Hello my perfectionist friend. I see you.

This pandemic is your worst nightmare. It’s okay.

In the before-times, you already spent too much time telling yourself that your work must be perfect or terrible things will happen. Your inner bully would say things like this:

“This donor update needs to be perfect or people who support our work won’t understand how deeply we appreciate them, and they’ll move on to other causes.”

“This paper needs to be perfect or we won’t get the policy change we need and people will suffer."

“This strategic plan needs to be perfect or important programs will fail.”

I know the drill. Blah needs to be perfect or blah terrible thing will happen etc etc.

It’s hard being a perfectionist in the nonprofit world. Let’s face it: your work is tremendously important. People and communities may suffer more if you are unable to help them. The stakes make anyone with perfectionist tendencies want to work that much harder to ensure a good outcome … . and drive themselves bonkers in the process.

For a while there, you’d become skilled in recognizing that little perfectionist voice and shutting it down. You still felt the pressure, but maybe not every responsibility you were juggling felt like life or death …

Then the novel coronavirus and its nasty little friend COVID-19 came along.

Your perfectionism just went into overdrive.

Let’s not sugar coat it. You face difficult decisions about budgets and strategy and your staff’s health and workloads and how to operate in an international lockdown.

You can’t shut down your inner bully by telling it that this doesn’t really matter. You can’t lower the stakes to make the situation feel tolerable. Which means that your perfectionism kicked into overdrive about six weeks ago. Which also means that you’re either approaching or already the throes of burnout right about now. I know you. I see you. It’s okay.

Perfectionism comes from a fear that you won’t be "good enough” unless you prove yourself over and over and over again. (h/t Brené Brown) The nonprofit world is full of people trying to do good and prove their worth. You’re not alone.

If you are feeling burnt out or spun out and need a lifeline, remember this:

There is nothing you can do to guarantee everything works out perfectly. No one has that kind of power and this is an unprecedented moment in time. “Perfect outcome” isn’t a thing.
Do your best, but recognize that some days your “best” means that grant proposal went out the door with one revision instead of your usual nine and it had an extra paragraph “written" by your cat when you got up for coffee. Don’t worry: that last 20% of effort you usually put in is wasted anyway.
Reach out to your friends more often. You are not an automaton. Even if you have to work long hours to serve your community right now, try to slip in even a text message to a friend in a different bubble. Reconnect with your humanity (aka someone who has seen you laugh or cry or eat too much chocolate cake at that grade 4 birthday party). They don’t want you to be perfect and they’ll ground you. They love the human you.
You’re afraid because you care. Fear sucks, but it’s always connected to a desire to protect something you love. Take heart in that thing. And remember: Just showing up to life every day is “good enough”.

I see you there.

I appreciate everything you’re doing to make this world a better place.

Thank you.