Quotes about perfectionism

It was clear that most of my insecurities originated from my need to have things be “perfect.” I wasn’t sure what bothered me more the fact that I had no control over the changes of my body and hair or that this horrible situation was only happening to me.

It is common to come across a perfectionist at work. Life is not that tough if you have a perfectionist sub-ordinate life is a bit tough when you have a perfectionist peer life is toughestwhen you have a perfectionist supervisor!

Life is not that tough if you have a perfectionist sub-ordinate life is a bit tough when you have a perfectionist peer life is toughest when you have a perfectionist supervisor!

Perfection is fragile interacting with something that seems perfect puts it in peril.

Q: When is the perfect time? A: Who can say, but probably somewhere between haste and delay - and it's usually most wise to start today.

When we relate to ourselves with loving kindness, perfectionism naturally drops away.

The most dangerous way we sabotage ourselves is by waiting for the perfect moment to begin. Nothing works perfectly the first time, or the first fifty times. Everything has a learning curve. The beginning is just that - a beginning. Surrender your desire to do it flawlessly on the first try. It's not possible. Learn to learn. Learn to fail. Learn to learn from failing. And begin today. Begin now. Stop waiting.

To be a learner, you've got to be willing to be a fool.

Relax your expectations, in fact, purposely lower them so low that you feel excitedly naughty about showing up to perform your work with reckless abandon. If that’s hard, open to doing it that way just 5%. Deliberately perform below your skill-level to get started and to see what ideas fall out of a relaxed approach. And in that choice you will create an world of joy within yourself, you’ll truly be an artist of being alive.

It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don’t have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It’s a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: “So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it’s also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun... The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a virtu

The unfolding over time of a great idea is like the growth of a fractal crystal, allowing details and refinements to multiply endlessly — but only in ever-increasing scale.

You know, the whole thing about perfectionism. The perfectionism is very dangerous. Because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything. Because doing anything results in...it's actually kind of tragic because you sacrifice how gorgeous and perfect it is in your head for what it really is. And there were a couple of years where I really struggled with that.

Slow down. Calm down. Don't worry. Don't hurry. Trust the process.

The most successful are not the most perfect, but the imperfect who dare to believe that they can despite the damning verdict.

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t l

What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65… and you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life?

Don't aim for perfection. Aim for 'better than yesterday'.

Perfection is not to be attained, but to be pursued infinitely.

The wholesome pursuit of excellence feels quite different from perfectionism.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lo

There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.

Clinging to our ideas of perfection isolates us from life and is a barrier.

HOW do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, soWHYpush to attain an ideal state of being that no two random people will agree isWHERE you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway,WHENdid creating a flawless facade become a more vital goal than learning to love the personWHOlives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you -WHATis perfect.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.

Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you go, and fix it along the way…

It does not need to be perfect - or technically correct - to be magic

The notion of the perfect time is more than myth. It's the ultimate self-delusion.

Under this aura of perfection he knows how flawed he really is but his intact denial system keeps this awareness suppressed in the far recesses of his mind.

Sometimes it’s hard to know when you’ve crossed the line from conscientious to compulsive. When you’re in the thick of an assignment, it’s easy to believe that you must spend so much time brainstorming, researching, writing, testing, revising or what-have-you. Often, it’s only after you’ve been working for hours on end that you realize that half the work you’ve been doing wasn’t actually necessary and that you’ve just wasted a lot of time.

Perfectionism is self-abuse of the highest order.

If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.

There is no perfection, only beautiful versions of brokenness.

Flaws.We all have them. BUT, they are all about perception. What I consider as a flaw may not be what someone else considers as a flaw. To me, a flaws is an imperfection or a fault in MY eyes. I consider my flaws to be things that I do not like about myself and things that I would like to change.

Her beauty is laced in her strength and interwoven through her flaws. She embodies perfection.

There is no greater suffering than constantly measuring yourself and coming up short, except perhaps the realization that your suffering is hurting others. But where do we learn these things? Because, really, they are learned. We don't come crying out of the womb because of our birth weight or because we have no money in this brand new world. We learn to measure and we learn to attach our self-worth to those measurements.These patterns we're stuck in aren't just painful for us, they're also dist

I really believe that it is honesty about our imperfect selves that makes everyone do better and be better.

Perfection is inexistent. It is the short-lived joy of muddling in the dips of a superficial life in a bid to bury who we really are.

Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome ...and well-dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a ‘tone poet’ and saint. But the thing is simply impossible…Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed. So the see

Productivity is about looking forward. Looking back too much, or trying to be too much of a perfectionist, can destroy that productivity. So keep going. Keep creating. Keep building.

Perfectionism is adaptive if you are mindful of your humanhood.

As we try to achieve perfection, society changes and we just become more imperfect

It's in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous.

You are magnificent beyond measure, perfect in your imperfections, and wonderfully made.

Perfection, my dear being,is what you are.Let not your mindobscure your view.Be still and be aware,right where you are,you cannot miss it.

You can waste a perfectly good life trying to meet the standards of someone who thinks you’re not good enough because they can’t understand who you are.

We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving … We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins … We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves

On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.

Perfectionism is searching for faults to justify low self-esteem. It is a guaranteed failure and fantasy.

At some point, you really just have to finish your work and release it as is-if only so you can go on and make other things with a glad and determined heart.

We must understand the need for perfectionism is a corrosive waste of time, because nothing is ever beyond criticism. No matter how many hours you spend to render something flawless, somebody will always be able to find fault with it.

Professionalism is a key to Perfectionism…

My life, my soul is anything but finished hence it is not perfect. Only masterpieces are finished and could be considered perfect. So unless you are a "David" or a "Requiem" or perhaps a "Mona Lisa" you are not perfect. We'll be prone to errors and we will make mistakes. But at least these allow us to become something closer to perfection.

My life, my soul is anything but finished hence it is not perfect. Only masterpieces are finished and could be considered perfect. So unless you are a "David" or a "Requiem" or perhaps a "Mona Lisa" you and I are not perfect. We'll be prone to errors and we will make mistakes. But at least these allow us to become something closer to perfection.

In the end, perfection is just a concept - an impossibility we use to torture ourselves and that contradicts nature.

Perfection is an illusion. Yet perfectionists demand it from others while being far from flawless themselves. The margin of error of the human condition is often our greatest area of excellence and discovery.

Perfect is the enemy of done.

Worst thing about being a perfectionist.. Everything you do might look amazing in someone else eyes but in your heart never truly satisfied.

I am not Perfect, but I am a Limited Edition

I do think imperfection is underrated

Did you ever get the feeling that everything was too perfect? Like the moment was so good that something had to be wrong? Kind of like the way a fish sees that bright, shiny lure just before it chomps down and gets hauled out of water to become someone's lunch.

Perfectionism is a delusion that can rob one of a very successful, enriching life if not careful.

Pregnancy had seemed a reasonable excuse for letting her metal-smithing tools languish, but that accounted for only eighteen months of the last twenty-six years. Motherhood wasn't the real problem, though it took him a long time to figure out what was. She needed resistance, the very quality that metal most demonstrably offered up. Suddenly Glynis had no difficulty to overcome, no hard artisan's life with galleries filching half the too-small price of a mokume brooch that had taken three weeks t

There are too many people who love me, and accept me, and never try and change me, and who don’t condemn me in the slightest, for me to waste even one moment of my life anymore worrying about what other people will think.

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense.

We freeze up because we expect a certain result or because we want things to be perfect.

Perfectionism, of course, was something which even as a young man he had come to see as the innermost essence of talent.

...some people become hypercritical when stressed.Then again, he hadn't been stressed last week. She giggled, remembering how he'd instructed her on the proper way to fold hand towels. Talk about nitpicky. Perhaps this would be a good time to call it quits.

There is a difference between obsessive perfectionism and taking time to create something that is the best you can offer. Knowing what needs to be better and stretching to improve yourself is what separates the mediocre from the marvelous.

Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.

I am continuously struck by how frequently the various thought processes of the inner critic trigger overwhelming emotional flashbacks. This is because the PTSD-derived inner critic weds shame and self-hate about imperfection to fear of abandonment, and mercilessly drive the psyche with the entwined serpents of perfectionism and endangerment. Recovering individuals must learn to recognize, confront and disidentify from the many inner critic processes that tumble them back in emotional time to th

Perfectionism sucks the air out of your uniqueness and leaves you empty, away from who you could become.

Perfection is an opinion not a fact.

Years later, on a Steve Jobs discussion board on the website Gawker, the following tale appeared from someone who had worked at the Whole Foods store in Palo Alto a few blocks from Jobs' home: 'I was shagging carts one afternoon when I saw this silver Mercedes parked in a handicapped spot. Steve Jobs was inside screaming at his car phone. This was right before the first iMac was unveiled and I'm pretty sure I could make out, 'Not. Fucking. Blue. Enough!!!

Progress is much more better than perfect.

Perhaps we'll never know how far the path can go, how much a human being can truly achieve, until we realize that the ultimate reward is not a gold medal but the path itself.

Our teens are embedded in a culture driven by competition and perfectionism, where success is defined by status, performance and their appearance.

--what's really unique about maternal anxiety today is our belief that if something goes wrong with or for our children, it's a reflection on us as mothers. Because we believe we should be able to control life so perfectly that we can keep bad things from happening.

We seem to feel as though the life our children have -- that we have built for them -- is just a delicate house of cards, held together by the most intricate balancing of all its carefully selected components, and that the slightest shock, the slightest jar to all our perfect orchestration, will bring the whole edifice crashing down.

Being thin created intense anxiety that I wouldn’t be able to maintain that weight for life, and I couldn’t.

The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people’s respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this “perfectionism” is likely to stimulate the production of better work, it doesn’t, unfortunately, go hand in hand with a relaxed and happy attitude to life.

When people undermine your values, they've strong reasons. For example, they mistaken your passion for excellence as perfectionism...

There isn't anything you can't make run a little better, a little faster, a little smoother, if you take the time to analyse it and component-split the processes.

The myth of self-sufficiency demands optimism without end, downplays life’s challenges, and shames us when, inevitably, we fall short.

Here's the reality of life,' he said. ' You make decisions with imperfect information and achieve imperfect results. The alternative is to never make a decision and never achieve results.

Never let the principle of what you believe in become more important than the person.

If you're stressing over happiness, you're doing it wrong!

If we demand perfection from ourselves we are not living in the real world...The inherent problem in the relationship between the ideal & the real is that the ideal judges the real as unacceptable and brings down condemnation and wrath on the real. This sets up an adversarial relationship between the two and like all adversaries, they move further and further apart.

There is no way to genuinely, powerfully, truly love yourself while crafting a mask of perfection.

Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,As souls only understand souls.

Keep going even when the going is slow and uncertain.Make your dream your prayer and your service.Don’t wait for recognition. Let it find you working. Romanticize authenticity instead of perfection.

Perfection is a lie, and lying to others is explicable but lying to oneself is the highest form of deceit.

Our whole lives, it was like we were always trying so hard to be perfect - for our families and our friends, for each other - when the funny thing was, we didn't have to. In the end, we were better than that.

And all that time I was lying to my support group. I told the ladies, "Sure! I'm writing!" when I wasn't. Yes, I could have filled all those newfound minutes with actual work, but I had no confidence in myself. I was a fraud. Who was I to pick up a pen and expect anything good to come out of it? I expected perfection as soon as the pencil hit the paper, and since that's impossible, I couldn't get myself to start. Then I felt guilty about not starting, which made me want to start even less. And w

You're overconfident, mysterious, dark, picky, edgy, cold and have sixty-nine more faults. That's why you're perfect.

The onslaught of scruples is a problem well attested in the spiritual life, especially among the young, where religious observances must be done perfectly to achieve a certain result.

Like the bronze statue of the Angel of the Waters, those who pursue perfection find themselves paralysed by the possibility of flaw, fault or failure.

Self-love is not the process of ignoring things, paying attention to fewer flaws or forcing yourself to look away from the parts of you that you perceive as ugly or unwanted. Self-love is the process of expanding your awareness, of seeing those flaws and imperfections alongside the incredible potential of the universe flowing within you, alongside the eternal truth of life flowing within your veins in each second, alongside the flickers of creativity and opportunity present within each moment of