"Musings on the Pitfalls of Perfect" by Thekla Richter

This is a re-post from a blog I follow. Why, oh why, did this not exist when I was in college? ... or even grad school (pt. 1)?

Musing on the Pitfalls of Perfect

Posted: 13 Apr 2010 03:34 PM PDT

"Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."
-Leonard Cohen

Photo by Laszlo Ilyes

It's so easy to get caught up in the land of perfect, the land of "should." There are some things that you work on that are worth holding up to very high standards indeed, but for most things in day-to-day life, good enough will actually be just fine. Here are some reasons why plenty of the stuff you do doesn't need to be perfect:

• Getting started sooner will get it done faster, and often better, than planning it out perfectly before you begin.


• Be wary of comparing yourself to others and imagining that they are perfect. They have struggles and doubts and flaws too, underneath.


• Sometimes, quantity does matter over quality-- if getting it perfect means taking ten times longer over every task, you're operating at 10% efficiency. What would it feel like to be 10 times more productive? Or maybe just eight times more productive and haveway more fun?


• Sometimes finishing it in some form matters more than finishing perfectly.


• That voice in your head demanding perfection might not be yours, but someone from your past-- listen closely to that voice, and think about where it comes from.


• Most work will not be looked at by others nearly as closely as you are looking at it now. (The trick is identifying where your highest standards will truly matter, and saving that degree of effort and time for those projects only.)


• Failure or criticism are always possible regardless of whether you do it "perfectly" or not... being perfect cannot protect you.


• Worrying too much about being perfect makes it more difficult to be creative and innovative.


• Fiercely identifying the bare minimum that needs to get done allows you to decide where it's worth putting in extra effort, and where it's not really worth the time and energy.


• You are not your work.


• Delaying a decision to figure out how to make the perfect choice is in fact making achoice by default-- and rarely the best choice in my opinion.


• You don't need to be perfect to be worthy of love, praise or any other good thing you desire. You are already intrinsically worthy.

Do you have any other thoughts to share about perfectionism?

Note: this post is brought to you imperfectly late, well after the morning deadline I usually aim for. And you know what? That's actually okay.