Letting go of perfection

I’m trying to break a habit of perfectionism and it’s really tripping me out because it’s not a simple one step solution. I’m not just trying to be perfect all the time because I’m afraid people won’t like me if I’m not perfect. It’s a mixture of things. So I’m learning about thought patterns of perfectionist. 

First, perfectionists have a pattern of looking at things as “all or nothing” (thanks Rachel Luna for pointing this out on her podcast). 

If we can’t accomplish the whole task in the timeframe we want or have we may discount the option of doing it in chunks and get discouraged or procrastinate. 

One example of this is if you can’t do all the dishes right now because you don’t have time, but you have time to do half the dishes, an all or nothing perfectionist would just put off the whole task. 

Or maybe you have a goal at work to get a certain number of tasks done. Let’s say theres 10. 

While a non-perfectionist may also not complete all 10 tasks in a day, they may accept that they can do 8 and be happy with that. A perfectionist looks at the fact that they can’t do those extra two and consider the whole situation a loss. Why even start? This is all subconscious by the way so without realizing what we are thinking we usually just experience an overwhelmed or hopeless feeling. Perhaps even apathetic. We can end up performing way worse than the non-perfectionist and maybe only get 6 things done because our own mindset was negative from the start.

This all or nothing thinking is also not satisfied with any result that has a flaw. 

For me if I complete a project and then notice a flaw I am extremely critical. I feel less accomplished with my progress and in some cases even count the entire result a failure just because of one flaw. It’s like getting an A+ on your assignment, but not feeling proud of yourself because there was a grammatical error. You see that red pen mark as a signifier that the whole thing is ruined. 

It’s not always that extreme, but if I notice one tiny flaw with any of my work, it always has an effect on me. It always bothers me at least a little and if I am allowed to correct my mistakes it’s very hard not to double or triple check and agonize over the result being perfect.

A perfectionist also has a warped view of reality because they won’t let go of impossible unrealistic goals to the detriment of achieving what actually is possible. Say what? They can’t accept the reality of what limits there may be on their own ability to accomplish things perfectly.  In their mind they want to believe they can get it perfect if they keep trying harder or that time is unlimited. For example they ignore the reality of what could go wrong or how plans can change and think they can accomplish all 500 tasks on their to do list if they just manage their time perfectly.

All this unrealistic planning and expecting puts a lot of stress on our minds.

For me perfectionism robs me of my joy when I accomplish things that others would be really proud of. 

Worst of all it keeps me in a box of fear where I am too afraid to take risks or to go the next step of a journey. It keeps me from leveling up my life. I feel that since I have not perfected this level of responsibility yet I can not go on to the next. 

It’s like playing a game with various levels of completion. For example, Crash Bandicoot. Crash could be played just by finishing the level without dying and collecting the crystal, or you could make it 10x harder by getting 100% of the boxes in each level to get some extra bonuses. Now technically this isn’t impossible to do, but even if you can do it, it’s going to take you so long to beat the game. If you try to do it 100% on your first play-through, you’ll likely get frustrated and never finish the game. Rather than enjoy it, you’re gonna have a bad time. 

Instead you need to learn to let go of the idea of perfect and decide to be content with the idea of done. You’ll never learn the higher level skills that could help you go back and get all this boxes later anyway if you don’t process. 

So remember “done is better than perfect”. Massive imperfect action is better than stagnation. 

And guess what? You are supposed to go through life kinda feeling like you don’t know what you are doing. 

That’s how you know you are paving your own path and not just following the same exact one as everyone else.