After 15 Years — Getting Past the Idea of Perfect

I am a slacker. A procrastinator. A perfectionist.

Perfectionism (psychology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not to be confused with Perfectionism (philosophy).

Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.^[1][2] It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional characteristic, as psychologists agree that there are many positive and negative aspects.^[3] In its maladaptive form, perfectionism drives people to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal, and their adaptive perfectionism can sometimes motivate them to reach their goals. In the end, they derive pleasure from doing so. When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression.

I’ve had pictures in storage, still in the processing envelopes, from since I had developed them, going back 15 years. I’ve needed to put them into albums for so long and thought of it as such a huge project because I wanted them to be in order and in nice thoughtful albums. Instead of putting them in albums though the pictures dating back to my first sons birth just sat in a big box in my attic.

On Saturday I found an empty album in the attic while looking through some clothes. I don’t even know where the album came from, but on a whim I grabbed it and all of the photo envelopes. I immediately went downstairs and sat in the dining room quickly putting the pictures in the empty slots. I didn’t put them in order first, or waste time thinking about it; I just put the photos in the album one by one until I was done. It took about 30 minutes and I was moving quickly.

There were a lot of memories that I was hiding away because I was letting perfectionism stand in my way. Letting that idea go was freeing though and now we all have memories to look at and enjoy. And the best part — no one cares that they aren’t in order.

This is just one example of a way I am trying to get past a glip in my personality traits. One example of how I  am trying to free myself from the self-imposed pressure. Do you have this perfectionism trait also?? Do you find that it holds you back from getting things done? Have you ever really thought about it? If you are a chronic procrastinator like me I suggest you ask yourself why and if it even hints to wanting things you do to end up larger than life, or perfect, why not try to let that idea go and just get whatever it is done. I’m telling you — it feels good!