From Perfectionist to Pro: The 80% Rule Revealed

October 22, 2025

Episode 27: From Perfectionist to Pro — The 80% Rule Revealed!

In this episode, Dr. Stacey Ishman explores one of the biggest mindset shifts for early-career physicians: moving from perfectionism to progress. She introduces the “80% Rule,” a practical framework that helps you escape the trap of over-editing, over-preparing, and overthinking — and start building momentum in your career.

Dr. Ishman shares how striving for perfection often slows growth, limits visibility, and drains energy. Instead, she offers strategies for applying the 80% Rule to writing, research, presentations, and academic collaborations — so you can produce excellent work efficiently and sustainably.

No need to take notes — the Blog has a full summary of these insights.

If you’re interested in my Academic Accelerator Course — designed to chart your personalized path to promotion for physicians in their first 5 years of practice — please DM me on Instagram @sishmancoach or email me at [email protected].

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Key Points

Introduction: The Problem with Perfectionism (00:00 - 01:00)

Many early-career physicians believe that if something isn’t perfect, it isn’t ready.
This mindset leads to unfinished drafts, delayed submissions, and missed opportunities.
Perfectionism doesn’t get you promoted — progress does.

The 80% Rule Explained (01:00 - 02:00)

The 80% Rule means stopping when your work is 80% as good as you think it should be.
Your 80% is often better than others’ 100%.
It’s not about cutting corners — it’s about aligning time with energy and value.

The Hidden Costs of Perfectionism (02:00 - 03:00)

Perfectionism masquerades as high standards but functions like quicksand.
It creates invisible barriers to progress and contributes to burnout.
Projects that sit unfinished rob you of visibility and collaboration opportunities.

Why 80% is Strategic (03:00 - 04:00)

Momentum matters more than polish — sharing drafts leads to feedback and growth.
Multiple “good enough” outputs compound visibility and reputation over time.
Freeing up energy allows focus on high-impact activities like mentorship and leadership.

A Personal Shift: Stacey’s Story (04:00 - 05:00)

Early in her career, Dr. Ishman lost weeks perfecting manuscripts.
Adopting the 80% Rule led to more publications, invitations, and visibility.
Momentum proved more powerful than perfection.

Practical Tips to Apply the 80% Rule (05:00 - 06:30)

Set a timer when writing or creating slides — and stop when it goes off.
Share drafts early; use checklists instead of chasing perfection.
Delegate the final 20% — formatting, proofreading, or references.
Redefine excellence: impact and consistency > flawlessness.
Practice releasing work that’s “almost ready” and track the results.

Case Study: Progress Over Perfect (06:30 - 07:00)

A physician hesitated to email for speaking invitations until her message was “perfect.”
When she finally did, three institutions responded immediately.
Visibility and confidence grew once she stopped over-polishing.

Final Takeaway (07:00 - End)

Your promotion committee, collaborators, and patients don’t need perfection — they need visibility and reliability.
The 80% Rule is the mindset shift that takes you from perfectionist to strategic — and it can save your career.

Summary

Perfectionism may feel like dedication, but it’s often disguised procrastination. The 80% Rule empowers you to act sooner, publish more, and grow faster by valuing momentum over polish. Dr. Ishman reminds us that excellence isn’t about flawlessness — it’s about consistent, visible, and meaningful work that moves your career forward.

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Episode Transcript

102025 From Perfectionist to Pro_ The 80_ Rule Revealed! Final
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[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Stacey Ishman, and today we're gonna be talking about from perfectionist to pro. The 80% rule revealed. This is one of my favorite topics, and it was game changing when I learned about it. So when I coach early Career physicians, one theme shows up again and again. There's this belief that if something isn't perfect, it isn't ready.

So they all have drafts sitting on hard drives. There's talks to get revised a million times, and opportunities slip away while they wait for the perfect version to emerge. But the truth is, perfectionism does not get you promoted. Just like looking perfect on social media doesn't make you go viral. So one of the most important shifts you can make in your life is the 80% rule.

So what is it? This rule is the mindset that helps you escape all that perfectionism. And it means that when you stop working, when something's 80% as good as you think it should be, then it's probably good enough to go out in the world. And quite honestly, I think endlessly about the fact that [00:01:00] my 80% and definitely your 80% is probably better than many people's, 100%.

So your idea that something has to be perfect in order for it to be. Birth from, you know, your mental womb there. So your thought that something needs to be perfect in order for it to be put forward is holding you back. And the truth is, your 80% is absolutely better than somebody else who's a non-expert in that area.

So recognize that 80% is not just good enough, but it's often excellent. So it's not about cutting quarters, it's about making sure that your time aligns with your energy. Now when we think about the, you know, alternative of this, it's perfectionism and that really hurts more than it helps.

It may feel like what you're doing is putting out a really high quality product, and you probably are. It may feel like high standards, but really it's some invisible barriers to progress. For many of us, we can look around at the things that are almost done [00:02:00] that don't move forward, and they may sit there long enough that they never move forward.

They drain our time. We can spend hours, days, weeks, tweaking it to be perfect, and they become a bottleneck. The projects never leave your desk. They never get submitted. You never get feedback. Then there's burnout, this constant feeling that you're not doing enough, which can erode all your energy, and you miss the opportunity to be visible for people to see what you're doing, for people to understand when to collaborate or to when to invite you to be on the stage.

So while perfectionism may feel like dedication to you, it often oftentimes functions like quicksand. Now, 80% really can be strategic. Shifting this does not mean you have to lower the quality of your work. It just raises the strategic value of your work. So momentum definitely matters more than polish.

We've all seen the thing that didn't look perfect but looked interesting. You know, putting an 80% draft in today may feed like an awesome opportunity to get feedback and progress. And sitting another [00:03:00] six months might be five months of you doing absolutely nothing on it and missing the opportunity to find new collaborators or get new ideas or get some really good feedback that makes it better.

The other thing is that consistency compounds, so multiple manuscripts submitted over a year, even if they're not perfect, absolutely builds your reputation better than one perfectly great paper that you've obsessed over and your capacity increases. When you stop giving every project as much of your energy as you can possibly muster.

You suddenly have real room for other things like mentorship or leadership or research collaborations that actually do drive things like your promotion. So if you think of it this way, the 80% rule is not about doing less, it's more about investing that effort where it creates the most return. So for me, my own shift to the 80% really came early, maybe mid in my career.

Honestly, I lost weeks polishing manuscripts word by word. And I thought I was proving my expertise. But in reality I was delaying my [00:04:00] progress. And there are still, quite honestly, several papers from that era that never got published. 'cause I feel like I got too far away from the data collection stage when I finally leaned into this 80% rule submitting papers when they were strong and had been looked at by my co-authors, but not flawless.

It really helped. Or if I said yes to a talk before, my slides were perfectly polished. Suddenly I had more visibility. I was invited to do panels. I was asked to give a lunchtime keynote, maybe a few years into my career, and I was flabbergasted. And it was really because they'd seen the work I was doing.

They understand the topic I was looking at, and they were interested. My name started appearing in conversations I hadn't even been part of. So momentum is more powerful than protection. And perfection. Now, practical tips to apply that 80% role. The first one is to set a timer when you're writing or editing slides or talk, preparing a talk.

Decide how much time you'll spend and stop when the timer goes off. You may have to go [00:05:00] for a second session, but I want you to be realistic about your time, but also don't obsess over the details. I also think it's important to share drafts early. Don't wait till it's perfect. Send a strong draft and let others tweak it, or reviewers and mentors help shape it.

I also really like the technique of sending part of a paper. You don't have to send the whole entire thing. If my method section is 80% done, that can go off before the rest is written. If it helps, you can also use checklists. So instead of chasing perfection, create a short checklist of what matters.

It has to be clear and accurate and succinct. And then delegate that last 20% if you can. Whether that's formatting the slides or fixing the typos or adding the references. These are things that may be able to be done by a trainee or an assistant or a collaborator or software, and then redefine excellence.

It isn't about flawless slides. It's about impact and consistent output, and then practice releasing work. Pick one thing that you have sitting there that's 80% [00:06:00] done and just get it out there. It needs to be reviewed or submitted or just presented and notice the outcome, it will likely be better than you imagined.

Now, one of the people I work with has this perfectionist tendency, and in this case we, we talked about outreach. She wanted to give grand rounds, but she kept stalling. So what if an email wasn't worded perfectly? What if the topic wasn't perfect? When she finally did put that out there, she had three institutions that asked her to do what she wanted to do and the topic.

She wanted to do it right away. So not only did she get national visibility, but she earned the admiration of her chair and herself when she realized that perfect email didn't matter nearly as much. And for many of us, AI can make us sound a lot more perfect than we do now. So my takeaway for academic physicians is that your promotion committee, your collaborators and your patients do not need you to be perfect.

They need you to be visible, reliable, and impactful. So the 80% rule is the mindset shift that can take you from [00:07:00] perfectionist to strategic, and it's a shift that saves careers. Thank you for joining me today. If you have any interest or topics you'd like to hear about, please send them to me at medicalmentorcoaching.com in the contact me section, and please share this podcast.

If you found it useful, you can do that on YouTube where you, I would hope you would subscribe or please follow me on, um, apple or um, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. So thank you very much and I look forward to talking to you next time.

From Perfectionist to Pro: The 80% Rule Revealed

Key Points

Summary

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