How does a perfectionist become self-sufficient?

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Hi again everyone,

I have a serious problem that many don't admit to. I am a perfectionist. Everything has to be right with me or I feel like a failure. I know that this is detrimental to me if I want to become self-sufficient because it will cloud my thinking and will make me give up. Self-sufficiency is something that I really desire but how does someone who is an introvert and a perfectionist learn to get along with others for the sake of progression of all and how do I learn to just let go of things instead of constantly trying to improve them over and over? This is a problem I have and I know at least one or two people have experienced this at one time or another. What can I do to begin to get over it?

-- Mel Lucy (MelLucy@hotmail.com), July 12, 2001

Answers

Mel, it's hopeless. You may as well give up now. NO....just kidding, don't ever give up. Actually I am the same way myself, so I feel well qualified to advise you in this! This can be a real problem, because if you are homesteading, farming, or keeping any kind of living thing, animal or plant, one thing you will learn is that there are things that absolutely HAVE to get done, and in a timely matter, such as feeding and watering animals; planting at the right time; and weeding, watering, and fertilizing, as well as harvesting and either selling or processing. You can't always afford to get bogged down in the details of a project, or hold up progress while you strive for perfection. I think you have to realize that a lot of the tasks you will be performing do not NEED to be perfect, in the first place. Next, recognize that one of the most appealing aspects of homesteading is that you have a great deal of control over how things get done- as long as it GETS done, it frequently doesn't matter if you got it right the first time, or how it looks, etc. You might just have to accept the fact that not every nail you drive is going to be perfectly straight, not every cut you make will be straight- but, does it really matter? Don't be afraid to fail, after all, if you built it once and it fails, you can build it again, better next time. This is called R&D in some industries, and some people get paid a lot of money to do it. Examples of my recent experiences include the automatic chicken waterer which I built 5 times before I got it right; the chicken tractor which I built 3 of- I used the first 2 until they fell apart, so the time and effort spent building them was not a loss, but I improved upon the design for the third one. I just did not worry about the fact that the first 2 weren't exactly perfect- they served their purpose. Learn to enjoy the process of what you are doing and don't just worry about the results. Focus your perfectionist tendencies on the projects that HAVE to be exact, and relax and enjoy the others. Remember, this is supposed to be FUN.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), July 12, 2001.

Use screws, it makes mistakes easier to fix.

There is such a thing as "good enough". Examine that idea in your life.

Aren't you glad you don't have to worry about food, clothing and shelter so you can worry about perfection? (this was said to put it into perspective).

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@wildmail.com), July 12, 2001.


Hi Mel, Oh boy can I relate! I had the same problem before our first homesteading experience. It drove me crazy trying to do it all and do it all the "right way"! After a while though you honestly do start to realize what is important in life and that: 1. You will never live long enough or have enough money to to get it all done on a homestead -- let alone do it to perfection; 2. What the heck...you will never live long enough or have enough money to get it all done living in city anyway so you might as well do it in the peace of the country! After a while, you truly do slow down and realize that it isn't important anyway. Just observing little "miracles" all day long on the homestead every single day is what matters and the rest just fits into place.

We had to leave that homestead and go back to the city. Now after years in the city I find I am once again a perfectionist. We are moving to a new homestead in a couple of weeks and guess I will have to go through the "un-city-fying" trauma once again. But I did find that while visiting the new homestead a few weeks ago, I started to relax and not stress about all that has to be done and was not worring that it was not going to be picture perfect the first week...heck... maybe not even the next 15 years!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), July 12, 2001.


Mel, hang around people who are not perfectionist. I'm serious. I'm married to a big lug, who is definitely not one, and he has cured me. Made me see that things do work and are more enjoyable when there not done "to perfection" and I have a heck of alot more fun in just the doing. It will first drive you nuts to be around them, but soon, some of their laid back attitude rubs off.

-- Annie (mistletoe@kconline.com), July 12, 2001.

Mel; get the hell of your own way!! Who's standards are you trying to meet? Did God appoint you? Did your mama say you must...?

-- mitch hearn (moopups1@aol.com), July 12, 2001.


Mel, Elizabeth is so right. You need to learn that not everything needs to be done perfectly right away. You do what needs to be done, and move on to the next thing that can't wait. I hate the weeds in my garden, but I always remember that the garden will be perfectly weeded by Christmas! Good luck.

-- Katherine (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), July 12, 2001.

Step # 1---redefine perfection! Personally, I'm a functionalist. If it works, hurray---perfection at last. Aesthetics don't matter much to me as long as it works.

-- john (natlivent@pcpros.net), July 12, 2001.

Mel, I really think that you have to practice it step by step. Just as you would set certain goals for a project you can do the same for overcoming debilitating character hinderances. Chose one area where you are certain that your perfectionism is hindering you and work in that area first. Interestingly enough several of my friends and I found that if we couldn't do something perfectly we would not even attempt it. Consequently many people who by outward standards would be considered slobs, are actually perfectionist. Like I thought if I did the dishes I had to clean the whole kitchen. Dishes would stack up because I didn't have time to do it all.

As I have said many times before on this forum. Homesteading is a process. Enjoy the process!!!

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 12, 2001.


Mel:

I used to take it as a compliment when people called me a perfectionist. Later in life I learned some important lessons. I have several sayings that I use to remind myself to not go overboard on projects: "Any job worth doing, is worth doing poorly." (If it needs to get done and is beyond my skill level, then a mediocre job that is finished is better than a never completed work of perfection.) and: "Perfectionism is the selfish pursuit of an unattainable goal." Being a perfectionist does not mean you are perfect or that you have any hope of actually attaining perfection. You have to learn how to recognize how good is "good enough." I'm not completely happy with some drywall that I just did because I'm aware of all the flaws that other people are probably never going to notice. I know full well that it is not perfect, nor is it as nice as a pro would do, but it is good enough. There are several strategies to help overcome perfectionism. First, force yourself to lower your expectations for quality to the level of your skill and abilities. Second, if there is a task that for safety or value reasons demands a higher level of skill than you possess, bite the bullet and hire a pro. Trying to work above your own level of skill or talent is a waste of time and effort and does not impress anybody.

When you look at a project or task that either you or someone else has completed, honestly answer the question: "Is it good enough?" If the answer is Yes, then leave it be and move on. Resist the tendency to point out the flaws and how it could have been done better. In homesteading, we all have to learn to accept a used "Geo Metro" because a new "Lexus" is not in the budget. The point is that if the Metro runs and has all the basic required safety features, it will get us from point A to point B and back again just like the Lexus, it is just not as impressive. So who are you trying to impress and do they really care? If you just really can't be happy without the "Lexus", then homesteading may not be for you.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), July 13, 2001.


I read not too long ago that "perfectionist" is a misleading label - actually, it should be "IM-perfectionist" because one who wants everything to be "perfect", focuses only on what's WRONG (in their eyes), instead of what's RIGHT about the world or situation or project. Like the old story of seeing a gorgeous woman who has a tiny mole on her cheek and focusing only on the mole instead of on the total beauty of the woman.

Sometimes it helps to ask myself, "Will this really matter a year from now? Ten years from now? One hundred years from now?" Or I imagine myself standing on top of a mountain looking down on the situation to get a better perspective.

I have something taped to my office wall that helps my perspective (in real estate): "Don't wait for the perfect place. Take what you can afford to buy and CREATE your dream place. You will make mistakes, but time (or a couple of coats of paint) will erase those, or at least make them easier to live with."

I think that getting older (and hopefully more mature) helps a lot! Often the fears that make us want everything "perfect" are the fears of "What will my parents think? What will my friends think? What will my neighbors think?" The older I get, the less I care what ANYONE thinks! (Although now sometimes I catch myself thinking, "What will my kids say?!") If someone wants to pay all my bills, then they can tell me how to do things. Otherwise, I'll do what I think best and live with it.

Perhaps FEAR is the biggest block to just going out and DOING it. And after all these years, I've learned that NOTHING is as hard, or takes as long, as I thought it would as I stewed and fretted about it before just going out and trying it!!

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), July 13, 2001.



Think about the X-projects in aerospace development. Those guys were very skilled, and they knew the direction they were heading, but they didn't know what they needed to (and they knew it). So - they took things one step at a time, and experimented. They built something that would go that next step, made sure they learned from it, hoped they'd engineered in some expandability, but it wasn't a tragedy if that didn't work - provided they'd taken the next step and learned what they needed for the step after that. In a very real sense, those guys were perfectionists - NASA should have some like them in charge today. However, they knew the universe was going to surprise them, so what they perfected was their process for going forward regardless.

Long-winded example for saying - concentrate on getting the process right. There'll always be more than you can do, let alone do perfectly. There'll always be surprises - you'll be working in a situation which is heavily influenced by nature, and not even the professionals have got that sorted yet. You'll also be influenced by a number of other factors outside your control - local tradesmen, electricity outages, illness, thieves, local stores being out-of- stock on what you need, or they place a special order for you and their supplier screws up. You build the perfect chicken pen and a visitor's five-year-old leaves the gate open. Water in the fuel tank. This all is not bad - it's the challenge to which you rise. Realise that you're not going to achieve perfection on a range of things, because you can't tell in advance what things are going to go wrong in what order, throwing which morning's work out the window.

Perfection is for hobbies - where it really doesn't matter how long it takes (and in truth doesn't matter if it doesn't happen at all). In the real world, you have to aim to optimise rather than perfect: with a highly variable number of highly variable things happening under highly variable conditions, you have to accept results which are less than ideal, but are good enough.

So - set your standards for good enough, and concentrate your efforts on building (even optimising over time - an incremental process) a working system that can produce those good enough results despite the slings and arrows of whatever-the-adjective-I've-forgotten fortune. See?

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 13, 2001.


Unless you are a perfectionist it's really hard to understand one,first of all "good enough" does not exisit for folks like us.It's not about doing things to please others.It's about doing things to suit ME.Seems like I always have a vision of what the project at hand will look like at completion,doesn't matter what it is I have an idea of what the completed project will look like. Perfectionism is not something you can turn off and on,I can't anyway.In my younger years perfection was almost an obsession,I have learned to control it now however.Some people may think this type of personality rather strange but it depends on one's definition of strange...................

-- Steve in Ohio (stevenb@ohiohills.com), July 13, 2001.

You can do it. Just remember the type of person you are and incorporate that into your transformation. Simply take it one step at a time. As you tackle a project, look at the available resorces and construct the basis from this. A period of time later, look at it and devise a simplification or improvement. Gradually you will convert your perfectionist attitude into an "outside the box" researcher, thinker and do things kind of person. As you make these small steps, you will sense moving toward "perfection" when you are actually expanding your perspectives and becoming more self sufficient than you are aware of. I also was a "perfectionist" and slave to the tools of the perfect technological mindset, however , the technological blackeye that was delivered by the Y2K non event showed me that the "perfect world" was nothing but a lie. I chose instead the truths of what I can achieve or fail at, both of which count as successe in showing me my perfect abilities and the ones I need to practice more. A wise man once told me, "The person that is perfect and never failed has never pursued their full potential or is fibbing to you". Go for it and be sure to use all your potential for learning and success.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), July 15, 2001.

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