Seeking perfection stifles progress

Seeking perfection stifles your progress:

• It leads to self-criticism.When you fall short of a goal, the battle in your mind begins and you beat yourself up over it instead of looking at the goals you did reach, you are focused on the goals you didn’t or instead of focusing on the things you did right, you are focused on the things you fell short on.
• It prevents you from being open to new ideas. Have you ever noticed those people on your job who say, we do it this way because we’ve always done it this way? They had “perfected” that one way, and that leads to fear of trying something new – being open to new ideas. You have a difficult time adapting to change.
• It keeps you stagnate. It prevents you from moving forward. Seeking perfection is just like analysis by paralysis. You become so obsessed with doing things perfect until you are literally not moving forward.
• It makes you concerned with what others think of you. People who constantly seek perfection often worry about what others think of them. They are seeking recognition and approval from others. Steve Jobs once said, “Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” I believe the significance of this quote is that it is important to be true to yourself. As long as you are trying to live a life to get the approval of others, you are never really progressing.

Now that I’ve shared ways how seeking perfection is stifling your progress, I want to give you tips to overcome that.

1. Practice self-compassion. People tend to have more compassion for others than they do themselves. We all make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the journey.  Don’t beat yourself up over it.
2. Stop thinking it has to be all or nothing. The opposite of perfect is not failure. I often say, even if you are taking baby steps, forward motion is forward motion. Never disregard small forward movement. Celebrate the small wins. 
3. Change your mindset. The first step to feeling like you’re enough is changing your mindset and negative beliefs you have about yourself. Creating a mindset that isn’t filled with unrealistic expectations will help you cultivate a sense of well-being.
4. Learn to let go. Try to let go of whatever it is that’s holding you back from accepting who you are. People who seek perfection are often trying to silence those voices from people who told them they weren’t good enough either through their words or their actions. You are not defined by what others say about you. Yes, those things were painful, but don’t let your pain, your past, or your emotions lead you to negative ideas about yourself and push you to never make any mistakes.
5. Tell yourself something wonderful about you every day. The more you start to see that you are progressing in life, even with your missteps and mistakes, you will start to see that it is about making progress, not about trying to be perfect. NO ONE IS PERFECT!