Give It Up: The Perfect Way to Stop Being a Perfectionist

Why is it that we're harder on ourselves than we are on those around us? Why do we demand that we never make a wrong choice or that we get it right the first time without receiving input from others?

Being a perfectionist can be draining because you find it difficult to move forward, instead preferring to take too much time to review the same work over and over in hopes of finding that one errant, misspelled word or incorrectly tabulated column. It's almost as if you're hoping to find a problem just so you can say, "Aha! I knew there was a method to my madness."

Recognize the Warning Signs

Do you always expect too much and find it difficult to forgive yourself? If you think you've fallen below your own personal standards, you need to change your way of viewing yourself and the world in order to eliminate this negative thinking.

Just like being a workaholic, perfectionists are stuck in a downward spiral of their own design. And, just like a workaholic who has difficulty drawing a line between work and personal time, perfectionists find it tough to know when good enough is good enough and when their work is complete.

While there are many opinions about what a perfectionist looks like, these five signs are a composite of what the experts suggest:

• You obsess over a mistake you've made to the point that all the good you've done is nearly obliterated from your mind.
• You fear you're always under the scrutiny of others, rendering you self-conscious about making mistakes and fearful to ask them for help.
• You're so competitive and in need of doing things better than everyone else that you sometimes don't even enjoy your successes.
• You keep at a task long after others have quit, fearing that it's incomplete or not good enough.
• You only feel worthy of love and respect if you're perfect.

Stop Being a Perfectionist - Now

Every time you look in the mirror and criticize yourself for something you've said, done, or not done, you add another brick to the wall; that wall of high standards that you try to climb over every day. However, if you could step back and break out of the negative "beat-yourself-up" cycle, you could find a way to live with the imperfections that we all have.

According to anxiety-management coach, Karen Field, here are three steps to ending your addiction to perfectionism:

• Begin by making a list of all of the negative comments you routinely say to yourself.
• Write a new self-affirming, positive comment to replace each of the negative ones.
• Pick a positive comment and repeat it to yourself throughout the day.

In addition, Karen suggests you be less demanding and more realistic about what you expect from yourself in order to reduce your anxiety and stress. No matter what you're stressing about - a work project or making a cake - it's just a task. At the end of the day, no one will care if the cake was from a box.