Perfectionism

Hm, perfectionism.  A way of thinking that can be absolutely brilliant or horrendously awful or anywhere in between.  When it’s for someone like an architect or someone who builds bridges, it is ABSOLUTELY essential.  I mean if they didn’t get every little detail accurately correct, it could mean death or destruction to people, animals and buildings.  

One of the slightly amusing things I heard about those who built bridges was that the person who created them was forced to stand under it.  Could have been dangerous to the builder but I guess it would have given them a motive to be sure they were correct.

But perfectionism is a type of thinking that can cause you problems.  I know that for me it certainly does.  I find it difficult to start things and also finish them because of the fear of failure, or success, or any and all stages in between.  Does that mean I give up?  Well, I try not to.  But that’s not always easy.

When we live with perfectionism at the back of our minds, always there to leap out if there is a problem, or something that is more complex than we imagined, we tend to fall back into it easily, so it can take over again with ease.  

Anxiety and depression play on the edge of perfectionism thinking.   I find they make me believe that I can’t do anything but I am anxious because I want to do something and do it totally right and I feel depressed because I am believing there is no way I can do this correctly. And my perfectionism is insisting that it must be perfect and depression and anxiety can then take over.  

But there are other factors at play with perfectionism.  You can be busy attempting to do something and perfectionism can say you’re not following the instructions or the regular way of doing something so therefore it isn’t perfect so therefore it is wrong.

This doesn’t mean you have to give in to perfectionism.  There are ways you can learn to recognise it happen and attempt to change the way you are thinking.  Get yourself grounded again and begin to look at how you could view this in a different way.