perfectionism

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.

Progress is much more better than perfect.

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.

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

--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.

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.

Being thin created intense anxiety that I wouldn__ be able to maintain that weight for life, and I couldn__.

The problem was that I carried around with me a tendency to feel that other people__ respect for me would vanish if what I did was second rate. And while I accept that this __erfectionism_ is likely to stimulate the production of better work, it doesn__, unfortunately, go hand in hand with a relaxed and happy attitude to life.

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

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

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.

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, __ou can be anything,_ and we heard, __ou have to be everything.

Where would the end be? Will the idea__he definition__f perfection stay the same? No. Perfection is too fickle. It__ in our nature to never be satisfied. We always think we can do more.

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

You can waste a perfectly good life trying to meet the standards of someone who thinks you__e not good enough_because they can__ understand who you are.

In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failure__othing 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 __f it__ not perfect, I quit_ approach to life is a treacherous way to live. [_] I hadn__ 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__ 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__ always have to make the crowd go wild or get a standing ovation. It__ 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.

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.

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