Perfectionism is a tricky concept. Most likely a double-edged sword. It may motivate you to do better and help you achieve goals, but not without a cost. Although you may find pleasure in doing things perfectly, the pressure of doing it may leave you over-stressed and maybe non-functional for a while.
However, you can channel your perfectionism mentality in a way to get the most benefit and mitigate the bad aspects. For that, you must know exactly what perfectionism is, its causes, and its negative influences on your life.
Definition of Perfectionism
Perfectionism is trying to do everything just right. You end up setting very high standards for yourself, thinking too much over mishappenings, and may be over-critical about everything. As a result, you don’t feel good even after doing a wonderful job.
However, you must know that a perfectionism mentality is not built in from the start. It grows over time due to several factors including environment, experiences, expectations, and pressure. Sometimes, personality changes can also develop intense feelings of perfectionism. If left unchecked, perfectionism can cause:
Burnout: when you push yourself too hard and do not reward yourself.
Stress: always striving to be perfect makes your brain stressful.
Anxiety: Trying not to make mistakes and worrying after making one keeps you anxious.
Depression: aiming high and failing makes you sad, disrupts your mood, and depresses you.
If you don’t want to face these negative feelings in your life, here are some ways to get better over time.
5 Tips to Overcome Perfectionism
Overcoming perfectionism is not an immediate thing, there are no magic words, and only happens over time by adopting a few good practices.
Here are some ways to overcome perfectionism.
1. Celebrate Your Everyday Successes
It is normal for a person to think about the whole day at the end of the day. However, instead of thinking about what went bad, try to see the good things that you did and the ones that happened. Recognize your own efforts, even if things didn’t end well in your favor.
Shifting your attention to positive aspects of life will help take your mind off the things that went wrong and lower the pressure. Finally, after realizing the good things, celebrate them with a break for yourself, do things you like to do, purchase something you want, have a nice dinner, or do anything that makes you feel good.
2. Set Measurable Goals
Setting goals for yourself is good. It helps keep self motivated and push towards betterment. However, make sure the goals are realistic and attainable. Setting too high expectations for yourself will only make you stressed and not achieving them will hurt even more.
Whether you set daily, weekly, monthly, or much longer goals, choose the ones that are reachable, realistic, and achievable. As a result, you will be able to achieve more, rest well, and get ready to do much better.
3. Take Mistakes As Lessons
Before anything else, remember that mistakes are a part of life. Everyone makes them. However, what matters is what you do after. Successful people see them as opportunities to learn and turn negativity into positivity with a strong mindset.
No matter how big or small the mistake is, learn to forgive yourself and understand the situations. It is ok to feel bad but try not to dwell on it. Take these mistakes as a chance to learn things, make extra effort, and try again.
4. Make A Proper TimeTable
When you are too caught up in trying to do everything, you end up pressurizing yourself and no work gets done. Also, it makes a person procrastinate more, waste time doing irrelevant stuff, and just get stuck doing nothing numerous times.
So, it is better to manage priorities, break tasks into smaller steps, and always try to start things in simpler ways. Moreover, make a proper time table of things based on level of priority. After that, focus on one thing at a time to reduce the pressure and not overwhelm yourself. It is also a good mindfulness technique.
5. Stay Organized And Consistent
Giving it your all on everything and making every effort to get a task done is good. However, just sticking to one thing and not doing anything else till it gets done may set you back on the time table you set in the previous point.
Staying organized and consistent with things helps do more in less time. Also, you don’t have to get stuck on one thing. If it is taking too much of your time, wrap things up quickly when the set time ends and move on to the next one. Keep the time in check as it will help you remain efficient. Lastly, it is ok to do good. Sometimes good enough is good enough as well.
Final Takeaway
Above everything else, make sure to keep reminding yourself that being Mr. Perfect is not necessary. It is ok to delay work sometimes, do things not so flawlessly, and think about yourself. Remember, selfcare is not selfish. You just have to find the root cause of the perfectionism problem and kill your fears to achieve all your goals without stressing your mind or burning out.
Another great solution is to get a work-life balance app like Balance Me. It will help you manage priorities, organize your life, and get entertainment as well. Moreover, you can plan activities or be part of a fun event on weekends.
