Hands up who has perfectionist tendencies... this is for you ✳️

Editing note: This post was first an email from October 2023. To give you some background...

• Bloom had just turned one!
• The Bloom Together community and leadership accelerator was about to launch (you can join now - lucky you!)
• The process of developing Bloom really tested my perfectionist tendencies, which led me to sharing this with you

On the topic of me not falling into perfectionism, given I know some of you are also afflicted, here is my hot take.

Perfectionism is a stress response. It’s one of the ways the brain tries to keep us safe. Add to that that as women we are also often socialised to need to be perfect, to not take up space and to fly under the radar.

But to my core, I know that the very best things happen when we are trying things and getting stuff wrong. They have to me!

I mean my goodness, HR teams all over the world did this forever with doomed ‘tah dah moments’ - I was no different! What I mean by that is that things that are often decided and worked on in a vacuum and then revealed only when you think it’s perfect.

Invariably it fails or disappoints. I learnt that a smarter approach is to work collectively, consult the user (employee) and get them invested in and working towards whatever you define your desired outcomes to be together. You then build on that with with incremental changes.

Incremental changes allow for us to stop, decide if it is working, then keep moving forward if it is.

That’s essentially what I’ve been doing with Bloom: testing, learning and building based on those findings. It’s actually one of the modules in the programme, because I believe in it so much.

Overcoming your own perfectionism is an individual job, but here’s some other ideas of where you can start.

1. Talk to yourself like you would talk to a friend - we know how to be a great friend to others, now we have to apply that to ourselves. When you catch yourself in negative self talk, say it out loud and make it real, that really helped me!

2. Be ambitious but also realistic - there is a reason why we try to set SMART goals, I am all for being ambitious but let’s make sure we set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

3. Build the feedback habit - start giving and receiving feedback openly with those you feel safer with, and graduate to those that you don’t. The more we get to hear thoughtful criticism, the better we get at hearing it and not making it about us.

4. Celebrate daily - I am a big fan of tiny, incremental changes and celebrating progress often! Look at the person you are today vs last year and see how far you have come.

Finally, in the spirit of not being a perfectionist, I have been working on an empowering manifesto for Bloom, and I would love your feedback on it!

We are the brave, the balanced and the bold.

We amplify our voices, embrace our worth, and flourish in every season.

We unapologetically bring love into the workplace. We create thriving cultures that support everyone to win. We use our creativity and resourcefulness to create real change.

Our difference is our super power.

Brave, balanced, bold. We Bloom.

Which bits do you like? Which bits would you change?

Sending you all so much love.

 
Big love