Posts Tagged ‘Perfectionism’

Perfectionism in its most common form includes some negative aspects. I don’t believe perfectionism is bad on its own, so I tried to figure out the cause of these problems.

Thinking about it got me to write an article about aimless perfectionism, which covers the most basic misconception about perfectionism: Not knowing what being perfect means. You have to know what your perfectionism is all about! This is the first essential step.

But it doesn’t stop at that point. Let’s talk about a concrete negative aspect of perfectionism: The fear of making mistakes.
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“If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him.” ~Seneca

You know, I think a lot about perfectionism. And sometimes, perfectionism seems to be unlogical. It seems to bear some paradoxons.

One example: A typical perfectionist’s fear of failure is always holding him back. It takes away possibilities to learn and explore. It sets artificial limits.

Well, paradoxons are always a clear sign of some logical fault, so I tried to find out what’s behind them. One key issue seems to be that lots of (or even most) perfectionists don’t seem to know what they define as perfect. They try to be perfect without knowing what being perfect actually means to them.
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As I’m studying mathematics, I guess I should finally tell you something about mathematics.

The truth is that you probably don’t know mathematics. Math is not what you learned at school. Math is not calculating or applying formulas to get results you don’t even understand. Even studying mathematics involves some things which I wouldn’t label as real math.
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I am a perfectionist myself. And every once in a while, I wish I wasn’t.

But why is that? Why exactly? What are the disadvantages of being a perfectionist? Of trying to be perfect?

That’s what I want to answer in this article. (Of course, there are benefits as well but that’s just not what this article is about.)

Let’s just jump to the negative effects of perfectionism:
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