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An insidious, pervasive monster that will poison you and paralyze you. People cursed with perfectionism may eventually create projects of high quality, but if they don't get a handle on it first they will never even start.
I'm speaking from personal experience. And while it may not be a problem personally for you, it can be a problem for many people. So for those who struggle with perfectionism, here's some things that have helped me to overcome it:
Remove the stress.
Stress, especially for perfectionists, can come from feeling you have impossible expectations to live up to. Oftentimes a perfectionist will have higher standards for themselves than others have for them. It is important to try your best, but remember 'your best' is not the same thing as 'the best.' So the first thing to do is to lower your expectations. It takes time and it takes work to get good at anything, so reevaluate what you are really trying to accomplish with what you're doing, and why.Learn to not take yourself too seriously.
Learning to laugh at yourself is a great life skill. And I don't mean in the self-deprecating, low self-esteem kind of way. I mean learning to roll with the flow and accept mistakes. A lighter approach and a good sense of humor can turn a mortifying experience into a good story or learning opportunity.Accept the mistakes... and strive for better.
Mistakes are part of the learning process. And honestly, if we ever did accomplish something flawlessly then there wouldn't be anything left to work towards. How awful would that be? You will always be making progress, and always have progress to make. So accept that mistakes will happen, and view them not as failures, but as something to work on.Try something unfamiliar.
This seems counter intuitive. After all, if you try to learn something you've never done before you will be bad at it, which can be frustrating. But that's the point. It can be humbling to have to learn the basics of something. So much of perfectionism is tied in with pride. It's about not wanting to appear substandard before others.As an added bonus, trying something new can lead to new discoveries and at the very least get your brain working in unexpected ways. Plus, you're new at it, so you're not expected to be good at it! No pressure there. So pick up an instrument, or try a drawing in medium you've never used before. It can be incredibly grounding.
Learn to enjoy the process, not the result.
Learning skills and living is a process, not an accomplishment. My final word of advice for the perfectionist then is this: don't worry about the results. Put your effort into doing things the right way, and you will eventually get the good results. Be that in writing, art, weight loss, your job, or whatever.Overcoming perfectionism itself is a process. So keep these things in mind, lighten up, and start. It's much better than doing nothing at all.