100 Quotes About 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 lot more fun while they're doing it. . Anne Lamott

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. Unknown

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

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. Hermann Hesse

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

When shame is met with compassion and not received as confirmation of our guilt, we can begin to see how slant a lens it has had us looking through. That awareness lets us step back far enough to see that if we can let it go, we will see ourselves as clean where we once thought we were dirty. We will remember our innocence. We will see how our shame supported a system in which the perpetrators were protected and we bore the brunt of their offense – first in its actuality, then again in carrying their shame for it. If the method we chose to try to beat out shame was perfectionism, we can relax now, shake the burden off our shoulders, and give ourselves a chance to loosen up and make some errors. Hallelujah! Our freedom will not come from tireless effort and getting it all exactly right. Maureen Brady

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. Horacio Jones

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 distracting us. Every day, the gap between rich and poor grows while the people of developed societies do nothing, because we are too busy worrying about looking good. We're distracted, but not because we've chosen to be. Being distracted by our illusory inadequacy keeps us from changing the world. And believe me, we all have the power to change the world. If we only make the time. If we only free some head space. If you can't learn to love yourself for yourself (and how could you with such a paradoxical motivation?).. then do it for us. Do it for the world. We need you. We need your mind. We need your attention. We need your thoughts. Change your focus, and you will (not can, but will) change the world. You already matter. You just have to realize it for yourself. Vironika Tugaleva

Learning to let go is not giving up! It is simply passing the burden to a better fighter, so you can fight another day. (God) Shannon L. Alder

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. Richard Louv

No buddy is perfect Saji Ijiyemi

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

A perfect work of art is not the one that has no mistakes. It is the one people will like. Creation is not perfect but god is praised for having created it Bangambiki Habyarimana

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

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. David W. Earle

An entrepreneur is not deterred by his lack of perfection, he knows no one else is Bangambiki Habyarimana

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

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. Unknown

Perfectionism is adaptive if you are mindful of your humanhood. Asa Don Brown

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 seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal… . William James

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. Chinonye J. Chidolue

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

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. Audrey Moralez

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 virtue. Elizabeth Gilbert

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. David Bayles

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. . Jill Badonsky

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

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. David Foster Wallace

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

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. Rasheed Ogunlaru

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 let this happen. Anne Lamott

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? Anne Lamott

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

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. Vironika Tugaleva

Even if you have achieved everything, there is Perfection, still left to be achieved. Amit Kalantri

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

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. Denis Diderot

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. Brenna Yovanoff

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

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

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. G.G. Renee Hill

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

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

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. Henry Cloud

Perfection isn't necessarily found only in publicly accepted trends. Perfection is found in self. Nike Thaddeus

If you're stressing over happiness, you're doing it wrong! Shannon L. Alder

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 with no game to bury the feelings, I got very depressed. No wonder I didn't book any acting jobs in the last half of 2006. No one wanted to hire a clinically depressed person to sell snack foods. Felicia Day

Often, our relationships become an unrealized quest for what is perfect, unfettered, and free of flaws. We expect our partners, spouses, and our friends to avoid missteps and to be magical mind readers. These secret expectations play a sinister part in many of the great tragedies of our lives: failed marriages, dissipated dreams, abandoned careers, outcast family, deserted children, and discarded friendships. We readily forget what we once knew as children: our flaws are not only natural but integral to our beings. They are interwoven into our soul’s DNA and yet we continually reject the crooked, wrinkled, mushy parts of our life rather than embrace them as the very essence of our beings. I once believed that aiming for perfection would land me in the realm of excellence. This, however, may not be the trajectory of how things happen. In fact, the pursuit of perfection may be the biggest obstacle to becoming whole. It seems essential to value hard work and determination and yet recognize that the road to excellence is littered with mistakes and subsequent lessons. Imperfection and excellence are intertwined. There is joy in our pain, strength in weakness, courage in compassion, and power in forgiveness. Ann Brasco

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. Jamie Le Fay

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

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. Philip Zaleski

There is no way to genuinely, powerfully, truly love yourself while crafting a mask of perfection. I know, you know, we all know–it's hard to let your pimples and your flaws be seen. It's hard to stumble and bumble. It's hard to not know the right things to do or say. It's hard to not look like TV.Sometimes, it's really hard for me to be the awkward mess that I am when I'm authentic, instead of having runway authenticity–all natural, but flawless. But every time I allow that to be okay, not just around myself but around others– I affirm something to myself. I affirm, to myself more than anyone else, that I am lovable and acceptable unconditionally. I affirm that it's okay to take on and take in all the flavours and hues of human experience, and not just the ones that are acceptable in this culture, in this time, in this place. And that kind of acceptance, that kind of love–that's the kind of love that creates miracles. That's the kind of love I really need. That's the kind of love that makes approval taste like cardboard. Vironika Tugaleva

Perfection is a faux. It’s a mask carved by our own poor esteem to hide who we really are and make others see what really isn’t us. Chinonye J. Chidolue

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 your existence. Like this, the imperfections persist, but only as lovable quirks, like a bad doorknob on the front door of a cottage in paradise, like a few thorns on a beautiful rose, like a cloud in a sunset. Like this, what was once unwanted becomes essential, memorable, humbling. . Vironika Tugaleva

Your darkest moments are not meant to be swept under the carpet, hidden from the world in the silent pursuit of perfection. The darkness you've overcome is your ticket into leadership. It's what you're meant to light up in the world. Vironika Tugaleva

There is often no line between perfection and evil. Ken Liu

If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage. I doubt that you would read a close friend's early efforts and, in his or her presence, roll your eyes and snicker. I doubt that you would pantomime sticking your finger down your throat. I think you might say something along the lines of, 'Good for you. We can work out some of the problems later, but for now, full steam ahead! . Anne Lamott

Perfection can only be Achieved through Experience. Yogesh Chauhan

When I say Be Perfect - it means BE AUTHENTICALLY YOURSELF in expressing your feelings, without any external interference! Ramana Pemmaraju

No matter how long the preparation, you will never feel ready to write an exam, to start a business, to be parent or even to die. Just go for it. Moffat Machingura

In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failure–nothing in between. So words like competent, acceptable, satisfactory, and good enough fell into the failure category. Even above average meant failure if I received an 88 out of 100 percent on an exam, I felt that I failed. The fact is most things in life are not absolutes and have components of both good and bad. I used to think in absolute terms a lot: all, every, or never. I would all of the food (that is, binge), and then I would restrict every meal and to never eat again. This type of thinking extended outside of the food arena as well: I had to get all of the answers right on a test; I had to be in every extracurricular activity […] The ‘if it’s not perfect, I quit’ approach to life is a treacherous way to live. […] I hadn’t established a baseline of competence: What gets the job done? What is good enough? Finding good enough takes trial and error. For those of us who are perfectionists, the error part of trial and error can stop us dead in our tracks. We would rather keep chasing perfection than risk possibly making a mistake. I was able to change my behavior only when the pain of perfectionism became greater than the pain of making an error. […] Today good enough means that I’m okay just the way I am. I play my position in the world. I catch the ball when it is thrown my way. I don’t always have to make the crowd go wild or get a standing ovation. It’s good enough to just catch the ball or even to do my best to catch it. Good enough means that I finally enjoy playing the game. Jenni Schaefer

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. Barbara Sher

Anyone can find the dirt on someone, but very few can wipe it from their own shoes. Shannon L. Alder

Where would the end be? Will the idea–the definition–of perfection stay the same? No. Perfection is too fickle. It’s in our nature to never be satisfied. We always think we can do more. J.D. Brewer

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, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive are our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers … We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything, ” and we heard, “You have to be everything. . Courtney Martin

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. Santosh Lamichhane

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

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

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. John Cleese

--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. Judith Warner

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. Judith Warner

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

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

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. George Leonard

Progress is much more better than perfect. Toba Beta

Perfectionism is the unparalleled defense for emotionally abandoned children. The existential unattainability of perfection saves the child from giving up, unless or until, scant success forces him to retreat into the depression of a dissociative disorder, or launches him hyperactively into an incipient conduct disorder. Perfectionism also provides a sense of meaning and direction for the powerless and unsupported child. In the guise of self-control, striving to be perfect offers a simulacrum of a sense of control. Self-control is also safer to pursue because abandoning parents typically reserve their severest punishment for children who are vocal about their negligence. Pete Walker

Perfection is an opinion not a fact. Julian Ross Quintero

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 i Mac was unveiled and I'm pretty sure I could make out, 'Not. Fucking. Blue. Enough! ! ! . Walter Isaacson

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. Noelle Hancock

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. Alex Scarrow

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

I'm not here to be small, to compare, to judge (myself or you), to fit in or to be perfect. I'm here to grow, to learn, to love, to be human. Sue Fitzmaurice

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. Stewart Stafford

Perfect is the enemy of done. Catherine Carrigan

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

I am not Perfect, but I am a Limited Edition Cecil Pratt

I do think imperfection is underrated Helena Bonham Carter