Comments on: Perfectionism – an Enjoyment Enemy

By: aaronross383

aaronross383 — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:49:57 +0000

@SeanG,

It’s great that you see this in yourself already. Once you’re aware of something you don’t like, you can change it.

I’m still working on this same issue, but I’ve made a lot of progress in the past couple of years. Meditation and writing have been really helpful.

Did you see this post on my morning personal success routine, with some relevant links?
http://pebblestorm.com/2009/11/11/my-morning-personal-success-routine

I started meditating about two years ago, just a few minutes at a time every other day. Now I’m doing twice a day (usually), and thirty minutes a session.

The better you can get at stilling your mind, the easier it is to get clarity on what you want from life, and what makes you happy.

The writing is also helpful, both as a way to practice self awareness and to have an outlet for the little demons running around it mine

Aaron

By: SeanG

SeanG — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:01:36 +0000

This is a great post — thanks!

My perfectionism even (especially?) extends to my leisure time: I constantly think “This [video game / book / etc.] isn’t as good as I want it to be. I should do something else. And until I find out what that better thing is, I can’t enjoy this.”

Have you ever had to deal with that? Do you have any advice?

Thanks!

By: Rosemarie Barker

Rosemarie Barker — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:12:37 +0000

Tonight on the Lehrer News Hour he quoted Obama as saying, “We must not let perfectionism slow progress.”

I wonder where Obama’s speech writer got those words.”

By: aaronross383

aaronross383 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:41:39 +0000

@George Kao, I agree, sometimes my best stuff has come in short bursts (after I first let ideas simmer for awhile). Both Project 2057 and the PebbleStorm Mission are two examples, where I wrote them in minutes, and haven’t had to change them much even after two years.

Thanks for the great comment and sharing yourself!

By: George Kao

George Kao — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:57:31 +0000

Great post, Aaron! Thank you for sharing authentically. You always do.

I resonate and deal with perfectionism too, especially when it comes to writing, even comments to blog posts like the one I’m writing now!

I find that when time is short, or if I just give myself a short time limit to write something, it tends to be more authentic and I’m able to write better than I would’ve thought. For example, giving myself only 5 minutes to write something turns out better quality ideas/writing than any 5-minute snapshot during a 1-hour writing session!

or sometimes just writing everything in lower case, even in emails, helps me rid the perfectionism since the punctuation’s already imperfect

…sometimes writing in all lower-case helps my reader get rid of their perfectionism too, and may get me a response more promptly, or more authentically.

anyway, thank you for sharing!