Dear leader,

Stop using perfectionism as a shield for your vulnerability in not having all the answers.

You've likely already researched every possible birth scenario, created detailed contingency plans, and still feel anxious about what might go wrong. You've prepared presentation decks for your maternity leave handoff that are more thorough than most annual reports, yet you lie awake wondering if your peers will think you're not committed enough. The harder you try to perfect your preparation, the more overwhelmed you feel.

This is exactly what I witnessed with Zara when she first contacted me. She was six months pregnant with her first child and had recently completed executive leadership training. When we first met, she described feeling "nervous about complications and pain" and wanting “to be prepared since this is my first baby". Even in recognizing her perfectionist patterns, she and her partner struggled with another layer of the same issue: they didn't like asking for help.

Zara wasn't struggling with lack of preparation; she was struggling with the hidden trap that we as women jump into. We're used to mastering new challenges through research, planning, and flawless execution. But there are parts of life, such as pregnancy and birth, that exist in the realm of the unknown, where "perfect" doesn't exist and control is largely an illusion. She needed to release perfectionism as a form of self-protection.

We worked on learning to distinguish between areas where preparation and planning truly serve us versus areas where we need to trust our intuition and ability to respond in the moment. For decisions that genuinely required advance planning, like choosing care providers and understanding basic procedures, we gave her full attention. For everything else like how she'd handle pain, what she'd want in the moment, how she'd feel about various interventions, we set her vision for a confident experience while accepting that she'd know more when she was in the situation than she could ever plan in advance. Most importantly, we focused on her breath.

Zara eventually decided to have an induction at 39 weeks. She labored beautifully to 8 centimeters without pain medication, using the breathing and physical techniques we'd practiced. When she learned new research during one of our community calls about the effectiveness of increasing levels of Pitocin (the synthetic oxytocin hormone used to stimulate contractions), she had the confidence to advocate for herself and ask her care team to stop the treatment based on evidence rather than routine protocol. She breathed her baby onto her bed magically in her own timing—even the doctor didn't make it!

Most importantly, she'd learned to separate strategic preparation from perfectionist control. When her baby needed NICU care for the first few days, she responded from presence rather than panic because she'd practiced trusting her ability to handle unexpected situations.

When you release the need for perfect control and trust your ability to breathe through uncertainty, you unlock the calm confidence that leads to empowered decisions.

Looking back, I can see how perfectionism showed up differently at each stage of my pregnancy journeys—first as under-preparation, then as over-preparation, but always as a way to maintain control and avoid vulnerability. You can read more on each experience in my previous journal entry.

I didn't think I needed to prepare for my first birth because I was focused on what I considered the important stuff. I was bright, intelligent, had a good job, and was just hitting my stride in my career. I thought I was being strategic by focusing on what "really mattered"—my work performance. That was perfectionism too—the belief that my intelligence and career success would somehow translate to knowing what to do when labor started.

For my second pregnancy, I swung the other direction and sought out resources, found yoga, and prepared extensively for breastfeeding success after failing the first time. But I was still trying to maintain perfection—this time by having the "perfect" birth experience AND the "perfect" career trajectory. That birth went better because I'd done the work, but three months later, we moved across the world for my husband's job and had to give up a promotion I'd worked really hard for. My perfectionist plan of having it all fell apart again.

I was finally learning to release the need to control outcomes with my third pregnancy. I trusted my body's wisdom and had a transformative, unplanned home birth. But even then, perfectionism crept back—I went straight back to work 8 weeks later, excelling at my job, managing three children, and breastfeeding while traveling globally 80% of the time.

Each time, life showed me that I couldn't perfect my way through uncertainty. I needed to learn to trust my ability to adapt and respond to whatever came up. Because perfectionism, in all its forms, is fear wearing the mask of competence. We can’t control outcomes that we have no power over.

Here's what releasing perfectionism looks like in practice:

• Recognize that you don't have to be the perfect employee or the perfect mother—you can be learning both. You also don't need to be an expert before you become a mother or a leader. Trust that you'll figure things out by learning along the way.

• Pick your battles with your inner perfectionist. Channel that energy toward the decisions that genuinely matter (your values, your team, your support system) and let go of trying to control outcomes you can't predict anyway.

• Use your professional problem-solving skills while accepting that some aspects of this season of your life require patience rather than optimization.

• Model learning and adaptation for your colleagues and children rather than appear as if you have it all figured out.

Take some time this week to notice where perfectionism shows up in this season of your pregnancy, parenting, or life transition. Ask yourself: Am I trying to perfect my way through uncertainty, or am I building my capacity to respond wisely to whatever life throws at me?

In my next entry, we'll explore how to practice leading with presence, because once you've created space and released perfectionist control, you need practical tools to stay regulated when facing the inevitable unknowns.

Remember, progress over perfection—always.

From my desk to yours,
Dr. Michelle El Khoury

P.S. Ready to practice trusting your body's wisdom? If you’re pregnant, get my free Labor Visualization at https://programs.yogamazia.com/labor-visualization and learn to breathe through uncertainty with confidence.