When Nothing You Do Is Good Enough | Work Stress & Perfectionism

High-functioning anxiety and perfectionism can make you feel like nothing your team does is ever good enough. But here's the truth: the problem isn't their work—it's your nervous system running on overdrive. Learn how burnout disguises itself as impossible standards and what to do about it without lowering your impact.

A team can look “high performing” on the surface while quietly losing its nerve underneath. I’m Cheryl Paris, and I’m telling the story of Isabel, a capable new manager who wants to do a great job and ends up doing something many of us do under pressure: fine-tuning competent work until her team starts working for her approval instead of working from their own judgment. The work isn’t wrong, unsafe, or off-brief, but it keeps getting adjusted because it isn’t quite how she would have done it. That difference between preference and principle is where work stress and anxiety begin to grow. 

We unpack what this pattern does to a team: people stop asking “Is this good work?” and start asking “Will Isabel like it?” They rehearse minor decisions, re-check messages, and avoid initiative because the standard seems to change after the task is finished. Then we flip the lens to the manager’s side. When you step into a bigger role, the gap between responsibility and direct control can feel like an exposed nerve. Perfectionism and micromanagement can become a way to feel safe, even when it costs trust, speed, and psychological safety. 

I share two practical tools to break the loop without “lowering standards.” First is the Cola Principle: good, better, best, matched to purpose, risk, and time. Second is a quick decision filter before you edit: is it wrong, is it risky, or is it simply different? Different is allowed to be irritating, but it’s not an emergency. You’ll also hear how to set clear outcomes and boundaries upfront so competent people can deliver quality in more than one way. 

If this resonates, subscribe for more practical ideas on leadership, work stress, anxiety, and healthier standards, share it with a manager who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s one “different but fine” choice you’ll stop correcting this week?

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Transcript

Why This Story Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:21

This great story teaches us something about being human. I'm Cheryl Paris and this is Work Stress Anxiety. Together let's borrow a little wisdom from a story to help us navigate a very modern world.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Hi, it's Cheryl here and welcome to Work Stress Anxiety. If you're new here, welcome. If you're not new, want to welcome you too. Today I want you to talk about a very capable person called Isabel, a capable new manager beginning her new role. Isabel is 31. She's a human resources and learning and development lead

Isabel’s Quiet Slide Into Micromanaging

SPEAKER_01 1:17

for a very large multinational organization. It's her first major management role. So of course she's very excited because she wants to do it properly. So when a capable member of her team brings her a piece of work, Isabel reads it carefully, she spots three things she would phrase differently and sends it back. Nothing dramatic, just a little bit of fine-tuning. Then she does it again with the next piece of work and again with the one after that. Now the work is not factually wrong, it's not unsafe, it reads the brief. It simply isn't quite how Isabel would have done it. Perhaps the introduction could be a bit warmer, and the slides are arranged in a different order than she might do it. There's, you know, one or two paragraphs that need to be a bit longer so that she feels more comfortable with it. But instead of saying that's different from my preference, the message becomes that isn't quite right. And those are not the same thing. At first, the team make the changes because they're all professionals, they can cope with feedback, but eventually they stop asking, is this good work? and ask themselves kind of, will Isabel like it? They write perfectly sensible sentences,

When The Team Works For Approval

SPEAKER_01 3:02

they rehearse minor decisions and check things that once they handled confidently, you know, the work may look polished, but underneath underneath it all, the team are becoming increasingly dependent on one person's approval. Now let's have a look at it from Isabel's side. Now Isabel may genuinely believe that she is protecting quality, but from the team side, the measuring stick appears to change with every task. Sometimes it's too detailed, sometimes it's not detailed enough. Uh sometimes it's too formal, sometimes it's too friendly. It's almost like they've wandered into Goldilocks's cabin. Goldilocks has apparently joined the senior management team and nobody has been given the porridge specifications. So people begin second guessing, not because they lack skill or ability to do things, but because the standard only reveals itself after the work is finished. So you may say, what's the big deal? You see, when someone types a message and deletes it and types it again, what is an over a straightforward decision can become overnight something else. When a team member says, I just want to check for the fourth time that morning, those moments can be mistaken for a lack of confidence or initiative. But perhaps the team has learned that initiative isn't welcomed and or maybe it's only welcome when it produces the exact answer the manager already has in mind. So think of it this way: it's about creating an environment where everyone wants to avoid being uh or appearing to be the problem. And this is the particular irritating part, I think, because the more Isabel corrects, the less independently the team work, the less independently the work, the more Isabel feels that she has to keep checking. Everyone becomes busier, but the thing is, no one's becoming wiser, and a highly capable team slowly start behaving as though they need permission to breathe. Not good. Well, maybe you think it's good, but I don't. You know, excellence. I think of excellence, you know, good work can take more than one shape. Two people, you've I'm sure you've seen it yourself in your own work, two people can have the same um outcome, but use different words, do things in a different sequence, and often two people have different strengths. But when only one single version is treated as correct, variations start to begin to look like errors. The team stops bringing judgment, creativity, and experience to the task. They just bring Isabel and an imitation of Isabel, and even that may require amending if Isabel doesn't like it. So perhaps the problem is not simply that the team needs

The Control Loop That Shrinks Judgment

SPEAKER_01 7:01

more confidence or that Isabel needs to give less feedback. Maybe the more uncomfortable question is this What happens when a manager needs to feel in control of everything? And that control becomes the team's definition of good work. And if the work has already competent or what is all that fine-tuning really about? What is it really trying to protect? So when you step, imagine this now. You step into a significant management role, responsibilities can feel rather heavy, don't you think? Than the what the job description suggested. Your name may be attached to the outcomes in the team, but other people are now producing parts of that outcome. And for some managers, that gap, I think, between responsibility and direct control can feel feel like they're exposed like a nerve. Fine-tuning the work may become a way of reassuring yourself. Just like how Isabella appears to be needing that reassurance. If I've touched every detail, perhaps nothing can surprise me. Isabelle may not consciously think everyone must do this my way. She may simply feel a flicker of discomfort when the work looks unfamiliar or familiarity feels predictable and then predictable feels safer. So the mind performs a simple administrative sort of upgrade. Not how I would do it, but maybe into something not quite correct. And then suddenly changing the work feels responsible rather than controlling. I just think underneath that behavior there may be a belief that a good manager must catch everything, prevent every mistake, and never allow imperfect work to travel upwards. If something goes wrong, perhaps she feels that it will prove that she wasn't ready for the role. That belief can make delegation feel less like leadership and more like lending someone your best coat during a thunderstorm, yeah? I get that. You know, I recognized a version of this in myself. Because when I recorded the f the first episode of this podcast, I think I recorded it about 30 times, maybe a bit more. I criticized every word, the pauses, the way I sounded, everything. I wanted control over the result.

Perfectionism As Fear With Neat Handwriting

SPEAKER_01 10:21

And I pursued perfect so enthusiastically that I completely lost my voice, which is kind of ironic, I suppose. Because I used about the second or third version. And all that punishment had not produced the masterpiece that my anxious little quality controlled mind had promised me. You know, we often speak uh about perfection, that P word, as though it's the highest form of care. Quite often is fear, I think, with very excellent handwriting. Nature is not terribly interested in perfect copies, it's us human beings that seem to want to clone everything. You know, nature works through variation, adaptation, and growth, and yet at work we can become suspicious of anything that doesn't resemble the version that's already in our heads, even when a different version is perfectly sound. You may have heard me talk about this before, but I come back to what I call the cola principle. The good, better, best principle matters. Good is not a polite word for failure, no. Better is not proof that good was unacceptable, and best is not a permanent address where competent people are required to live. No, the standard needs to match the purpose, the risk and the time available. All those three things need to be in that matrix. Otherwise, best simply becomes an expensive habit that consumes all your time, drains all your confidence, and sometimes, as in my case, your vocal cords. And from the team's point of view, all that checking begins to make emotional sense. If reasonable decisions are repeatedly adjusted, people learn from that that their professional judgment is risky. So asking permission becomes safer than acting. That doesn't mean they have suddenly lost their capability, it just means that they are adapting to a new environment. An environment where the difference between acceptable and unexpected unacceptable lives in someone else's head. Now, none of this makes Isabel a bad manager, okay? It makes her a developing one. Now, the ABGW method begins with awareness for a very good reason because being willing to notice the possibility that the problem is not always located outside yourself is a big deal. That I call that professional reflection. You can acknowledge my need for control may be narrow in my team without deciding that you're hopeless or unfit to lead. The belief underneath that pattern may be if everyone does it my way, I can guarantee the outcome. But consider this management doesn't often mean offering that guarantee. Control cannot remove every risk. It can merely move some of the risk elsewhere, it can delay it, silence it. And the team that stops telling you what they really think. Because to me, good leadership, because that's what it's about, I think. To be a good manager, you have to be a good leader. It's not about um producing replicas

The Cola Principle For Smarter Standards

SPEAKER_01 14:52

that I would make exactly the same judgment as you would, but helping other people develop sound judgment of their own. Because what else is there to be a manager? I mean, to me, the whole point of being a manager is that you can then delegate stuff to your team and trust that they will do it. Doesn't that make your job easier? Or maybe it doesn't. Now, if that is true, Isabelle doesn't need to become more careless, less lower her standards, or transform into someone else who communicates entirely through trust. No. She may simply need a wider field of view, one that distinguishes a real problem from a reasonable difference. And once that distinction becomes clearer, the question changes from how do I make them do it correctly to what actually needs my intervention here? I mean, by now we can see hopefully that Isabel's fine tuning is not really about commas or people choosing the correct words. It may be her way, I think, of trying to feel safe inside this new bubble of responsibility. That understanding matters because shame tends to make us defensive, right? Awareness, I think, gives us something that's much more useful. And from there, from that place of awareness, she can begin widening her view without abandoning the quality of the work that she expects. Now, for me, a healthy alternative is not to stop caring, it's about learning to separate what the task genuinely requires from what you personally prefer. And that distinction helps because a clear standard gives the team something stable to work towards. Whereas a preference can still be discussed, but it no longer has to arrive as some sort of universal law. Before changing competent work, you might experiment with three questions. Is it wrong? Is it genuinely risky or is it merely different? Wrong might mean inaccurate work or missed requirement. Risky might affect a client, colleague, some sort of legal duty or some important outcome. And different it might mean, well, it works, but it's not the way that I envisioned it in my head. Different is allowed to be

Wrong Risky Different And Clear Guardrails

SPEAKER_01 18:21

slightly irritating. Okay, but it's not an emergency. As someone put it, the situation is serious but not hopeless. Then you might ask, what does this task actually need? Going back to that cola principle, good, better or best. And that question can protect the quality of what you're doing while also protecting your confidence and your time. Now, a safety critical policy may need the best available scrutiny, but an internal update just simply needs to be clear and correct. Not every piece of work needs to be shiny and polished until it can be seen in its own reflection. If there is a real requirement, you might experiment with making it visible before the next task begins. So you might want to say to your team, guys, these are the two outcomes that matter. Here are the boundaries. You know, this is the parameters I want you to work within. The method you choose is yours. And I think that may actually help people who cannot reliably meet the standard. They are only shown after the work is complete. Because what you've done is you've created guardrails around judgment to grow without leaving anyone to wander through the woodland with a vague map. You know, in the ABGW method, as I said, awareness is noticing. Balance is asking what the role, the team, the task need. The role needs accountable management, the task needs an appropriate standard, and the team needs enough space to think and grow. Balance is not giving everyone whatever they want. It's about refusing to let one need, especially that need for control to swallow everything else. The old belief says good leadership means making sure everything is done the way I would do it. I'm just pinting or maybe even suggesting a healthier way to look at it might be good leadership means making the standard clear, allowing competent people to meet it in more than one way. Isabel doesn't need to become another person, she just needs enough curiosity to notice where excellence has quietly become imitation. Now, what I'd like you to do for today, if you're interested in experimentation, which I hope you are if you're listening to this podcast, I want you to notice one piece of work that you may be tempted to change. But before you touch it, ask wrong, risky or different wrong, risky or different. If it's merely different, experiment with leaving one reasonable choice alone. You don't have to solve your whole management style in a day. Just gather one piece, just one small piece of evidence that good work doesn't have to be your work.

One Small Experiment For This Week

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Now remember this when preference stops pretending to be a principle, professional judgment has this amazing ability to grow. And remember every step you take, no matter how small, is a step towards a brighter, more balanced future. Trust in your journey and remember progress is progress no matter the pace. Bye for now. I hope today's episode gave you something useful to carry into your week. Now finish your coffee, take a breath, and remember progress is progress no matter the pace. Until next time, bye for now.