10 telltale traits of a perfectionist

• all-or-nothing thinking - perfectionists will accept nothing less than perfection. 'almost-perfect' is seen as failure. check.


• critical eye - perfectionists tend to spot tiny mistakes and imperfections in their work and in themselves, and hone in on these imperfections. they have trouble seeing anything else, and they’re more judgmental and hard on themselves and on others when ‘failure’ does occur. double check.


• push vs pull - perfectionists tend to be pushed toward their goals by a fear of not reaching them, and see anything less than a perfectly met goal as a failure. check.


• unrealistic standards - perfectionists often set their initial goals out of reach.


• focus on results - perfectionists see the goal and nothing else. they’re so concerned about meeting the goal and avoiding the dreaded failure that they can’t enjoy the process of growing and striving. check.


• depressed by unmet goals - perfectionists tend to beat themselves up much more and wallow in negative feelings when their high expectations go unmet. triple check.


• fear of failure - because they place so much stock in results and become so disappointed by anything less than perfection, failure becomes a very scary prospect. check.


• procrastination - fearing failure as they do, perfectionists will sometimes worry so much about doing something imperfectly that they become immobilized and fail to do anything at all.


• defensiveness - because a less-than-perfect performance is so painful and scary to perfectionists, they tend to take constructive criticism defensively. check.


• low self-esteem - they tend to be very self-critical and unhappy, and suffer from low self-esteem. check.

wah 8/10 leh! also took a short perfectionist test [77/100], and here's what it says:

According to this test, you have some perfectionist tendencies that may be making you unnecessarily unhappy. You sometimes set high standards that are difficult to meet; either you impose those expectations on yourself, others, or a combination of the two. You may even think that others expect you to be perfect. While a desire to do your very best and strive to reach your full potential can bring you personal fulfillment, you have to learn when good is 'good enough'. It's important that you strengthen your ability to distinguish between reasonable aspirations and unrealistic demands. When you set unattainable objectives, you are being cruel to yourself and denying yourself the rewards and self-acceptance that you deserve.

scary lor. i've always known i was somewhat of a perfectionist, but i never really realized the impact it had on others. until recently when i had to work on our catalogue with LP and PL.

i had my own standards and gave myself so much pressure to achieve it, that it was obvious both of them were feeling it too. although i feel very bad to stress them out, i also cannot bring myself to accept theirs when it cannot meet my expectations. so they each did a part and i practically did everything else. tsk.

it didn't help that i was also in the accelerated transition period of moving from project coordination to sales and marketing. so many things to clear and so many new things to learn. work-stress is superbly ruining my mood and system. grrrrr~!

i miss desaru. =|

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新旺 with SSD today. beef horfun for him, seafood horfun for me, and 鴛鴦 for both. :)

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