Resetting Perfectionism
Many ADHDers are prone to perfectionism. We sometimes feel we need everything to be just right before we can begin a project, or on the flip side, we keep working on a project until it is perfect. However, all human beings are flawed. No one is perfect. Therefore, perfection is impossible in this life. We need to embrace imperfection.
The Trap
We are often encouraged to do well. There is nothing wrong with that, but when you receive as many corrective messages as those with ADHD do, you become sensitive to doing things imperfectly. Any little flaw becomes a huge deal. This leads to not starting projects out of fear of not being perfect, or it can lead to working much longer on a project than necessary in the hopes of perfecting it. Both of these strategies lead to a lack of productivity.
Done Is Better Than Perfect
The secret to avoiding the trap of perfectionism is one simple sentence: Done is better than perfect. If you keep striving for perfection before you will declare a project done, you will never finish the project.
This is not the first blog post I have written. There comes a time in each writing process where I needed to declare the post done, even though I know I could still make it better. I have not written a perfect blog post yet, and I doubt I ever will. Therefore, if I want to write blog posts, I have to accept that I will never write a perfect post.
“Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect on any front-and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.”