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Mindful Leadership

Lack of Forgiveness and Perfectionism Are Often Linked

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If you forgive another person when things don’t turn out positively or that person has made a mistake, it sends the message that it’s okay to make an educated guess or take a calculated risk. Unless you are able to do this, creativity will dry up, and the expectation or unspoken rule will be that unless you are guaranteed a win, you need not take a chance.  Blaming, particularly if done publicly, has the risk of activating a hindrance in the other person. It can cause humiliation, anger, and hurt. If the person is unskilled at processing what is arising in his or her feel space, that person’s performance is likely to be negatively impacted.

I want to address the notion of perfectionism because it is the malaise of so many overachievers and high performers. Unfortunately, not managing perfectionist tendencies can compromise your health and severely impact your well-being and long-term performance. It can derail your career, destroy relationships, and compromise the quality of your life. It will also compromise your ability to be a mindful leader. It’s very difficult to report to or work with a perfectionist. In fact, many people will not do their best work under such circumstances.  Perfectionism eventually squeezes out creativity and in its extreme form can become obsessive in nature. You lose perspective on life, and work is no longer fun.

But there is also a link between perfectionism and not forgiving ourselves or often others.  To forgive self and other is to not expect perfection.  It is to acknowledge that not everything is or has to be perfect.  As I mentioned in a previous blog what matters is that we do our best under the circumstances and that is ALWAYS good enough.

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