As a follower of Jesus, I continuously desire to grow in love—love for God, for others, and for myself. I thrive on setting goals and methodically working through steps to completion, yet I possess a weakness that emerges whenever I’m working on a project. That weakness is perfectionism.
While perfection is the impetus that pushes me to complete the goals I set, it has no tolerance for failure or mistakes. This means there’s little room for love and grace, for being human. The drive for perfection is in direct opposition to my desire to grow in love, especially toward myself.
I love putting my thoughts down on paper because that’s how I best process my feelings and the lessons I’m learning as I move through life. I share my experiences with others through blogging because I desire to encourage them. I’m aware of how freeing it is to realize I’m not alone in a particular struggle or experience.
While this may sound like a noble ambition, I’m often thwarted by perfectionism, which is constantly offering up reasons not to publish what I write. My writing is not good enough yet. Who am I to have something valuable to say on this subject? Someone may be offended by what I write. Someone may be critical of my words. That last one is the deadliest. Criticism feels like failure to a …
Read the rest of this article at The Glorious Table.
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I am privileged to have been accepted as a contributor to The Glorious Table, a website purposed to encourage women in their life journeys. I will have an article on the site several times a year and will share them here to encourage you to check out what else is over there. I hope you will enjoy what you find over there!
Perfectionism can be a curse. I like the thoughts of several productivity gurus on this topic. From Rory Vaden in Procrastinate on Purpose, when discussing delegation: ** You have to learn to be okay with things just being okay. You have to embrace the idea that someone else might not be able to do it as well as you—at first. From Jon Acuff in Finish: ** Perfectionism is never finished. That’s the lie. There’s no such thing as perfect, you can always improve. So perfectionism draws an ever moving, ever expanding finish line that you never reach. You get to be finished and imperfect or almost done and perfect. Sometimes you just have to ship it” and accept the flaws http://www.anticatrattoriadelponte.com/
I have read “Finish” and found it very practical and helpful in overcoming perfectionism toward achieving goals. Thanks for reading!