Present Perfect: A Mindfulness Approach to Letting Go of Perfectionism and the Need for Control

Habitual behavior is a functional shortcut that spares us the trouble of thinking and the hassle of a conscious choice. As a perfectionist, you are a master habit builder. This skill is part of your efficiency, part of what helps you excel.

Instead of saying, “I don’t care; you decide,” I recommend that you decide. Make a choice when the actual choice doesn’t matter to you. Practice making a choice when it doesn’t matter so that you can make a choice when it does.

Preaching perfectionism for its own sake is akin to idealistic hazing designed to override the fundamentals of human motivation and to override free will.

Perfectionism can be an adaptation to a deficit of mirroring. Growing up with an insecure, possibly narcissistic parent, you might have lost your sense of self because you were compelled to serve as a mirror for your parent’s hungry ego.

You’ve put into this game far more than you’ve gotten out of it. It’s time to toy with the idea that perfection is not only attainable but inevitable, with the idea that you are always doing your best at any given point in time and that is enough. Enjoy!

Thomas Hurka observes: “the perfectionist ideal is a moral ideal…it is an ideal people ought to pursue regardless of whether they now want it or would want it in hypothetical circumstances, and apart from any pleasures it may bring” (1993, 17). Restated, this means that we should strive for the sake of striving—not because it feels good, but just b

A realist accepts the present as it is and rolls with it to improve the next moment. A perfectionist rejects the present as not being good enough and gets stuck in a state of perfectionistic dissatisfaction.

trying to attach your well-being to what once was creates attachment, a holding-on to what must inevitably change and fade away. Attachment isn’t only a loss of contentment, it’s also a loss of independence. By making your well-being dependent on the perfect circumstance, you lose the sovereignty of your well-being. Your inner life becomes dependen

In being self-driven, you are driven by a self that you didn’t actually program.