As far as I remember from my childhood, I have never been perfect at any task. My parents used to say, look at my one of the friend's room and his handwriting, how neat and clean! I have always been messy. The fact is, I always liked their perfectly arranged, always new looking books. Everything was in place and no hard time to find anything. My parents were still calling on me for misplacing and eventually losing stuff.
Imperfection and subtle carelessness are still frustrating for me.
Last time I tried to fill out some forms for visa and got rejected because those forms were incomplete.
I had to spend extra to reapply and added frustrations to rearrange my travel. Total and unnecessary waste of time and money.
I started to realize that instead of being perfect, I am more careless. Immediately, I decided to practice perfection.
Instead of overlooking small irregularities, I decided to pay close attention. Instead of rushing unnecessary, I decided to take my own sweet time to complete the task.
It was a hell of a month when I tried to be perfect. I was always late for deadlines because I couldn't submit the required paperwork on time.
A sense of anxiety kicks in every time I decide to end the task and "what if" kicks in with a more significant force.
It becomes double whammy when a deadline approaches.
The added sense of fear to avoid deadlines, I submit rest of the work in haste.
I started spending most of my days in arranging, rearranging and tidying my place.
I lost the quality time. The sense of obsession and compulsion started to appear.
I realized right away that I was forcing myself into obsession-compulsion lockdown.
It turned out to be a learning experience.
Here are things I learned, out of self-experiment of perfectionism.
Learn When to Stop!
Do the math between continue perfecting verses time. Allocate equal time resources to improve from start to end in the same task.
Sometimes "done" on right time is way better than waiting indefinitely for perfection.
Be kind to self and kick out obsession for unnecessary higher benchmarks.
Quit!
Consider better choices rather than digging deep on one target which may not lead anywhere on right time.
Consider making mature decisions about when to quit. It is always Okay to fail, give it a chance.
Bring in Harmless Carelessness.
Do not agonize over every task at hand and every decision you make.
Not every project have a perfect end, and not all endings are happy.
Instead, learn from any lousy turn you make in life.
Do not Fixate over One Thing ( That Went South)
Make sure you don't lose your mind over annoying and imperfect things. Instead prioritize, fix what needed and move on.
Don't Make Perfection Steal your Happiness and Purpose.
DO not be a victim of "Analysis Paralysis." The run for perfection steals the quality, purpose, and happiness.
There are a lot of better things to do in life than wasting time to be perfect on one.
I don't have to aim for perfection.
I don't have to the best all the time.
What I have to do is, I believe I can do this time and little bit more next time.
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