Are you striving to be the perfect leader? That perfectionism is killing your progress.

There’s no such thing as a perfect human or leader. Trying to be perfect creates pressure and stress, which opens you up to anxiety and bad feelings. With that mindset, perfectionism is a self-defeating behavior because you’ll never be able to achieve it.

Perfectionism is a quick way to kill your progress. Instead of focusing on moving forward, you’ll be hung up and discouraged by the mistakes and your lack of perfection.

Perfect leaders don’t exist! The world’s top leaders make mistakes and aren’t afraid to admit them. Their mistakes are often incredibly costly and public, which can put your smaller mistakes into perspective. A mistake or a misstep might feel significant in the moment, but it likely is just a bump in the road in the long run.

What should you do instead of aiming for perfection? Focus on learning. Instead of striving to be perfect, seek to understand and learn as much as possible. There is always something new you can learn, someone new you can talk to, and a challenge you can approach in a new way. Being so focused on perfection makes you less likely to take risks and try new things, even if those things could lead to big rewards.

Leaders might not be perfect, but they can always be learning and improving. Putting your energy toward continual improvement is much more positive than striving for perfectionism that you’ll never achieve.

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