4 ways to overcome perfectionism

There are times when happiness comes from aiming high and achieving great things.

But there are also times when setting unrealistic goals can create disappointment and frustration, destroying any chance we had for happiness.

Happiness, then, is finding a balance between these two situations. And happiness is much easier if/when we can overcome perfectionism as we will NEVER be perfect …

via the Ladders by Eric Barker

We all know someone who needs everything to be “just right.” Someone who spends way too long on even simple tasks – often driving themselves and others crazy in the process.

Whether it’s with work, with chores or in relationships, many of us have an area of life where we’re total perfectionists. And while the thing we’re focused on gets better because of our high standards, oftentimes a lot of other things suffer. And sometimes the thing that suffers is us.

When perfectionism shows up, it often brings its close friends: depression, anxiety and anger.

From When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism:

People with high levels of perfectionism (particularly self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism) are at a greater risk of experiencing depression than nonperfectionists, especially during periods of stress (for example, at school, work, and in their relationships) and after experiencing failure (Hewitt and Flett 1990; 1993).

Oh, one other little thing — it can also kill you:

After baseline assessment of health and personality traits as predictors of mortality, 450 participants were followed over a period of 6.5 years. Consistent with our hypotheses, findings demonstrated that risk of death was significantly greater for high scorers in perfectionism and neuroticism, compared to low scorers at the time of base line.

And while I’m sure your death would be three times as efficient as the average person’s, perhaps that’s something we can agree to procrastinate on, okay? Perfectionism is a problem you can fix.

From When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism:

Riley et al. (2007) used strategies… to provide ten sessions of treatment designed to help people who suffer with high levels of perfectionism. In this study, the symptoms of 75 percent of the participants were significantly improved following treatment.

With some insight from When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism and Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control we’re going to learn, um… how to get better at being worse? Okay, that didn’t come out right. Superiority through inferiority … ?

Anyway, you know what I mean. Let’s get to it …

… keep reading the full & original article HERE