Excellence, perfectionism and fear
Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.
Dr. David M. Burns
Most of the time some of us are prisoners of this belief or unconscious reasoning: if we want to reach excellence in our life we have to be perfect, act perfectly and have perfect things. Perfectionism can be defined as a disposition to feel that anything less than perfect is unacceptable.
It’s true that without the effort to improve yourself and do things at your best, you can’t achieve excellence. Though, the true way to reach excellence isn’t acting perfectly, but accepting your human imperfections and using a free, relaxed and creative mind/thinking.
Many times our perfectionism hide fears, as fear of being worthless in our own eyes and the eyes of others, if we don’t do things perfectly. This is the case when our fears cause our perfectionism. But there are situations when our perfectionism determine our fears. This happen when we are afraid to begin a work that we think we can’t do perfectly. Or, we begin that activity but then give it up. There were a scene in a fiction book, where people were sleeping under bed by the fear not to damage the perfection of the bedroom.
So, let’s accept that we are imperfect, but trying to improve ourselves. Balance your life and don’t let the drive to be the best rule your entire life. Don’t play the tape “do things perfectly”, but “just do it now”.
Related posts:
Excellence is Free for Everyone
3 Things I Would Change as a Weblog Starter
Peaceful Warrior’s 21 Teachings
Prioritization and Procrastination
Balance Self-Improvement and Self-Acceptance
July 26th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
[…] In each of us live a little or big perfectionist. It depends only on you to manage his pretensions and critics. I think isn’t a good choice to kill your little perfectionist for ever (it may be impossible) because he is a mark of our need for perfection and a good supervisor if you know how to use him. Your little perfectionist just needs a little relaxation and balance. […]
November 1st, 2006 at 9:26 am
[…] In our society and culture there is a fatalistic yet popular idea: you have to be gifted (specific innate gifts) in order to achieve excellence in a certain field. But latest researches deny this awful idea. Why awful? Because it may make you don’t start up at all or quit too early in the field you like most. You may either think you aren’t gifted for what you would like to do for the rest of your life or if you started up and encounter inevitable obstacles and bumps you may conclude you just aren’t gifted and give up. […]