Do you ever catch yourself proofing an email three times before sending?

Or repeatedly rewriting a paragraph in your motion?

Or triple checking the formatting of the agreement you just drafted?

If so, you’re in good company. Many lawyers struggle with perfectionism.

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None of us would have made it through law school and the bar exam without being high-achieving and detail-oriented. But perfectionism is a different animal.

It’s not motivated by a desire to perform well. It’s motivated by fear of making mistakes.

And I’ve been there.

I know what it’s like to be yelled at by a partner for making a mistake as a junior associate. And other lawyers tell me they, too, have been treated harshly for minor mistakes.

While our fear of making mistakes may stem from experiences we’ve had in the workplace, it can also stem from childhood.

Several clients have told me that it wasn’t safe for them to make a mistake growing up.

• Their mother demanded straight As.
• Their father yelled at them if they spilled a glass of water.
• They were held to high standards and punished if they fell short.
• They were only praised and treated to special occasions, like ice cream with dad, if they won the spelling bee.

This can create a strong tendency toward perfectionism as a lawyer. And while this might seem relatively harmless, it comes at a high cost:

• We worry that we missed something after we send an email, give legal advice, or file a brief. This anxiety robs us of peace, presence, and joy during the day and can disrupt our sleep.
• We may receive criticism from partners or clients about spending too long on tasks. If we don’t address the root causes of perfectionism and become comfortable with doing “good enough” work, we may be tempted to write off our time, leading us to record lower billable hours than we actually worked.
• We tend to procrastinate on tasks that we’re worried we can’t do perfectly. This procrastination increases our anxiety as our workload continues to mount.
• If the task is complex and we need more information, we may feel too nervous to ask for help.
• We may avoid trying new things and taking on challenges if we fear not being able to do them perfectly. This stunts our growth.
• Perfectionism keeps us from reaching our potential. We’ll never know what we’re capable of if we’re not willing “to be bad at something new” (Jon Acuff).

All of this also drains us of energy, making us more susceptible to burnout over time.

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In my 15 years as a lawyer and in my experience working with lawyers as a coach, I’ve observed that perfectionism is rarely a quick fix.

It often takes getting to know the perfectionist part of us, hearing its concerns and discovering what it fears would happen if it let go of trying to be perfect.

It often takes internally extending appreciation to this perfectionist part for how hard it has worked on our behalf to keep us safe from whatever it fears would happen if we made a mistake.

Once we get to know the concerns of our perfectionist parts, we can evaluate whether they still apply in our current lives. Often, they are outdated fears that may have applied when we were younger but no longer do.

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We can learn to trust in our competence and abilities and let go of trying to be perfect.

We can be free from the anxiety and procrastination that accompanies perfectionism.

We can learn to take healthy risks and pursue challenges that are meaningful to us, without needing to “be perfect” at a new endeavor.

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I’m curious, if you’ve struggled with perfectionism, how does this land?

If you’ve embraced being a “good enough” lawyer, what helped you do that and what was the impact?

For more tips on burnout prevention, download my free guide for lawyers, 7 Keys to Succeed Without Burnout.