Perfectionism

I attended a workshop last week on Perfectionism. My cousin thought I might be suffering from this problem. That’s why I registered in the workshop, so I can learn how to stop being a perfectionist. The first thing I wanted to do after leaving the workshop was to tell hem that I’m not a perfectionist, may be I was in certain stages of life but not anymore. I wonder what signs and symptoms he noticed.

Perfectionism is when you set for yourself very high standards, and follow rigid rules to achieve these standards.

This is different from just setting high standards, because this is very important for anyone to be successful in their personal and professional life. You should have standards and work hard to achieve them. But should you blame yourself badly if you didn't achieve some of them?

Perfectionism can lead to depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other mental health problems. It can make you avoid doing any new project (or writing a new post if you're a blogger) because you are so afraid to fail. Basically, you could lose confidence because of this problem.

Perfectionism could be inherited or caused by the people who have been around you like parents and teachers.

If you think you’re affected, then you should do something about it. There's a questionnaire on the BBC website you can fill in and then by checking the score you can see how perfectionist you are.

For people who need to solve this problem, there's help available such as counselors, workshops, and books if you're in the UK. The presenter recommended a book called:

When Perfect Isn't Good Enough

One of the participants read this book and said that the book transformed his life.

Anyway if you didn't enjoy reading this post, it's fine by me because I'm not a perfectionist!