Perfectionism ADD ADHD

Perfectionism

Perfect is an idea. In the day to day real world, perfection really doesn’t exist. Perfectionism is an unrealistic standard, even with reasonable time and resources available, that is impossible to achieve. We will work today to change our thought processes. What is good enough? What are important tasks for your values? What do you see as the new perfect?

We defined perfection in an early blog entry as working to get things to the impossible level of perfect rather than getting things done or getting things done well enough. We must define well enough. Well enough is the standard when time, energy and money are brought into the focus. Only you will be able to tell the importance or relevance of a task in concordance with your values. Your coach can help you along the path but ultimately you must change your thinking to decide what is done and done well enough.

Let’s look at two examples of perfectionism at work and see if at the end of this posting we can achieve a change in our thought processes when looking at daunting tasks.

Example 1: Garage Scenario

A gorgeous fall weekend is coming up and you decide to tackle your garage. Your garage has been in disarray for over a year now. You can’t park your cars in the garage, let alone find anything in the chaos reigning in your garage. You have decided that you are going to take this Saturday to complete the project and have the perfect garage. As Saturday approaches, you are finding all kinds of reasons to procrastinate doing this project. Not because you are unable or unwilling, but because you have this idea of perfection and it’s daunting when you look at a year’s worth of items in the garage. As you complain to your coach, he asks you, what happens if it’s not perfect? Nothing. What happens if you only make a dent in the project this weekend? Nothing. So what if we change your goals. What if you work for 15 minutes a day for the next two weeks tackling one portion of the garage at a time? You start in the left corner and set a timer for 15 minutes. When your time is up, you are done for the day. I bet in one week you will see a difference.

Example 2: Resume Scenario

You are looking for a new job. The thought of composing your resume makes you shake and break out in a sweat. You feel you need to be perfect on paper so you can get the job. You continually put off compiling your resume facts because you are so distraught about being perfect. As you talk with your coach about this, he says let’s just brainstorm and write down the facts. Dates and companies you worked for in the past five years. In 20 minutes you have the beginning of your resume. Now a resume needs to be as close to perfect as you can get so you will need to spend some time on this project. All grammatical and spelling must be perfect to ensure you aren’t passed over because of a minor error. Your coach suggests you spend about two hours per day on this project and get some outside perspectives to ensure you are driving down the correct path. This will be a few week process.
Looking at both these scenarios, we see both extremes. Good enough for the garage may be incremental improvements however good enough for a resume is the error free target of perfectionism. Resume perfectionism is expected and needed in the world of business but in the garage example it is your level of perfectionism that counts. For most people getting the job they desire or need is more important than a clean garage, therefore rates higher in the energy and resources needed to complete.

So in essence, you are in charge of changing your thought processes. When you are in the midst of feeling perfectionism coming on, you can do an experiment. Notice the task you at hand and think of the resources you will need to achieve perfection at this task. Now think about your values and rank where this task falls in your values scale. Are you balancing your resources (time, energy and money) on the right tasks in line with your values? Remember in this juggling act there isn’t a “norm” or “perfect” balance for everyone. It all depends upon your values and resource allotment.