If your parents were like mine, you probably heard these encouraging phrases growing up:
Do your Best.
Always give it your all.
110% effort wins the race!
In the world of aesthetics, it has continued. Let me count the ways!
Determined, high achievement has surrounded me as I work in training and teams in this exploding industry that everyone wants to successfully build on. It’s a fine line though. High achieving is often confused with perfectionism.
Are we in an industry full of perfectionists?
They say that Perfectionists are not high achieving people trying to be perfect. Actually, they are avoiding being inadequate or failing.
And it is no wonder that so many of us slide into this fear that we may not make it. Aesthetic medicine is so fast-paced, competitive and in demand. The problem is that the world of aesthetics is never achieved. There is always a new service, new protocol, new device, new requirements, reminding us that just when we think we have arrived to secure sweet success, we actually never get there.
Absolute perfection never is achieved, because the better we become, the better we are expected to do. We continually search for it.
Sound dismal? It can be!
Perfectionism is a pursuit that can lead to depression, anxiety, and various stress-related phenomenon that throw off our compass for doing great work, and derails the progress we have already made.
Perfectionist behaviour is different than being a high achiever or lifelong dedicated learner!
If you can relate to the search for perfectionism, and feeling overwhelmed with the chase of it, I recommend these three self-healing activities to help you and your team stay in the lane of dedicated success, without the toxicity of perfectionism.
Asking for Help is encouraged and celebrated.
Why do people treat asking for help as so taboo? Can you ask for help? It isn’t such a bad thing. In fact, the number one behaviour that people engage in that makes leaders trust them more is asking for help. If that is true, then why do so many team members worry about asking for help? Recognize and applaud the times your team members ask for help and let them know they are safe to do so. If a team member inquires or asks a question that leads to fear or threat of calling the college, you are not in the right tribe. Anyone who feels threatened about their professional license when they are down and out is the most sure-fire way to ensure hiding, compromise client safety and create mistrust amongst colleagues.
Reflect and celebrate your Success
If you never sit back to acknowledge where you have come and what you have already accomplished you are being sucked in too far into chasing perfectionism. If you look back to the start of your aesthetic business, you have come a long way baby.
Forgive your Mistakes
When my child made a mistake or poor choice, I would always end the conversation with “What did you learn?” If you cannot see the learning opportunities in the mistakes and missed chances in your work, you will not be able to reset for the future. A healthy mindset allows for those mistakes and shares them freely with others. They feel safe to have an open dialogue about their fears, opinions and ideas.
Be Authentic
Perfectionists fear being judged by others so always want the world to view them through rose-coloured glasses. If you put up a front to lead others that everything is always perfect, you are not being authentic. After all, we love to post our best results, filter our photos and celebrate great outcomes. But the truth is that Injectables sometimes don’t work out as you want, team members let us down and the governing bodies that guide our work can leave us frustrated and confused sometimes. I am not saying we need to show ourselves in the less than perfect places we find ourselves in. However, the fact that we filter ourselves should start an automatic reflexive moment to ask the question “why” am I showing up this way and for whom?
Brene Brown puts it all so well “We are complex, messy, and awesome whole humans.”
No one is perfect so stop trying to be.
I dream of an anesthetics world that doesn’t just throw out lip service to this idea of bringing our whole selves to work. We actually do it. We are true to all the mess, and keep going.
