Imperfect is the new perfect
- BirdieChao
- May 7, 2017
- 5 min read
This is Birdie's 8th personal article
The definition of a perfectionist in Google is : “refusal to accept any standard short of perfection”. The definition is very straightforward. But in a layman’s term, a perfectionist want everything to be perfect with absolutely no mistake at all.
It’s not hard to spot a perfectionist in modern society. Especially with the education system that we grew up in. We are designed to be a perfectionist because of all the exams and tests imposed to us. Every mistake that we make will be taken very seriously and if we made a few more mistakes than the normal, we will be taken as a poor or student student. Therefore, to be not judged as a poor or a stupid student, we will make an extra effort in trying to not make any mistakes in anything that we do so as to seem as normal.
Even though perfectionism might be good last time, during the industrialisation period where the everybody works in factories. But the time has changed. In the current society, perfectionism is a now a weakness in our personality. Below, I will share 3 negative effects being a perfectionist.
Self-doubt
First, let’s find out the drives behind self-doubt. It is no other than the judgments that others gave to you and you gave yourself that causes you to overthink and eventually leads to self-doubt.
And as a perfectionist, they are very particular about these judgments as they always want themselves to be seen as perfect in any situation.
So, if a perfectionist is in a competition with somebody and no matter how hard the perfectionist tried to surpass the first but fail. He will always go to the negative side and self-demoralise. Because in a perfectionist world, there is no good enough, no improvement but only success and failure.
What if the perfectionist fell into this vicious cycle of constantly self-demoralising and not able to recognise his own effort made for improvements and so? He will lose his confidence in doing things to an extent that might even go into depression!
Alright, it’s a bit too extreme to say that but being a perfectionist really need to face lots of self-doubts and under this constant self-doubt, losing confidence is surely a no doubt matter. And for all we know, confidence is a key to do well in everything. Thus, the vicious cycle may really happen if confidence within oneself is lost.
Unproductivity
A perfectionist always wants the perfect condition to do things. So it makes perfectionism is the biggest reason behind procrastination and laziness because the excuses that are generated based on perfectionism all seem legit.
An example of such excuse would be “I don’t have a proper running shoe for running, I shall start running after I buy the shoes.” Guess all of you have heard similar excuses before. The main reason behind this excuses is just pure laziness. But they put it in a sense that it is not their fault for not starting the work, but due to the environment. They think this helps to hold their image up there.
But nope, not only people won’t sympathise with them. They also missed the chance for them overcome their comfort zone and made their time a relatively more productive session for them.
For some extreme but most frequent procrastinate excuse will be “Oh, it’s 12.34 now! I shall start my work at 12.40!” What the hell? So what is this 6 minutes for? To Netflix and chill? Why not use this 6 minutes to prepare yourself for your work and start the work on a good note instead of wasting it away!
Inefficiency
Bet all of us have encountered this situation before, whenever we start doing something. We always expect it to be perfect. That's me now, writing this blog. I had been backspacing and canceling the paragraph again and again. Why? Because I think that what I wrote is not good enough.
You might think that it is good to keep editing so I can prepare the best content for you guys, but if recall back to yourself when you did something like this. You will find that maybe after 1 hour, all you wrote is just one sentence.
This is because all of us do not want any mistake or flaw to appear inside our end outcome. This is the same for me. I want the best for you guys. However, it is this kind thinking that will drag our efficiency down. Because we will always be stucked thinking how to deliver the best thing for you.
However, if we choose to just write on with our mistakes and to edit everything at once later on. Not only it will help us focus on writing and not let our thoughts wander around, we will actually see much more progression than writing and editing at the same time.
This does not limit to writing only, try it in your project and everything, don’t aim to solve all the problems at the start, but just start doing first and slowly tackle the problem one by one.
Overcoming the perfectionist mindset
Not saying that the entire perfectionist mindset is wrong, always trying to do the best for everything is something that we need to learn as well. However, we need to understand the difference between doing the best we can and achieving the perfect outcome. If we always expect a perfect outcome, then it is a problem and we need to overcome it.
Overcoming the perfectionist mindset is actually very easy. It is to allow yourself to make mistakes. To give yourself some gray zone and to acknowledge yourself for improvements and progression.
Of course, saying is easier than done. Let us just start by giving us time to slowly change our perfectionist mindset into what I call the “no fear of making mistakes and constant correction” mindset.
This mindset will help us to make quick constant progression in everything that we do. Because if there is no fear of making mistakes, we will be more daring to try things. And if the things we tried is right, Great! We learned something and made a progression. But if the things we tried is wrong, all we have to do is to really step back and reflect why then learn from it and move on.
Many of us know planes run on autopilot but little of us know how autopilot works. In autopilot mode, plane doesn’t fly straight towards the destination but made constant corrections left and right about the straight line towards the destination. Even the fastest route designed by the computer are full of mistakes covered up by corrections, why we expect ourselves to be perfect in everything we do?
Imagine if the pilot tries to aim for a perfectly straight route towards the destination. With all the variables of the weather and everything else, he will never be able to even start the engine for the plane because there is no way for him to find that perfectly straight route.
With that being said, let us all be imperfect and see the miracle happen inside all of us.
It's your choice
to live in your dreams or to be living your dreams
-BirdieChao
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