Perfectionism is the drive to achieve an ideal. In psychological terms it's the belief that the ideal can and must be achieved; that an imperfect result has no right to exist. And most often perfectionists aren't trying to be ideal in character or behaviour (though some may see themselves that way). Perfectionism usually shows up in small things and in small or medium-sized tasks: cutting vegetables perfectly for a salad, choosing the ideal design for a flat, fruit arranged perfectly on the table, books on the shelf in alphabetical order, felt-tips sorted by colour in the box — the list could go on and on. Perfectionism is common to everyone, from children to adults and pensioners, from homemakers to directors. Even in my programming it's more than relevant. I always want to rewrite my code (if not all of it, then at least parts) again and again, to make it better, more readable and clear, even though it's been working fine for years.
If you're a perfectionist, I have bad news: you're probably not going to be as effective as you could be. Perfectionism is something to fight, not embrace. I'm not talking about the opposite extreme of mess and chaos. I'm saying: don't fall into perfectionism fanaticism, and leave alone what's already good enough.
While you're busy making some "important" thing ideal, you're spending time you could use on other tasks. Perfectionism is harmful both at home and at work.
In daily life it shows above all in the drive for maximum order and cleanliness. Of course it's good and right to keep the house clean — but you don't have to make it sterile.
Imagine you're starting a business or launching a project. At the same time someone else is developing the same idea. While you polish everything to perfection and hold off going to market, your non-perfectionist competitor will launch sooner and, as a result, take the niche first and start making money.
Perfectionism is most dangerous in creative work. In daily life or work projects you can eventually draw a line and stop perfecting something; in creative professions there's no such end. A perfectionist writer may never release their book, rewriting chapters and changing the structure over and over. A perfectionist artist may never finish a painting, never satisfied, always finding new ways to improve it. A perfectionist programmer, as I wrote above, won't finish the project on time.
Another form of perfectionism is about appearance. This applies especially to women who want to look better and more beautiful: plumped lips, cheekbones, drawn-on brows, false lashes. We all know where that leads: they lose their uniqueness and become template-like, with a look that's hard to remember and easy to confuse with someone else. But usually they don't stop at that stage of "working on themselves". By then "working on themselves" has become a habit, and self-improvement turns from a one-off into a never-ending process.
As I wrote at the start of the chapter, perfectionism is above all a belief, usually a self-imposed one. Maybe it started in childhood when you were praised for doing chores or homework perfectly. Maybe it's that on some level the person avoids harder but truly important work by endlessly improving something else instead. Or both. I won't go into why it arises. But perfectionism is more negative than positive. Because of it you don't do the things that really matter for your goals. You simply waste your precious time.
