LibraryPatternsLet Go of PerfectionismEvery time I get close to my standard, the standard m…
Problem
Toward Craftsmanship

Every time I get close to my standard, the standard moves higher, so I never actually arrive. What looked like the goal becomes the new baseline the moment I reach it, and I am running on a track that extends itself with every step.

Part of the pattern: Let Go of Perfectionism
Aureliusguide
Aurelius
Online
The coach is replying…
You might also say it as
  • “my standard keeps rising so I never arrive”
  • “the goal moves the moment I reach it”
  • “I never feel I have gotten there”
The path forward
  1. 1Notice the goalpost moving
  2. 2Set a fixed standard
  3. 3Let arriving be allowed
One thing to try this week
Name a fixed, specific standard for your next task and refuse to move it once set. A goal that holds still is the only one you can actually reach.
Related problems
A single typo or tiny error can consume me — I will fixate on it long after it is fixed, certain everyone noticed and judged. Trivial mistakes that others would shrug off feel, to me, like glaring proof of carelessness.Accepting good-enough work from myself or my team feels like a concession — a failure to care enough. The identification of good enough with not caring has made adequate work feel like a moral failure.Every sentence I write is edited before the next one appears. I cannot produce a rough draft because editing is embedded in the first pass. The writing is slow and the output is polished from the start but minimal.Everything has to pass through me before it goes out. I have become the bottleneck in my own organisation because I cannot trust work I have not personally reviewed.I apply the same exacting standard to a quick internal email as I do to a public report. The standard does not scale with context and I am exhausting myself and my team with inappropriately high bars.I approve something in a meeting and then privately revise it after. The team submits work that has already been signed off. Nobody knows the revision is happening.

Working through this?

Talk it through with Aurelius, and start where it actually helps.