Any ideas on how to become less perfectionistic?

[morning-glory]

Hi all,
Just wondering if any of you have any good skills or ideas that help you get past trying to be really perfectionistic when doing things. Right now I'm trying to do my school work but so far I keep procrastinating on it because I'm afraid of messing up on anything so nothing is getting done. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[she's.just.a.girl15]

I keep trying to think of something but I can't. Really sorry. I go through that too sometimes, I hope you finish it eventually. Once in a while, I just say f*** it. I get so sick of rewriting things over ten times so I just say that I don't care how it looks and it doesn't matter what others think n/e way. Heh, wish I could say that about my body image too.

Sorry if none of that helped. Just wanted to say that I read and I tried.

[morning-glory]

Thanks for replying. Just knowing someone else struggles with that to helps me feel less alone.

[balletomane]

I struggle with paralyzing perfectionism too. One thing that helps is to keep reminding myself that real, imperfect work is better than imaginary, perfect work. I also make drafts of work that I know I'll never show anyone. Sometimes I have to say "write something. anything." just to get a start. It's hard though.

[Porcelain_Doll]

I am the same way. I'm so afraid of everything not being good enough. it doesn't help that I don't really ever get acknowledgement for what I do do, it's more like, "oh that's nice, but you can do better."

[ProudPatriot07]

I have the same problem. I've been known to hurt myself over things like mistakes that were printed in my writing. I actually had a press release printed and then learned that I left out one of the man's kids.

What really helps me, at least when I think about it in terms of writing, is seeing that even newspapers make mistakes. Almost every newspaper has a "Corrections" section every once in awhile (sometimes more).

Oh, and on Tuesday of last week, our local paper dated the masthead as "Monday".

Don't worry about getting everything right. None of the rest of us can do it either... but especially not us newspaper people.

[thisshallbeformusic]

wish i could help you here. having the same problem right now. i'm so worried that i'll do it wrong, that i have been putting it off. if i have a revelation i'll certainly let you know.

[Sticky Wicket]

Perfectionsim is a compensation. If people can always upset you and make you out-of-control then there will often be a compensation in the opposing extreme and people will try to control everything. Of course that backfires and causes people to want MORE control lol. If you can be more patient and not over-react then the compensations die off on their own.

[Total Control]

I think we all experience a sense of needing to be perfect at something, I guess it all depends on the degree and number of times it happens. Needing things to be 100% instead of 99% all of the time can be paralysing. You end up doing too much or not doing anything. To add to that, a lot of people have on a mask of perfection, so when we look around we think that we aren't good enough.

I can only say that with age that this has sort of stabilised for me and probably does for most people. With time and experience you realise that those perfect people have feet of clay and that 100% isn't perfect, its overkill.

Okay, for you in your situation now however. I use to do two things. The first was that I use to set up things for me to do in my diary and I had a rule that I had to do them once written up. However, I use to break that rule and often would forget, so the second part would come in to play. You won't always feel like procrastinating or anxious, so when I did feel like doing something, I did a lot. If I couldn't do X, I would do Y. Slowly, over time, everything got done even if in a haphazard way. So if you can follow the rules do so, but when you can't just do as much as you can when you can and keep doing so until the work is done. Then put it away and forget about it.