Hi. My name is Jamie, and I am a perfectionist.
I trying to overcome my evil perfectionist ways, so I guess a more accurate opening statement would be to say that I'm a recovering perfectionist. One thing I've realized: perfectionism = procrastination. For me, anyway. I don't know why it took me this many years to figure that out, but it just occurred to me when I was talking to Ken last night. I've always been a procrastinator, and the reason is that I didn't want to do it until I could do it as perfectly as possible. I'm thinking in particular about school projects, term papers, and things like that. When it came down to the 11th hour, I'd finally do it because a less-than-perfect project or paper was better than a failing grade. Every time, as I'd frantically do all that needed to be done, and stay up til crazy hours the night before it was due, I'd SWEAR I'd never, ever do it again; that NEXT time, I'd start on it way ahead of time. I'd be convinced that I'd merely scrape by with a passing grade, but most of the time I'd end up with an "A" and some glowing comments from the teacher about how she wished all the students would put in as much time and effort as I obviously had. (Hello, guilt trip!) So, apparently, I work well under pressure, but I am also complete crazy under pressure, and trust me, NO ONE wants to be around me when I'm like that.
I've also realized that my perfectionism has caused me to be rather lazy. (Here comes the part where I sound full of myself, so please don't take it that way!) I'm good at many things. My mom never had to teach me how to read, but had to hide the newspapers so I wouldn't be asking at age 4 or 5 what "kidnapping" was. I'm relatively good at decorating and crafty projects and such. I have some freakish gene that makes me giddy about organization. I've taken good photographs from the time I got my first camera. But I don't like hard things. Although I claim to enjoy challenges, what I really mean is that I like challenging aspects of things I'm already good at doing. I don't really like things that are out of my comfort zone, and if I'm not fairly good at something, then I don't want to try it because that means I risk failing, which is a terrible thing for a perfectionist.
My dear daughter has inherited this perfectionist thing from me. If I don't get over it, I won't know how to help her to overcome it. Beyond my own frustrations at myself when my perfectionism rears it's ugly head (and at her when she shows symptoms), helping her conquer it is even more motivation to change this about myself.
Now I know in my head that no one--other than Christ--is perfect, and although we should seek to become as much like Him as we possibly can, that we won't ever truly achieve perfection. And I also know, just like it says in my profile, that absolutely anything and everything good that I ever accomplish is because of Christ in me. Perfectionism is still something I fight with, but I am finally giving it to God. Like many things, my human tendency is to pick it back up again, so it's going to take a big helping of His grace, and more than likely He's going to have to help me in a million small ways to change my thinking.
I trying to overcome my evil perfectionist ways, so I guess a more accurate opening statement would be to say that I'm a recovering perfectionist. One thing I've realized: perfectionism = procrastination. For me, anyway. I don't know why it took me this many years to figure that out, but it just occurred to me when I was talking to Ken last night. I've always been a procrastinator, and the reason is that I didn't want to do it until I could do it as perfectly as possible. I'm thinking in particular about school projects, term papers, and things like that. When it came down to the 11th hour, I'd finally do it because a less-than-perfect project or paper was better than a failing grade. Every time, as I'd frantically do all that needed to be done, and stay up til crazy hours the night before it was due, I'd SWEAR I'd never, ever do it again; that NEXT time, I'd start on it way ahead of time. I'd be convinced that I'd merely scrape by with a passing grade, but most of the time I'd end up with an "A" and some glowing comments from the teacher about how she wished all the students would put in as much time and effort as I obviously had. (Hello, guilt trip!) So, apparently, I work well under pressure, but I am also complete crazy under pressure, and trust me, NO ONE wants to be around me when I'm like that.
I've also realized that my perfectionism has caused me to be rather lazy. (Here comes the part where I sound full of myself, so please don't take it that way!) I'm good at many things. My mom never had to teach me how to read, but had to hide the newspapers so I wouldn't be asking at age 4 or 5 what "kidnapping" was. I'm relatively good at decorating and crafty projects and such. I have some freakish gene that makes me giddy about organization. I've taken good photographs from the time I got my first camera. But I don't like hard things. Although I claim to enjoy challenges, what I really mean is that I like challenging aspects of things I'm already good at doing. I don't really like things that are out of my comfort zone, and if I'm not fairly good at something, then I don't want to try it because that means I risk failing, which is a terrible thing for a perfectionist.
My dear daughter has inherited this perfectionist thing from me. If I don't get over it, I won't know how to help her to overcome it. Beyond my own frustrations at myself when my perfectionism rears it's ugly head (and at her when she shows symptoms), helping her conquer it is even more motivation to change this about myself.
Now I know in my head that no one--other than Christ--is perfect, and although we should seek to become as much like Him as we possibly can, that we won't ever truly achieve perfection. And I also know, just like it says in my profile, that absolutely anything and everything good that I ever accomplish is because of Christ in me. Perfectionism is still something I fight with, but I am finally giving it to God. Like many things, my human tendency is to pick it back up again, so it's going to take a big helping of His grace, and more than likely He's going to have to help me in a million small ways to change my thinking.
P.S. - I just finished LAUGHING like crazy because of the part I wrote there about the million small ways, and then when I published this post there was some weird space at the top, next to "Hi", and absolutely no reason for it to be there, even when I looked at html and it looked fine in preview mode. God most certainly has a sense of humor!
