You probably know “perfectionists.” The type of people who take a certain pride in achieving “perfect.”
I knew lots of perfectionists in school. One of my friends, we’ll call him Trevor, always aimed for 100%. And most of the time, he actually got 100%. In the hardest classes! He studied for long hours. Made flashcards. Took notes. Stayed organized. He was dead-set on achieving perfection. Whatever it took.
I had another friend, we’ll call him Ethan, who was in many ways the opposite. He still got pretty good grades (he passed and his GPA was above-average!) but did so by enrolling in the easiest classes. He barely studied. His backpack was a mess. He never took notes.
You may describe Trevor as a perfectionist. And if you looked at his grades, you may also call him “smart” and “impressive.”
But what would you call Ethan? Stupid? Lazy? Sloppy?
What if I instead called Ethan effective?
What if I said that Ethan was in fact more effective than Trevor? What if I said that Trevor actually was the lazy one? Would you agree with me?
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Perfectionism is imperfect because the stated objective (being perfect) is rarely useful.
Sure, zoomed in, achieving 100% sounds like an impressive accomplishment. Until you zoom out and think about it. What is the bigger purpose behind wanting to achieve 100%? Can that purpose be achieved in other ways? Don’t those seem to be worthwhile, even obvious, questions to be asking?
I think that when you ask these questions, you realize that achieving perfection often involves doing a lot of low return-on-investment activities. And you realize that, more often than not, perfectionism is a very imperfect strategy.1
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Trevor never asked those questions until years later, when he declared his goal was to get into a good university.2 And he did. But so did Ethan. Actually, Ethan’s school was “higher ranked” than Trevor’s.
How? Well, for one, Trevor and Ethan both got similar scores on their SATs and ACTs3. Sure, Trevor had somewhat better grades. His notebooks had prettier notes in them. (Ethan didn’t even use notebooks.) He spent way more time focused on his classes. But they were both ‘smart.’ They both scored well.
And, while Trevor was pursuing perfection in the classroom, Ethan spent the majority of his time pursuing other activities: music, sports, business, volunteering. When it came time to apply for college, Ethan had a more interesting, more diverse, and ultimately more impressive profile than Trevor.
If Trevor was a Perfectionist, Ethan was an Effectivist.
Trevor was fixated on achieving perfection with little regard to whether it was actually making a difference for his end goal. Ethan only cared about being effective; about achieving his desired results. Even if it meant going a bit against the grain. Even if it meant not being the “high-status highest grade in the class.” Even if it meant taking a bit of a risk upfront to get a long-term reward.
Trevor may have accrued more social status in the short-term. But he didn't really perform better on the criteria (the end goal) that he cared about.
So is Ethan lazy? Well, I don’t think so. His approach was in fact, in many ways, way more challenging than Trevor’s. When Trevor wanted to feel like he was making progress, he could simply invest more time into studying and doing homework. But for Ethan, any time wasted in school (besides the essential to achieve his goals) was time he couldn't spend on other priorities. Ethan's approach was a lot less lazy than Trevor's.
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School probably feels far away for most of you reading this, but I think that lots of people, either intentionally or subconsciously, are more like Trevor than Ethan.
They aim for perfection without having first questioned their objective. And then once they do know where they want to go, they rarely take the optimal route. Largely because the fastest path often involves going against the grain, at least a bit, when it’s more comfortable to just lean into the status quo.
I would encourage more people to be like Ethan. To pursue effectiveness.
Forget becoming a perfectionist. Become an effectivist.
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Footnotes
1: There are certain situations where “perfect” may actually be the end goal. And so the Effectivist and the Perfectionist would be one and the same. But I think this is quite rare.
2: You may ask “what about the learning? What happened to going to class to learn?” and for the sake of this essay, we are ignoring that objective. We can debate whether or not students are trying to learn on another day. We could go deeper on his goals, however: Trevor wanted to go to a good university to make his parents proud, earn money for his eventual family, achieve high status among his peers, and to learn new things. There are levels to this, but for the sake of this essay I paused with the higher-level objective, hoping it still illustrates the point (which holds up for these other goals, too).
3: Important college tests, for non-Americans reading this