Hello and welcome to episode 53 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Today on the podcast I'm talking about perfectionism and it is a
very important and relevant topic for interior designers as
we will get into. So remember, I have that quiz
that you can take to discover what type of interior design you
should be doing, whether it's residential, commercial,
hospitality, or spatial experience.
You can take the quiz to find out where you should be
investing your time and energy in the design field.
So go check that out. Link is in the show notes.
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so great having all of these interviews.
I would love for you to leave me a review on what you're liking
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future do kind of a Q&A podcast, so kind of answering your urgent
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So go ahead and send those over to me and I would love to be
able to address those here on an episode of the podcast and all
the books and things that I recommend that I mention in
today's podcast you can find in the show notes.
Okay, let's talk about perfectionism.
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today's episode. Okay.
So perfectionism is an interesting topic in general.
It is, I feel currently in all of the readings and podcasts and
stuff that I listen to. Perfectionism is definitely a
negative quality, I would say that is coming to light because
of reasons that we'll go into in this episode.
That being said, it doesn't mean that we should not try to do
well in the things that we're working on or in trying to
improve ourselves. However, we have to also know
that we cannot ever be perfect as a person.
And because we are human and we are imperfect, the product and
the projects that we work on will not be perfect.
Because there's so many factors in life that go into what we're
working on, we don't have full control over everything.
Let's talk about perfectionism and how it plays into interior
design. Now, I would say that most
designers that I talked to would say that they are
perfectionists. I would say that I am the
exception. I do not call myself a
perfectionist. I've known that I have not had
these qualities since I was little in kindergarten.
My teacher would encourage me to color inside the lines and I
think I would just generally color the whole picture but not
necessarily care about staying inside the lines.
But if I put my focus on something and put my mind to it,
I could definitely produce something that is very near
perfect or very well done and that is the type of focus and
attention that I put into my projects for my clients.
However, it does take me more effort I feel, than other people
or maybe I just don't care as much about it being perfect as
it being done and being looking good.
So let's talk a little more about that.
So we talked a little bit a few weeks ago about personality
types and I touched on the enniogram.
Now type one of the enniogram is called the perfectionist.
So obviously this is a lot of people that fall into this
category like to do things perfectly and criticize
themselves when they cannot. I am a type nine, however, my
wings. So to the one side of me is type
1 perfectionist, and that is the way that I lean towards.
And so I can lean into that perfectionism.
Hopefully I do it in a way that is in the positive aspect of
like pulling myself up to do something better and not
necessarily criticizing myself when it is not perfect.
I feel like I don't fall into that category.
However, I have a lot of people in my life who do.
My husband, my mom and often firstborns are put in this
category of being perfectionist because they're held option to a
higher standard by the parents and then the siblings that
follow after they realize like, Oh well, not everyone's perfect
and it's hard to live up to the ideal standards that you have
when you first start out in parenting.
I would say that also our society supports perfectionism,
holds it up on a high standard. They want you to get perfect
grades and reward you for looking perfect and being
perfect in front of everybody. And that's just detrimental to
actually being authentic and being yourself and celebrating
who we are and all of our imperfections and celebrating
our personalities and the different strengths that we
have. And not everybody is good at
focusing on the details. I know that I am not.
So that's when I go to hire. I hire people who are good at
focusing on the details because that's one of my weaker points.
And so that's one of the reasons why I love collaborating as well
is because I know that I have weaknesses and other people have
strengths in those areas and then we can work together and
create a much better product that way.
Another thought that I have about designers being
perfectionist and that holding them back is so designers are
typically perfectionists. They want to produce the best
design. And oftentimes you'll hear that
the holdup is that they are so worried about making sure the
design is perfect that they spend forever and ever and hours
and hours that they don't feel that they can bill for trying to
perfect the design and get it the best it can be.
And then it's not getting done. It's not getting released to the
client, it's not getting put into action and it's not helping
the client. It's definitely holding them
back from producing product by focusing on the perfectionism
and reiterating and reiterating until they've redesigned this
project 5 or 10 times. And maybe the first one or two
was going to be really good for the client and they didn't need
to spend all of this time and effort into reiterating the
project 8 more times. So this is an area that I
definitely encourage people who are coming through my design
mentor and things like that is to do your best work, come up
with a project and then let it go, let release it and let the
client get feedback and let you know.
They might find a spot where you forgot to, you know dot and I
across the T and that's okay because you're not perfect and
they know that you're not perfect and you kind of don't
even want to set the expectation that it's going to be 100%
perfect. Putting on a design project and
executing it and project management is really similar to
putting on a wedding. There is guaranteed something is
going to go wrong. And so you're going to have to
roll with the punches and accept that this is not going to be
perfect, but we're going to make it right and we're going to make
it good. Every single project I've done,
there's always something that didn't go perfectly, but we
usually can fix it and work on it until it gets to a point that
is acceptable, is lovable, that we like it, we love it.
It just might not be exactly perfect.
That's one of the beauties of life.
Sometimes those imperfections give it character, right?
My husband's reading a book called Discipline is Destiny.
It looks really interesting and I might pick it up later, but he
was commenting to me as he's going through it because it's
really calling out that his perfectionism gets in the way of
him completing his personal projects or work projects.
He told me that a line in there says that not finishing
something is worse than not being perfect, like not
producing and not putting it out in the world is that you are
withholding something that could be helpful to other people and
keeping it for yourself and not releasing it out there.
And that is worse than it not being perfectly perfect.
Currently I'm reading a book called The Gifts of Imperfection
Brené Brown. Actually my whole team is we're
going through it together as a fun book club that we do and I
haven't finished it yet but it's definitely very good.
I highly recommend it's going to be on my book list.
And one of the things in there that she talks about is that our
society definitely kind of takes shame around the notion of not
being perfect and that your value and worth is less if you
are not perfect. And so she kind of unpacks that
and really goes into how how to be vulnerable and how to be
authentic and not care or worry if people discover that you're
not perfect. Oh my goodness, How could that
be? So really lighten up, people, is
what she's saying. Like, just be yourself, Be your
imperfect self. Show that to the world.
Be vulnerable. It's just so hard to be
vulnerable. And she has a lot of great books
on being vulnerable, so check out Brené Brown for that.
But you don't want to hold perfectionism as a badge of
honor. You also don't want to hold that
you are not a perfectionist as a badge of honor.
And I don't know if maybe I was guilty of this ever, but I, you
know, know that I'm not a perfectionist.
And then maybe that could give me the excuse to just not do my
best, which is definitely not something that I want to go
towards. I always want to do my best, So
I know my best won't be perfect, but it needs to be something
that I'm proud of and that I could live with.
Like I never designed anything or leave a client's house in
such a way that I couldn't live with it myself.
So I think that is something to definitely keep in mind.
Perfectionism is not a badge of honor.
A lot of societies and cultures in the past have really upheld
perfectionism. But I, you know, I'm glad
whenever I see this shift in our culture, this discussion and our
culture, that perfectionism is actually holding you back your
gift to the world. So think about that as you're
starting out as a designer, you're going to be doing a lot
of imperfect things, and you just have to accept that it's
not going to be perfect. Everything that you discover
that is imperfect is a learning opportunity.
And that's kind of like when I told you that I have this living
document. Yeah, I was talking with James
Bartol that I had this document in my office that I continually
update and says lessons learned. So every time I come across this
imperfect part of a project, I can write it down what it is,
how I've learned to not repeat that mistake, and then learn
from it and go on and produce a better product at the next
project and not repeat my mistakes.
So I know this is a tough topic and nobody likes to be
vulnerable, nobody likes to accept that they're not perfect.
But this is a truth in life. And so I hope that you got some
encouragement and benefit from just not holding back.
Take that risk to be vulnerable. And I do think that if you're
going to go into business for yourself, you have to take a lot
of risk. Risk takers, I don't think can
be 100% perfectionist. You have to be willing to take
the risk that it's not going to be perfect, that you might fail.
And so if you're thinking about being an entrepreneur, then just
think about the fact that it is a big risky thing and you're not
going to be perfect doing it even when you get help.
It's just a lot of it is learning by experience.
Every situation is different, but you just understand that
it's worth the effort and worth the time and worth the risk when
you want to have your own business.
And of course, if you don't want to take that risk, then you can
always work for someone else and learn from them and then still
produce a good product for that person.
That is not going to be perfect, but it's going to be your best.
OK, that's enough on perfectionism.
So tell me what you thought about today's episode.
If you identify as a perfectionist, if this is
something that you are struggling with, I want to know.
And if you are like me and maybe not identifying as a
perfectionist and still have struggles with that in other
ways, then let me know as well. I'd love to hear more about
this, and I'm sure I'll bring up the topic later as I read more
books. It's definitely something that's
a continual struggle for most designers, and so I think it
will be a recurring topic over the years.
All right. Like I said, you can find all
the links in the show notes. You can get the free downloads
about things I wish I had known before I started my career in
interior design, as well as the road map to interior design.
And stay tuned for next week. We have some wonderful
interviews coming up. Until then, stay creative.
Thanks for listening. If you love this episode, please
leave a rating and a review. This helps me reach other
curious creatives like you. If you have a topic request or
would like to contact me, simply head over to my website
rwardesign.com or e-mail me at podcast@rwardesign.com.