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The Secrets of Eliminating Daily Stress: Perfectionism

Photo by glyn_nelson

Stress doesn’t always come from huge events in our lives. It can be caused in little amounts by small events, and build up to the point where it has the same impact as a major catastrophe. Over the past few Fridays, I have examined some of the causes of daily stress and give some suggestions on what can be done to alleviate them.

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Perfectionism

Perfectionism is the desire to be perfect. Whether it is an aspect of ourselves, our more likely, the end results of something we do, we want it to be flawless. I can speak to this, because I am a terrible perfectionist.

How Perfectionism Manifests

Perfectionism will either manifest itself in one of two ways: things will be done either over the top, or it will be left undone. Perhaps the last manifestation would surprise you, but a leading cause of procrastination is perfectionism. People believe that they don’t have time to do it “right”, so they won’t do it at all.

What It Does

Perfectionism is insidious. It causes us to spend extra time on things where the effort does not have a payback (past the point of diminishing returns). Or it can paralyze us into total inaction. And in some lucky people, it does both! In either case, it causes untold amounts of stress. We either put the pressure on ourselves to get it “right” or look around at all the things undone because we can’t do them perfectly.

How To Stop It

Perfectionism is a hard habit to break, but it can be done. Mostly it comes with giving ourselves permission to not be perfect. As one friend of mine recently put it, “being human is not a character defect!” Things can be done good enough. By allowing ourselves to relax a little bit, we can get off the merry-go-round of perfectionism and the stress it causes.

I hope you have found the series on daily stress something to think about.

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