Overcoming Perfectionism

Perfectionism. Chances are if you work in the legal profession, you’ve encountered it once or twice. We all know the gunners in law school who went after every question, who consulted the professors about every thing, all in an effort to have a perfect law school career that would launch them on a perfect legal career. Yet here is what is rarely emphasized. Perfectionism has a dark side.

And before I go further, I want to be clear that there is a difference between taking pride in one’s work product and being perfectionist about it. You can strive for excellence, but that isn’t the same as dwelling over every single detail of a project to the point that you lose sleep. That is not good. That is the dark side of perfectionism.

Perfectionism a myth, at least in my mind. Chances are there will always be more that you can do. More cases to study, more briefs to writer, more hours to bill, and more work to be done. Yet ultimately, pursuing perfection at the expense of balance ends up hurting not helping.

Perfectionism is a mask. I know, I wore it for a long time. I was afraid that if people saw beneath it they would judge me. They would think I didn’t belong in the legal profession. They would reject me. And when I wasn’t perfect, which was inevitably the case, there was always some other thing that I could blame. Because again, I couldn’t let anyone see my own mistakes and my own shortcomings.

Yet acknowledging my shortcomings is how I have learned to make genuine connections. It is how I have learned to grow both personally and professionally. And I am writing this in the hopes that it helps others find the same balance.

The legal profession is an adversarial one, that isn’t a secret. Yet coming out on top doesn’t mean sacrificing your own life for unobtainable goals. After all, what value is there in being perfect if you are too burnt out to enjoy it.