Many people are, by habit, perfectionists & some are even proud of this trait. Still, there are significant differences between perfectionists & well achievers & being a good achiever is relatively better for your mental & physical health & happiness. If you have perfectionist leanings inside, it’s crucial to find Ways to Overcome Perfectionism & move toward being a non-perfectionist well achiever.
Perfectionism can steal your peace of mind, the satisfaction of life, & self-esteem. Though it’s a procedure that will take time & practice, shedding the load of Perfectionism can significantly reduce the stress you feel.
Ways to Overcome Perfectionism
1. Be More Aware of Your Tendencies
The first & most vital step to overcome perfectionism is being conscious of your perfectionist thoughts & inclinations. Take a break & pay attention to your thoughts around perfectionism.
You can write these thoughts down to identify them better. Once you are conscious of how you allow perfectionism to control your life, you will be more able to modify your self-talk about this matter.
2. Silence Your Inner Critic
One of the best Ways to Overcome Perfectionism is to silence your inner critic. Perfectionism is a noisy inner critic constantly telling you; you are not good enough despite what you do or how hard you work.
It’s hard to be satisfied with your identity & feel capable & confident when negative self-talk is constantly lurking in your mind subduing other thoughts & emotions. Therefore, a vital step in conquering Perfectionism is silencing your inner critic.
Identify that your thoughts about yourself, including the idea that your value is dependent on your performance & outcomes, are only erratic ideas that regardless of being loud & relentless, do not embody reality.
One simple way to disengage yourself from perfectionism is to observe your thoughts and keep telling yourself, “I’m having a thought that I’m not good enough for this (or whatever lie your critic is telling you currently). It’s just a thought & isn’t true.”
Doing this repeatedly starts to modify your self-doubt. You are taking a few steps back & making room for other thoughts to replace perfectionist ones, inviting a sense of self-compassion.
3. Focus on the Positivity
If you are engulfed by perfectionism, you most likely have sharpened the skill of finding mistakes in even the best works of others & of yourself. Maybe you naturally look for it and notice it irrespective of all other things.
While this habit may be hard to stop, you can reduce this tendency of noticing the bad by making an aware effort to find all that is good with your work & of others. If you find something you don’t like about yourself or your work, for instance, find five other qualities that you like. This will equalize your vital focus & can turn out to be a positive new habit.
4. Allow Yourself Rooms For Mistakes
When you allow yourself room to make mistakes, you can see that it’s not the end when you fail. Mistakes are excellent opportunities to learn, grow & perform better. One way to do this is by adopting a new hobby that you may not be good at on the first try.
Instead of trying to become “perfect” at it, focus on enjoying the activity & gradually learning how to do better. You might find that mistakes are required to achieve your destination. Letting yourself some room for mistakes is one of the crucial answers to the question, How to Overcome Perfectionism.
5. Set More Realistic Goals
Perfectionists are likely to set an impractical goal because of unfeasible standards in their minds. One way to get rid of perfectionism is to set goals that are more achievable & realistic.
We can be less stressed & more confident in our capability to attain our goals when they are more realistic & challenging healthily. Setting a higher goal is no crime. But that should align with your skills, knowledge & experience.
6. Remember: Perfectionism Cause More Work
A colossal drawback of trying to be perfect is what it describes to the people around you. Suppose you are continually producing work that is effortless but requires a lot of your time & energy. In that case, the people around you will only see that you can finish the work.
The result is you are allotted more work with less resources & time, & people would expect you to handle problems for them. People frequently take advantage of perfectionists this way, so perfectionism may seem like an attractive trait, but it may actually make you more susceptible to being taken advantage of & allotting more work than you can realistically manage.
7. Eradicate Negative Influences
It’s significant that we check how various things like social media, TV & movies, books, or magazines can support perfectionism. We should be particularly cautious of how social media endorses a tale of “hustle culture” & perfectionism in our work & lives.
You will find many social media influencers displaying their perfect lives or at least pretending to have one. Many of them have been exposed. If you need to restrict those elements or delete them overall, this can also help you eliminate perfectionism.
8. Enjoy the Process
You may be more likely to focus on results & beat yourself up if your results are not near perfect. Try to create more of an enjoyable procedure out of your inclination.
You can try to enjoy the process of attaining a goal by getting involved with a group that is also trying to attain the same goal you are trying to get or writing about your feelings & the lessons you got while moving toward your goal.
If you haven’t achieved perfection, you can then think back & see all that you have achieved in just working toward a precious goal, evaluating & appreciating the gains you made in the process.
Important Differences Between Perfectionists & Well Achievers
It is vital to know the basics of what perfectionism is & is not; this can help inspire you to make necessary changes. Perfectionism is different than good achievement in one vital way: your focus. If you are trying for excellence, you can be satisfied with your achievements & learn from your mistakes.
Perfectionism is different in that the focus is unforgiving; perfectionists beat themselves up for anything that seems lacking, & this steals the satisfaction & delight that comes from all the other things they do well.
One of the most major problems that perfectionists encounter is the fear that if they stop running for perfection, they will become low achievers & they will never meet their goals. After all, there are many Ways to Overcome Perfectionism.
FAQs
Q: Can I also apply the Ways to Overcome Perfectionism to someone else?
A: To apply these successfully, one needs to be aware of their perfectionist tendencies first & willing to get rid of them.
Q: What causes the tendencies of perfectionism?
A: Many factors like high parental expectations, too much praise for achievements, low self-esteem, and the idea that your achievements determine your self-worth contributes to the tendency of perfectionism.
Q: Is being a perfectionist that bad?
A: Sometimes perfectionist tendencies can cause continuous dissatisfaction, burnout, excessive stress & more workloads. In that sense, it is a bad trait.
