Perfectionism and Standards

It’s important to develop personal standards but these standards should probably not be about the outcome but about the process we want to subject ourselves to, even when there’s friction, inertia. It’s to cultivate commitment on the inputs side of things rather than the outcomes.

The challenge of an obsession with outcome, with things beyond our control, and wanting things to be perfect is that we use it as a form of procrastination. We adopt an all-or-nothing mindset.

The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

James Clear, Atomic Habits

Schools often encourage that kind of thinking, and honestly, it pays to learn to embrace that friction – the rough edges of a challenge brushing against you, even breaking bits of your old self off. That’s the way we grow, and that’s the way we can even have a chance at being better.