In this episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, host Rob Dial argues that perfectionism is a destructive mask for underlying fear that undermines productivity and personal fulfillment. He explains that people label themselves as "perfectionists" to avoid judgment, rejection, or failure, but this mindset prevents them from starting projects, pursuing purpose, and taking meaningful action. Rob shares two personal anecdotes—a tattoo of his late father's handwriting and his own experience editing podcast episodes—to illustrate how imperfection can actually attract appreciation and authenticity. He then offers concrete, action‑oriented strategies: focus on the top one to three tasks each day, aim for 1% daily improvement rather than flawless results, consider work 90% complete and publish, and view incorrect actions as valuable feedback. The episode emphasizes that failure is a necessary component of success, that ego‑driven perfectionism protects a fragile self‑image, and that embracing imperfection leads to growth. Rob closes with a call to share the episode, follow him on Instagram, and download a free journaling mini‑course to reinforce the habit of taking imperfect action.
Chapters
Today we're gonna be talking about your perfectionism. I'm gonna be honest with you. I'm gonna shoot straight. Your perfectionism is ruining your life. It's destroying your productivity. And not too long ago, I did an episode on perfectionism and how it's complete bs but today I actually want to talk about why perfectionism is destroying the productivity that you're trying to create and have in your life to get you from where you are to where you want to be later on. And perfectionism, just to give you a quick review of that episode that I did not long ago. Perfectionism is. Perfectionism is not real. People always say they're a perfectionist. And I'm like, cool, join the club. We all say that we're perfectionists in some sort of way, but it's not real. Why do I say that? Because perfectionism is a mask, a, quote, mask, unquote, that we wear to cover up some sort of fear that we have in our life. And that's really what it is, is if you think you're a perfectionist, the truth of the matter is that you are afraid of something. You're really afraid of being judged or putting yourself out there or not being enough or people talking shit or not being respected or not getting the love that you want or people saying no to you. That's what you're afraid of. Perfectionism is just the mask that you wear that you hide behind because, oh, it's. It's not perfect yet. It could always be better. I could always improve. I haven't decided. I haven't. I haven't put my art out there in the world because it's not perfect. That's not perfect, right? If you have. If you're an artist and you haven't shown anybody, you haven't taken picture and put on Instagram because it's not perfect yet, you are a perfectionist. Really, what you're afraid of is somebody looking at your art and saying, that's ugly. Or looking and saying, oh, my Gosh, you're charging $500 for that? I wouldn't pay $5 for that. And you're afraid of haters, and you're afraid of people judging, and you're afraid of trying something and failing or trying it and succeeding and not know what comes with that success. So you say, it's not perfect yet. I'm a perfectionist, and we all do this, but I'm here to tell you that perfectionism is not real. And the reason why it's killing your productivity is because you're not starting what it is that you want to do, because you're waiting for the perfect moment, because you're waiting to be better, because you're waiting for your art to be perfect, because you're waiting for your music to be perfect. You're waiting for it to be perfect before you do anything, and it's killing your productivity because you're not taking good steps in the right direction to follow this purpose that you have or you feel like you have in this life. And I'm going to tell you this, it's a quote that I live by, is we all have some sort of purpose or passion of something that we want to do in this world, and you probably know what it is, but you've been lying to yourself and say you don't know, you're not sure. But if you don't know what it is, you can always go on a search to try to discover what it is. And one of the things that, of course, you've been listening for a long time, you've heard me say this is it's okay not to know what your purpose is, but it's not okay to not wake up every single day and not be in pursuit to find what that purpose is. When you do find your purpose. The thing that I do know is that if you don't follow your purpose in life, if you find your purpose and you don't follow it, not following your purpose will destroy you. So there's this thing that you're meant to do in this world, and not doing the thing that you're meant to do will destroy you. So it's destroying your productivity of taking this action and being a musician or being a singer or, you know, making Instagram videos on Mindset to help people improve themselves or become motivational speaker, be a painter, whatever it is. And you're not taking action because it's not the right time. And meanwhile, there's somebody else out there who is less talented than you, who has less skill than you, who's getting ahead of you simply because they're taking action and you're not, or they're taking more action than the tiny bit of action that you're working. So what I always say is, don't strive for perfection. Don't try to be perfect, try to be better. Don't strive for perfection, strive for progress just a little bit better every single day. How can I be 1% better today when my head hits the bed in my pillow than I was when I woke up this morning and just getting Something done is better than continuing to work on it over and over and over and over again because it's not perfect. I like to think of it this way. Done is better than perfect. As far as time goes, I'd rather get something 90% done than 100% done, because that 90%, if you're an artist, you make that art, and it's 90% perfect, you're done. But that extra 10% can take you the rest of your life. So wouldn't you rather just get that painting out there, try it out, see what it feels like to have an art gallery with your stuff in it versus going, oh, it's not perfect yet. It needs an extra 10%. And that 10%, taking you another 20 years to finish. 10%, that little 10%, that has to be perfect. And nothing will ever be perfect in this world. That little teeny, tiny bit will take you 20 years. Let's just get it out there. Just get it out. Just put it out there. One of the things that really helped me with my idea of perfectionism is actually, if you're watching this video, you can see it. It's my tattoo that's on my left arm. And so my tattoo is actually my dad's handwriting from a letter that he wrote my sister about a year and a half before he passed away. And it says, live your life with courage, love, and laughter. And I had never had a tattoo before. It was my very first tattoo. And if you've ever gotten a tattoo, what you realize is that if it's not, like, on the inside of my arm, I can't see it super well. So I was looking at it in the mirror. So I was looking in the mirror, and I got it. I was like, okay, that looks good. Get it on me, all of that stuff. Next morning, I wake up. My girlfriend at the time, my wife, now takes a picture of my arm, and I see it from somebody else's point of view. And I was like, I fucking hate this. I don't like it. It's not perfect. Because I was so used to seeing people with, like, perfect tattoos lined up perfect, and script was perfect. And I saw my tattoo, and I was like, it's literally my dad's handwriting from a letter just blown up bigger on my arm. I was like, it's a mess. And I was, like, struggling with it because it wasn't perfect. And then what was cool about it is it wasn't perfect. But then people started seeing it, and they would say, what is that? And I tell them the story and they'd be like, oh, my God, I love how it's not perfect. I love how it's your dad's handwriting. I love how his G's look a little bit different. Like, it's a cool. Everyone always compliments the way that he wrote his G's. They look like S's almost. And what I realized is people started falling in love with the aspect of the tattoo that wasn't perfect. And I was like, man, maybe people will love different aspects of me and what I create if it's not as perfect. And so when I started the podcast, I started the podcast, and it was three episodes a week, and I was cutting out all of the ums, I was cutting out the uhs, I was cutting out the. The filler words. I was cutting out the parts where I screw up words. But you've been listening to a podcast for a while. You know, I fuck up everything, right? And I was cutting it all out trying to make it perfect, and it took up so much time, and I just ran out of time, and I was like, screw it. I'm just going to post it. And I started getting these messages of, hey, man, I love your podcast because you just sound so normal. You just sound like a human. I feel like I'm sitting down in your living room with you, and we're just having a conversation. It's not. It's not perfect. Like all of the other podcasts that are out there. I was like, oh, my God, people are falling in love with the aspect of not being perfect. So I had my tattoo and I had the podcast both showing me that people didn't want perfection. But I thought I needed to be perfect in many ways to be accepted. And I realized people accept imperfection more than they accept perfection. And so the difference in getting the life that you want is not having to get everything to be perfect. It's not getting your entire to do list done. It's, can you check off the one most important thing of the day, right? Like, instead of, you can't be perfect and get your entire to do list done. If you're like me, your to do list is like 20 things long. I don't have that much time in a day, but can I get my most important things done? So I feel like I took a step forward. So I feel like I got something done that was important. You know, you could take your entire to do list, and I always recommend you take your entire to do list. You take number one, number two, number three, you rank them. What's Your most important thing, your second most important thing, your third most important thing. You take a white three by five card, you write them down. Number one is this. Number two is this. Number three is this you put in your back pocket. And that's all that you want to focus on today. You really have to start to flip it from perfectionism. Do you just have to have a get shit done attitude? Stop thinking so much, start doing. You'll never be fully ready for anything. There will never be a perfect time. And you don't have to believe in yourself in order to take action. I don't know who kind of put into people's minds that in order to take action, you have to be perfect. I'm fully aware that I'm going to mess things up. You have to learn to be okay with messing things up, right? Every day, multiple times a day. Being a human is being imperfect. And the only perfection that a human has is in the imperfection. I want to get the messaging out every single day that it's okay to screw up. It's okay to have flaws. The last thing that I want is for someone to listen to this podcast and be like, that guy's perfect. I'll never be where he is. No, I want someone to look at me and go, yeah, that guy's, you know, trying. He's trying his best. I want to try my best. At least he's not perfect, but neither am I, so maybe I could go ahead and go for it, right? Being completely honest with you. If I'm being truly, fully, 100% honest, perfectionism is usually just a case of a frail ego. That's what it is. It's us trying to protect ourself from our insecurities coming to the surface, you know? So it's like you look there and you're like, well, I don't want to put myself out there because it's not perfect. When in reality, we're just afraid of someone saying no to us or saying that our stuff isn't good enough and it hurting our feelings. That's what we're actually afraid of. We're not afraid of the imperfection. We're afraid of somebody hurting our feelings. We're afraid of not being accepted. We're afraid of people saying something bad to us. Nothing in this world is perfect. Like, if you go look at a tree. Have you ever looked at a tree and been like, mm, that's not perfectly straight. That's an ugly tree. Oh, that tree right there. That's a fat tree. Oh, that tree right There. That's a stupid branch. No, it's like you look at the tree and the perfectionism is in the crazy, twisted, fat branches and not being straight. There are no straight lines in this world. The only straight lines that people really that exist in this world are created by humans. Nature is not perfect, but it is perfect in the design of it. There's no such thing as perfection. So go fuck some things up, buttercup. It's the only way that you're going to improve. Incorrect action is better than no action at all. Because when you take incorrect action, you at least get some feedback on what works and what doesn't work and how you can improve. You can't get better unless you mess things up. Like, you're going to have to fail. You're going to have to fail. You're going to have to fail. Failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is a part of success. So go out there and fuck up as much as you can so you can learn what you shouldn't do. So you can learn what you should do. Because enough incorrect action. You will uncover what you need to do in order to take correct action. So get going. Stop listening to me. Go out there and get some shit done. That's what we got for you today. Take some action. Who cares what people think about you? Get out there and do it. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. What an imperfect way to end this episode, huh? Could have been better with the transition on that one, Rob. Right? So it's like, who cares? Just. Just put it out there. Go for it. I'm gonna leave you with that. And if you love this episode, please share it on Instagram and tag me Robdial Jr R O B D I A L J R. And once again, if you love this and you want to improve yourself and you want to learn and grow on how to be a better journaler, go ahead and download my free mini course and video lesson on how to get better at journaling. And with it, you will get 30 days of journal prompts to help you get better at journaling as well. Once again, it's absolutely free. You just have to go to mindsetmentorjournal. Com right now. Once again, Mindset Mentor Journal, and download it there. With that, I'm going to leave you the same way, leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.
