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Welcome to Day 5.
If you struggle with perfectionism then today’s challenge will be a challenge indeed!
Get ready to step out of your comfort zone my friend…
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Our group responses are as follows: The meaning of perfectionism: in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness & setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations & concerns regarding others’ evaluations. It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional characteristic, as psychologists agree that there are many positive & negative aspects per Wikipedia. Perfectionism: It’s a sterile environment not an inviting environment/lived in feel
Rehearsing a minor speech relentlessly: Join Toastmasters if your finances allow it or go to the library & get self-help tapes
Striving for an extreme goal accepting that my life is not going to be perfect at all times/there is no perfect person in the world
I want you to do that thing imperfectly. Pick one thing to do that day to make you feel better such as taking up a sport, exercising, walking, cleaning, talking or chatting with friends/family, taking a nap or a nice bath to refresh yourself.
To have a perfect body is not realistic.
Be on time = 60% of the time improving it until you are 100%.
Would it make you feel lighter if you let go a little more? Yes, for short term only because you’re going to have a backup of problems eventually if it continues & you’re going to spend more time, energy & money correcting what was done wrong.
I want to look like a model; having an ideal body; you have to learn to accept the body that God gave you – striving for health & fitness for a better body is more realistic.
Perfectionism is the opposite of clutter. I know two perfectionists.
• use a toothbrush to get every crack and crevice cleaned
• stand on a ladder to get the ceiling clean
• they clean until the entire house is spotless
• everything is in its proper place
There homes are a showplace. Everything neat, clean and in its place.
I can skip this one. I gave that up.
I´m not capable of doing this. My big chalenge is to do my second discurs at Toasmasters. I have already writem the discur since August and I don´t no yet when I will do it. My imperfect task to do today. I don’t have one.
Less than perfect e-mail responses. Today I just dove in and answered my e-mail without ten rewrites or procratinating to “get it just right.” And, it’s over; I lived, and I hope to make this a habit. It would keep me from feeling utterly overwhelmed! Thank you!
I read my post from last year below again, and must admit that I think in some things I do now let the perfectionist go and instead approach with an air of adequacy. However, I know that the perfectionist in me is definitely only ever just under the surface, so I hope that with a greater sense of simplicity and organisation to my life which is a goal for me over the course of July/August I can keep the perfectionism in check. Today, having had too many nights out this week and again tonight, I have allowed the deferring of some of the scheduled tasks to allow for when life is too busy, knowing that emptying the dishwasher tomorrow morning rather than this morning isn’t going to kill me!
I am way behind but continuing! This was a very good one for me – like lots of people here it was EMAILS that I focused on. I’ve been doing this for about a week now and am getting SO MUCH MORE DONE because I don’t reread everything a million times. I am also getting better about deleting emails rather than having to file each and ever one in a folder. This takes time. It’s the curse of being an archivist. I am scared of throwing things away. But what is the worst that can happen?
Especially with fast search and cheap storage these days, Fritzy. I use Gmail and I simply ‘archive’ everything. Being an email stickler (as I used to be) is too time-costly!
The thing I chose to do ‘imperfectly’ involved getting together for dinner with a friend today. I realized while thinking about what to pick that I am often very controlling in that I like to have a say in the restaurant, check out the menu in advance (in part due to dietary restrictions), etc. This time I decided I would try to go with the flow and I was definitely more laid back than I usually am. And dinner turned out fine. There was room for improvement for sure but I decided to focus on appreciating the fact that my friend and I were spending some time together and that took precedent over the other stuff.
I also made the option 2 list of things I could do less perfectly and I see several areas where I could loosen up my standards, including when I organize stuff. I can spend hours organizing things like household items until the arrangement is just right. I’m going to start saying, “good enough!”.
Making the connection between perfectionism and being controlling (at least in my case) gives me a lot to think about…
This is great stuff Ellen! I love the dinner and organizing insights. It’s helpful when you realize that you usually enjoy more when you control less.
🙂 And part of that is not worrying afterward that my friends etc. will see me as a difficult person…
I did the ‘scruffy email’ – it felt great.
For us perfectionists, it’s truly liberating. 🙂
The perfectionism challenge is, without a doubt, the most applicable for me! I tend to be a bit OC (okay, a lot OC!) and get caught up in having every towel hanging perfectly even, having everything done, everything clean, everything organized… and end up feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. I’m challenging myself to just get things done and not worry about things being perfect – and I’m much happier and less stressed! I’m really enjoying and learning many good tips from your 21 Day Challenge! Thank you!
That’s fantastic Jan! Thanks for posting. 🙂 Kylie ~ Community Manager
The rebel that I am, this morning I brushed my teeth for a shorter amount of time than my electronic toothbrush says I should. I also didn’t use all of my lotions and potions for my face like I normally do. On top of all that when I got to work I sent several emails where I didn’t read over what I had written and also didn’t use all of the correct spellings or punctuation. Finally this evening I have allowed some of my tasks to be deferred to tomorrow and haven’t done them, which I guess goes against the habits that were trying to form but nevertheless has taught me the lesson that the world isn’t going to stop if I don’t do everything in my task list by the end of the day, or double/triple check everything. Ooo get me being all rebellious!
😀
Haha love it.
Umm… I have a perfectionist attitude with sloth action. I don’t do anything to perfection, and whether or not I am OK with it, it doesn’t worry me enough to do anything about it. Soo… looks like I have the day off on this one, too, Rachel R.
Holy crap, it runs in the family.
I imperfectly cleaned out the spare mess, I mean room. 4 boxes taken care of is a step in the right direction. My husband was so happy to see progress since I have been claiming I intend to get it taken care of for over a year.
Good job Briana! Kylie ~ Community Manager
I’m going to take a raincheque on this one. I definitely have perfectionist tendencies in some areas, but I’ve let so many other things slide waaaaaay below “good”, let alone “perfect”. I’m trying to keep an eye out for other opportunities in my life for imperfection – things I would be ok giving up (especially if it meant I had time for other, more important things).
That’s totally cool Jen. Trust yourself.
Checking in. I chose writing an email because I’m super-perfectionistic about that cuz of my background in communications. It’s one of the reasons I dislike writing emails. I wrote a quickie message to a friend and resisted the urge to revise as I normally would. Didn’t do so well with another email I wrote after that because the recipient of that one I see as more critical 🙂 It’s freeing to let perfectionism go. And a time-saver!
Time saved for more important things Ellen!!