He was right. I had done a good job. But as long as I insisted on comparing my good outcome to the ideal one in my head, I was going to make myself miserable. Perfectionism makes us critical, uptight, and generally not fun to be around. Plus, we’re more likely to overthink when we’re in a bad mood. There’s no need to be so hard on ourselves, because it doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.
Give Yourself Permission to Fail
It’s one thing to want to loosen the hold perfectionism has on you, but how do you actually do it? The remedy is to give yourself permission to fail—failure being defined as “anything short of absolute perfection”—and grace when you actually do.
Like it or not, failure can be incredibly instructive. Ironically, sometimes we get better results when we screw up than if we never get it wrong. If mistakes aren’t okay, we miss out on one of the fastest, most effective ways to learn. But failure can be a scary word to throw around, especially for recovering perfectionists like me. To learn from it, we need to get comfortable with it—and a change in terminology can help. I’ve learned to say, “Let’s experiment,” because that phrase doesn’t make my insides clench up like the word failure does. An experiment is neutral, dispassionate. There’s none of that paralyzing pressure to get it right. When I try an experiment, success is getting an outcome. Any outcome. The goal is to get results, not a win.
Adopt a “Try It and See What Happens” Approach
Lest you think embracing failure is a feel-good technique for softies, know that there are compelling reasons to adopt a “try it and see what happens” approach. It’s not weak or lazy, it’s savvy. My husband used to work in software development, where “minimum viable product” is a phrase they toss around a lot. Software developers take an iterative approach to product development—they never try to deliver a perfect product on the first attempt. Instead, they want to build an imperfect product, and they want to do it quickly. When they have something to work with, they can quickly see what works and what doesn’t, give it to users to test, and identify core problems and possible solutions—not in the abstract, but in a real, tangible way. Creating an imperfect product helps developers determine if pursuing a perfect version is even worth it. Not everything is worth doing perfectly.
With an experiment, there’s no “do it right or do it again.” Instead, it’s “do it and see what happens.” Or “do it and then do it again,” incorporating whatever you learned the first time. This iterative approach frees us from the need to always get it right. Instead of waiting to feel certain before we take action, we can get good information, and fast, by trying something and seeing what happens next. There’s no agonizing over the right decision, and there are rarely regrets. Because all you need is an answer, not a victory.
As we move forward, I’m going to invite you to experiment with the strategies in this book—with no agonizing and no regrets. Identify which ones seem most promising to you, give them a try, and see what happens next.
Putting It All Together
Let me show you what working this process might look like in real life with an ordinary, low-stakes example of recognizing and overcoming analysis paralysis. As I write this, I feel like I’m devoting an awful lot of ink to an inconsequential decision. But since this is exactly what happens when overthinking hijacks our thought processes, I’m going for it.
For well over a decade, my family of six has spent one week each summer at a certain Gulf Coast beach. We love our beach week but have never loved getting there. The drive takes about eleven hours, and that’s a long time to spend cooped up in a minivan. We used to always make the drive in one long day, assuming it would be best to power through and get it over with.
But Will and I long wondered if we would be less miserable if we broke the trip into two segments. For reasons I cannot explain, my kids adore hotel pools and the kind of all-you-can-eat breakfast served at your typical Holiday Inn Express. What if we drove halfway, spent the night at a hotel, and drove the rest of the way in the morning?
We debated doing this for years—literal years, maybe six or seven. Every summer as our departure date approached, we’d revisit the question yet again, consider all the options, resist making up our minds, and finally wait so long to decide that the opportunity passed us by. We weren’t certain trying a new way was the right thing, so we didn’t act.
But a few years ago, I discovered the power of the iterative approach and began working on my experimental mindset. That year, when decision time rolled around, we didn’t endlessly debate, nor did we once again make pros and cons lists, because we’d already thought about the issue plenty. I’d been overthinking this issue for years without realizing that’s what I was doing. This time I recognized the overthinking for what it was. And I knew what to do.
First, I did a reality check. There wasn’t one perfect answer to our driving dilemma. Either option got us to the beach.
Then I got moving. I quizzed a friend who always breaks long drives into multiple days about her experience, and then I made sure hotels were available for the night we needed.
Next, I explicitly gave myself permission to fail. I hadn’t wanted to act because I’d been afraid we wouldn’t like the new way—and it’s hard to act when you’re afraid of getting it wrong. When I could perceive it was unjustified fear holding me back, I felt free to move forward.
And finally, since we’d been thinking about this for ages, we decided to try it and see what happened. We’d consider it an experiment. If we preferred the new way, great. But if we tried it and didn’t like it, at least we’d stop wondering if another way might be better. We didn’t have to prefer the new way to the old to consider this little experiment a success.
In the end, we all preferred our two-day drive to the beach with the hotel stopover. But if it hadn’t gone well—if we swore we never wanted to do it again—it wouldn’t have been a mistake, because the goal was to get a result, not the best possible experience. No need to second-guess our decision for years to come.
What’s Happening in Your Life?
When we don’t recognize our overthinking behavior for what it is, it’s impossible to get over it. And as long as we rely on decision-making styles that encourage overthinking, we’re going to spend a lot of time overthinking. But once we see what’s really going on, we can begin to change. It will feel like a battle at first—especially if we’ve been analyzing things to death our whole lives—but with time, it will feel like a habit.
Next Steps
With fresh eyes, take a look at your own behavior.
1. Where are you experiencing analysis paralysis right now?
2. Where are you experiencing perfectionism?
3. What factors are keeping you stuck?
4. What mini-experiments can you implement in order to move forward?
4
Decide What Matters
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”