Hi.
My name is Gisella Silva and I am a perfectionist.
You see, I used to view perfectionism as something colorful, something positive. Today, I view it as black and white. It has it's ups and it has it's downs, but I have been a victim of both.
On the one hand, being a perfectionist has pushed me to set higher standards for myself and thus, made it easier for me to meet other people's expectations. It's pushed me to always persevere, to pay attention de detail, to polish my work, and has often implied having fewer errors to fix in the future.
The problem rises when your perfectionism goes to the extreme, like mine at times.
I ruminate over my mistakes instead of my accomplishments, I create more work for myself that is 99% of the time unnecessary, I correct detail that goes unnoticed, and for the most part, I drive myself crazy. I get so wrapped up fixing the small details of my projects, that I tend to not finish my work, leaving less time for other projects and commitments.
I am everything but efficient and I am willing to bet that my development cycle is 10 times slower than your average human beings.
Anyways, the point I am trying to get to is that for the first time, in a long time, I put my perfectionism aside and worked both productively & efficiently. I planned on continuing to teach Francisca how to bake, and that's exactly what I did, but I approached the teaching a little bit differently.
I wanted her to experience what it would be like in the future, when I'd be at school and she'd be at home baking. So what did I do? Instead of standing by her side and telling her exactly what to do, I translated the two recipes she was going to make to Spanish and allowed her to follow the directions. I felt like I had already explained to her the baking essentials on the first day, thus, today was more of a matter of giving her some space and seeing what she was capable of doing.
As Francisca baked the cupcakes, I began setting up a proper accounting system through an online website called Brightbook, which allows you to keep track of all your expenses and customers, the money you owe to your customers/others, and the money they owe you. It also allows you to keep a record of all your sales and it gives you reports and graphs regarding your profit &loss, sales, bills and expenses, etc.
By using brightbook, if I ever plan on opening a store in the future, or if I'm ever looking for someone to invest in my business, I have the necessary records to show the growth of my business over the past few weeks, months, and years, and I have the necessary records to predict the future growth of my business.
Back to my point of perfectionism; I love it at times, but for the most part I feel like it holds me back. I not only take 3 hours to accomplish a task that should be done in 2, but I put way to much pressure on myself to do things perfectly.
I think this is because whenever I achieve something, I set it aside as a completed goal post. I then set a new goal posts for myself--much higher than the previous one--and push myself to complete it.
Setting goal posts isn't wrong, but using them as a measure of your success is. And that is exactly what I do. Every time I put the post higher and higher, I expect to give more of myself, and this year I think I reached the point where I simply couldn't give more.
I found my limit.
Something Professor Tracey Wade of the School of Psychology at Flinders University in South Australia said which I found inspiring was:
My name is Gisella Silva and I am a perfectionist.
You see, I used to view perfectionism as something colorful, something positive. Today, I view it as black and white. It has it's ups and it has it's downs, but I have been a victim of both.
On the one hand, being a perfectionist has pushed me to set higher standards for myself and thus, made it easier for me to meet other people's expectations. It's pushed me to always persevere, to pay attention de detail, to polish my work, and has often implied having fewer errors to fix in the future.
The problem rises when your perfectionism goes to the extreme, like mine at times.
I ruminate over my mistakes instead of my accomplishments, I create more work for myself that is 99% of the time unnecessary, I correct detail that goes unnoticed, and for the most part, I drive myself crazy. I get so wrapped up fixing the small details of my projects, that I tend to not finish my work, leaving less time for other projects and commitments.
I am everything but efficient and I am willing to bet that my development cycle is 10 times slower than your average human beings.
Anyways, the point I am trying to get to is that for the first time, in a long time, I put my perfectionism aside and worked both productively & efficiently. I planned on continuing to teach Francisca how to bake, and that's exactly what I did, but I approached the teaching a little bit differently.
I wanted her to experience what it would be like in the future, when I'd be at school and she'd be at home baking. So what did I do? Instead of standing by her side and telling her exactly what to do, I translated the two recipes she was going to make to Spanish and allowed her to follow the directions. I felt like I had already explained to her the baking essentials on the first day, thus, today was more of a matter of giving her some space and seeing what she was capable of doing.
As Francisca baked the cupcakes, I began setting up a proper accounting system through an online website called Brightbook, which allows you to keep track of all your expenses and customers, the money you owe to your customers/others, and the money they owe you. It also allows you to keep a record of all your sales and it gives you reports and graphs regarding your profit &loss, sales, bills and expenses, etc.
By using brightbook, if I ever plan on opening a store in the future, or if I'm ever looking for someone to invest in my business, I have the necessary records to show the growth of my business over the past few weeks, months, and years, and I have the necessary records to predict the future growth of my business.
Back to my point of perfectionism; I love it at times, but for the most part I feel like it holds me back. I not only take 3 hours to accomplish a task that should be done in 2, but I put way to much pressure on myself to do things perfectly.
I think this is because whenever I achieve something, I set it aside as a completed goal post. I then set a new goal posts for myself--much higher than the previous one--and push myself to complete it.
Setting goal posts isn't wrong, but using them as a measure of your success is. And that is exactly what I do. Every time I put the post higher and higher, I expect to give more of myself, and this year I think I reached the point where I simply couldn't give more.
I found my limit.
Something Professor Tracey Wade of the School of Psychology at Flinders University in South Australia said which I found inspiring was:
"While it's fine to have aspirations and to set standards, the pursuit of perfection can sometimes be our downfall."
I think that in many ways my pursuit for perfection is my DOWNFALL because my happiness shouldn't be determined by the number of goal posts I've reached. My happiness is what should lead me to reach those goal posts. My happiness should be determined by the people, things, and activities that surround me, it should be a byproduct of my life, not of my achievements.