How do you view being a perfectionist.

Post Reply New Topic

Everytime I see people with proper jobs/careers with a house and family that makes it sound like they're living a perfect life.

For me I want that and I want everything to go my way and perfect otherwise if I make a mistake then I tend to get low and depressed

This is me being a perfectionist. How do you view perfection is it a good or a bad thing?

I think of perfectionism as having OCD when doing various activities. It's being overly focused on minor details & wanting to do things perfectly without any mistakes. It's not always a bad thing but there can be a downside. Being a perfectionist can sometimes make things take a lot longer & cause other things to be neglected.

For me, I'd say it's bad. Because it leaves me constantly comparing myself to other people. And doing that just adds to my depression.

"Perfection is shame leaving the body." - Dolly Llama

But really, I think perfectionism stems from trying to avoid the millions of critiques and insults we've accumulated throughout our life times. Even if we don't remember each one directly, we learned the behavior to avoid them, which is perfectionism.

So I don't think perfectionism is good or bad, but it's not a goal of mine.

It's tied to my executive dysfunction. When I can't do something "perfectly" or in some optimal manner, my knee-jerk reaction is to avoid it entirely or procrastinate as needed. Even when I do well on something, and people tell me as much, it could always be better.

I'm similar. I can overlook things if I'm distracted, and the overlook can be catastrophic for whatever it is that I am doing. Say I'm getting ready to catch a plane cross country to a attend a fancy event, I'll bring everything except my suit. Or if I'm fixing my car, I'll forget to put back an important part and have to redo the entire thing. I cannot do things while distracted, or I will mess up something major. Or even just parking my car, I will forget to put it in gear and it rolls out of the spot. If I'm reading something and getting distracted, my brain virtually dumps the entire thing and have to start over but with less energy.

For me it's not so much perfection that I'm striving for. If I tried my best, then I'm happy with the outcome. Instead I'm avoiding ruining the entire thing or making it worse. I have a very tough time recovering from avoidable mistakes, especially if they involve someone else, whether my mistake caused them harm or my mistake was because of them. I'm the epitome of an autistic kid losing their minds because someone messed up their things.

Like with anything it is generally a good thing but too much of it is a bad thing.

I see it as a double-edged sword.

Upside:
1. You tend to do things very well, and you get the resulting satisfaction of getting results you can be proud of, and the comfort of being able to depend on the high quality of your output.
2. You are well-suited for certain jobs such as practical science and proofreading.
If you're into competing, you may be more likely to defeat your opponents, depending on the exact nature of the game and your aptitude for it.

Downside:
1. You have a tendency to work longer and harder on tasks that don't really benefit from such precision, so you often waste a lot of time and energy that could have been spent on more important things.
2. You risk being a bad fit for the mainstream world who will likely think you a pedantic nitpicker - you may shake their self-confidence by continually outsmarting them and expecting better from them than what they're happy to give.

If you can learn to sense the "good enough" point and apply it, your work can become rather easier, which may feel good. If you can't, the downside might outweigh the upside.

I would like my accountant or surgeon to be perfectionists.

I prefer the freedom to be less concerned.

I learned that when competing in contests involving technology, it is often best to just be a little better than the competition. Sometimes a clever little hack is better than working really hard to win. It took me a while to figure that out.

It can be very useful sometimes (passing exams with distinction) but mostly it is a heavy burden on the self. Even when others praise your work as outstanding, self dought is never quite erased. For myself I would say it has been a blessing and a curse. 30% blessing/70% curse.

I worked at being very good at written exams.
9th grade science teacher said I had the first perfect score.
Perfect score in the prep school math test.
The company I worked for had a technical editing test. Highest score as well!
I'm sure there were better editors, but I aced the electrical engineering calculations.

Perfectionist is helpful to a point, it's good when it drives you to achieve your best. But not helpful when it leads you to criticising yourself at the end result.

I like to do things properly, and sometimes I fail. Like many here, the goal of perfection is crippling when it leads to avoidance. It's a big reason why I don't play video games much.

I can relate to the avoidance thing. There must be loads of things I don't start because I know what would happen. I'd try to get the best result I could, and I'd take up a lot of time and wear myself out trying. Don't know where perfectionism ends and the "sticky brain" syndrome starts - that's the hyperfocus thing that's common in ASD, concentrating abnormally strongly on whatever we attend to and being unable to get unstuck. Perfectionism, judging by the word, is more like an attitude.

I've often spoken out against the way politicians and schools tend to assume everybody needs to achieve their maximum academic potential. Doing your best can kill you because nothing else would get done, and some of those things are important to your survival and health. But maybe they don't expect anybody to take them literally.