Legal Research

"BNET Column: Perfectionism Is a Disease. Here's How To Beat It."

This post was written by Penelope Trunk: "It's amazing that people admit to being perfectionists. To me, it's a disorder, not unlike obsessive-compulsive disorder. And like obsessive-compulsive disorder, perfectionism messes you up. It also messes up the people around you, because perfectionists lose perspective as they get more and more mired in details.

We can never achieve perfection -- any of us. Yet so many people keep trying to reach this elusive goal and they drive themselves crazy in the process. So cut it out. Accept that it's okay to do a mediocre job on a certain percentage of your work. If you need convincing, consider this: Perfectionism is a risk factor for depression. No kidding. Sydney Blatt, psychologist at Yale University, finds that perfectionists are more likely to kill themselves than regular, mediocre-performing people.

Here are three steps to take to avoid the perfectionism trap..."

Continue reading this interesting post and reach the active links by clicking on the author's name.

Source: Brazen Careerist, 19 October 2010. © 2009 Penelope Trunk, reproduced with permission of the author.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on October 19, 2010 (boomark / email).