Perfectionism can kill your productivity and add unnecessary stress to your life. By intentionally doing little things imperfectly, you can slowly build your way up to feeling more comfortable with the big things being imperfect.
Escaping the grasp of perfectionism is hard. Most of the time, to do something that’s hard, you need to practice. So why not practice doing things imperfectly? Martin M. Antony, professor of psychology and co-author of When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough, suggests you can overcome your perfectionism by practicing imperfect acts:
Just as if someone was afraid of a dog, we would approach dogs until they’re not afraid anymore. We encourage people to expose themselves to that imperfection so that they are more comfortable with it—to test out those beliefs, to conduct little experiments to find out is this belief really true; does it really matter as much as it feels like it matters, whether the cake I baked for my child’s birthday party turns out perfectly, for example?
Sometimes fighting perfectionism is just a matter of moving on to the next thing, but other times it takes practice. Try to do something imperfectly once every day. Put a minor typo in an email or text, fold your clothes the wrong way, or run a minute less than usual during a workout. Ease into it, and remember, practice makes imperfect.
5 Ways to Get Over Your Perfectionism | Fast Company
Photo by Quinn Dombrowski.