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I am a perfectionist and an over-achiever. Recently I realized how that affects me mentally when I do client reports and how that affects my clients. If reports are stressful for you or you're a perfectionist, maybe this will help you. (1)
Every month doing reports was stressful and draining. I thought that was just due to the additional work and because, well, reports suck. But that’s not it. (2)
Reports were exhausting for me because I was reporting on how *I* did which meant I was justifying my worth and my value in every report I did. And since I’m an over-achiever, guess what? (3)
I never felt like I did enough, achieved enough, was getting good enough results. Because even if I met the goals, could I have done better? Should I have? I’d often feel like I was failing even when I met the goal because meeting the goal was never enough. (4)
On the surface this seems like it might be a good thing for clients.After all, if I am constantly pushing myself to be better and do more I’ll keep getting better results, right? Not necessarily. I will definitely burn out and sometimes you can’t get better. (5)
On top of that, if you never feel like the results are good you’re going to send reports that don’t highlight the good results. Your clients want to feel confident in you. They want to get good results and they need you to reassure them that they are when they are. (6)
So if being an over-achiever who is never happy with the results makes you send reports that are like “We met X goal but we didn’t do A, B, C, & D that weren’t even the point of this project.” because you are always looking for where you failed, you are hurting your clients. (7)
It’s great to own up to where you could have done better but you also need to focus on the positive and celebrate wins. Be your own champion and the champion for your strategies. (8)
There’s no such thing as perfect. You’ll never reach some mythical point at which you can’t do anything better. Focus on the goal and consciously celebrate when you hit it. (9)
Oh and unless you're doing performance-based invoicing, separate the act of sending your invoice from sending your report or you'll keep tying your value and worth to the results you're reporting which is a real mindfuck. (10)
P.S. You can be a perfectionist about some things and not others. You might be over-achieving yourself into a mental hell over certain things but letting other stuff slide which makes you not identify as an over-achiever. Look for where good enough isn't good enough for you. (11)
