Perfectionism and Procrastination
Perfectionism is a bad habit!
Have you ever heard of the phrase “Perfectionism lead to Procrastination lead to Paralysis”?
Most people acquired their procrastinating habit and never seem to get things done, was because their perfectionism habit. They need everything to be perfected before they take action.
We need to learn and to understand the difference between Perfection, and Paralysis, is the habit of Procrastination.
If we continue to all the procrastination habit unchecked, eventually will certainly lead us to paralysis. We will get nothing done, going nowhere and achieved nothing. Certainly not the best trait of anyone wanting to do better, be better and be successful do you agree?
So, how much of a perfectionist are you?
There're no room for mistakes in your world. Whenever you see an error, you just have to deal with it as quickly as possible. Some people actually feel anxious until the error is fixed.
You have to do things in a certain way, or get things done your way. That may sound like ‘OCD’ but you just prefer a very particular way in which things need to be done, and any other way just isn’t as good.
You have an all-or-nothing approach - It's either you do it properly or not at all.
Are we there yet? In your world it’s all about the end result. Until you have completed it 100%, you’re not there yet, it’s just not good enough and it hasn’t been achieved.
You are never satisfied, you are hard on yourself, even for very little things.
You actually become depressed when you don’t achieve those goals.
You have extremely high standards. Whilst some of them may seem impossibly out of reach that doesn’t seem to stop you setting them.
You keep feeling that success is a journey and not a destination, you may feel frustrated and never seeming to get there, you're rarely happy with what you’ve achieved.
You put things off until it’s the right moment to get that done - the trouble is - you keep doing that and it doesn’t get done.
You keep spotting mistakes when others don't see any, and stop everything to deal with it.
·Where does all that time go? Maybe you are spending too much time re-doing, checking, trying it this way and that way, polishing and perfecting.
“And you wonder why stuff doesn’t get done!” If you answered most of the above ‘YES”!
I was previously a problematic perfectionist
My old habit was everything had to be just right, 100% polished and finished perfectly. I was a classic problematic perfectionist. At the end, I was never getting things done, some didn’t even get started all because I want to be perfect first. Because of that, everything start fell further and further behind.
It took me a while to make me realising that I was in fact procrastinating. I have to decide to draw the line to make adjustments. I change my standard to only get things ready just good enough to stand on its own two feet. I also disciplined myself to do everything the best I can within the time frame allocated to me. I made myself to understand that all I need is to get things prepared just good enough to stand on its own two feet knowing that I can always go back to improve it later. Funny enough, in most cases, I actually rarely need to go back and to improve it because it was good enough.
I always tell myself that “If you can’t manage yourself, how can you manage others?”
Are you experiencing the perfectionism and procrastination issues? If you need further support, please do not hesitate to contact me. Your comments and sharing will be highly appreciated.
