I’ve been working with career changers and aspiring solopreneurs across Europe, who experience perfectionism, for a while now.
They live in different countries and yet, while talking to them, regardless if they’re from Berlin, or from Barcelona I’ll hear similar stories about what they tell themselves.
The things that have come up over and over in coaching are:
- They want to make a role or career change, want to start their own business and they research a lot.
- They do the same task multiple times.
- They think they need to take one more course.
- They overthink (all that mental energy spent circling the decision instead of doing something).
- They feel drained, like their job is eating their energy instead of fueling their drive.
- They feel restless, like they need to do something different, but they’re not 100% sure what.
- They repeatedly think: “I don’t see the impact in the work I’m doing now. I want to do something with purpose.”
- They’ve spent years building expertise, becoming good at what they do. Starting something new means being bad at it for a while, being a beginner again, and asking questions you “should” already know the answer to.
- They experience self-doubt often.
- They talk harshly to themselves.
- They think: “I don’t see the impact in what I’m doing. I want to do something that matters.”
But the same struggles have different contexts depending on where they live and work.
In places with strong direct feedback cultures, perfectionism comes with the fear of showing anything unfinished, because they’ve been trained to expect blunt comments. People who are already hard on themselves criticise their own work before they deliver it.
In more modesty prone cultures, I see perfectionism hiding behind self-deprecating humor. Downplaying achievements becomes a socially safe move.
In cultures with a history of working long hours, boundary setting or career change conversations come with guilt about not working enough, about wanting something different.
In multilingual, multicultural environments, I see competence and identity get fused together, people feel the need to prove themselves more.
All this being said, my experience has shown me that none of these are unique to one nationality.
If you want to change something about your work, but you’re overthinking, what would you do if you allowed yourself to experiment?
