And one final thing to say about perfectionism, when you’re telling yourself that you have to make this perfect, 100% right decision. You are basically telling yourself that you can’t be wrong, you can’t make mistakes - that you can’t entertain any uncertainty. like I said at this start- the only place this typically leads you to is a standstill. It paralyses you and stops you making any decision at all. 

Moving forward and making decisions with the best information that you have at the time, is movement, it’s progress - it means you are no longer stuck in a situation that has the certainty of making you unhappy.

And you might make a decision and it might not be 100% right but that will be good - it will allow discovery, exploration - because now you have new information, new data to help you keep making new decisions.

You might not get things right first time, especially if you are changing to do something you’ve never done before - but the only way to know if it feels right for you is to make an educated decision based on whether it matches your criteria and then TRYING IT

And being OK with the fact that the trying is is the thing that will help you decide if it’s working if you like it, if you’re on the right path or if you need to adjust - maybe your doing the right job but in the wrong organisation, or you love the industry but the job doesn’t feel quite right - you’ll then have new information that can help you change, adapt, upskill

I’m going to tell you a story about my own experience when I started out as a coach. When I first trained, I started out coaching small business owners. Helping them with their strategies, marketing and social media plans and ultimately their mindset as well.

It felt like a neat, easy side step from my previous role as a Strategist in an ad agency helping brands doing that and it was something I’d already informally been helping some friends with. 

To be entirely honest with you I had no idea if that was the right coaching niche for me - choosing a niche is one of the things that new coaches can spend weeks, months and even years obsessing over. 

My coach at the time was very clear about not spending time in the niche drama - her advice was to pick one, try it out and coach people. And that would be the only way to find out if that felt like a good fit. And she was right.

I think I was coaching on small business marketing for over a year and actually it was going well, I had quite a few clients and a group coaching programme BUT at the same time people were coming to me organically, through referrals and word of mouth - they were saying “I hear you’ve got out of the corporate world, you’ve left your job and changed careers - I want to do that - can you help me. So I was actually coaching people on that at the same time without really marketing it.

And what I realised is that I really loved helping people change careers because it meant helping people change their whole lives - which is so powerful. It almost always involved helping women people believe in themselves more so that they could become that person who could make changes and I realised that is what I wanted to focus on - changing themselves, believing in themselves and making changes that really made them happy by doing things that felt totally right to them - even if it went against what society had told them success looked like.

And so I started again! I renamed my business, rebuilt my website, redid my branding and relaunched the business about 18 months in.  And the only way I had the courage to do that was because I’d already made changes, I’d already left a secure corporate job so this type of change didn’t feel so scary - I’d become someone who was good at making changes. 

Really importantly - I never told myself that I had got it ‘wrong’ or made an awful mistake by launching first as a marketing coach. I told myself that by launching as one type of coach, I now had lots of real life experience that helped me to redecide on the best type of coaching for me.

This is the key - when I first chose my coaching niche I told myself I wouldn’t beat myself up if I got it wrong, I’d just change it later if it wasn’t working - I didn’t put pressure on myself to get it 100% perfect straight away, How could I know? I’d never been a coach before?

I didn’t know which type of coaching I’d enjoy the most. I didn’t know if I would even like coaching. I also gave myself the option to not be a coach if it didn’t work out and do something else entirely.

And when I discovered I really loved helping people change their lives by changing how they were working - I leant into that, I was really glad to have more experience… I didn’t make it mean I was wrong or an idiot for getting it wrong. 

I initially made the best decision I could with the information I had at the time, and then when I had new information after coaching for a while - I made a new decision….

And I know that this is what I’m brilliant at - helping people believe that change is possible in their life by changing their careers - and I love it. And one of the reasons I’m so sure is that I’ve tried other types of coaching..

If I’d put that pressure on myself to get things right the first time, maybe I never would have taken the leap and become a coach at all or maybe I would have told myself I couldn’t change my mind and shift niches.

I want you to have the freedom that I gave myself to try things, see how they work for you and make adjustments later if you need to…. Redecide if you need to…

SUMMARY

So before I finish this week let me just sum up what I want you to take away from this week’s podcast - perfectionism will keep you paralysed and keep you stuck. So focus on these three things instead

1. Remember there is no such thing as a perfect job - just the job that is as right as it can be for you right now
2. This is about finding the right NEXT job for you in your next chapter, not the forever job
3. Uncertainty will lead to discovery - being open to not always knowing and not always having the answers will help you, being open to sometimes getting it wrong will be the key to helping you get this right

OK that’s it for this week, see you next time. Bye for now.