Good Perfectionism Quotes & Sayings

When the good student chooses the honest path, free of perfectionism and faking, music study becomes something refreshingly new: a calm oasis of self-acceptance for those who are so used to driving themselves and trying to please others. — William Westney

The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: "So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it's also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun." Perfectionism — Elizabeth Gilbert

Perfectionism is really a manifestation of the belief that one's efforts are never good enough. Imagine: How many of the obstacles standing in your way are the product of your own imagination? What have you convinced yourself that you can't do? What limitations have you come to believe in? Your mind is very powerful and effective. Is it working for you, or against you? — Ralph Marston

Some people become hypercritical when stressed.
Then again, he hadn't been stressed last week. She giggled, remembering how he'd instructed her on the proper way to fold hand towels. Talk about nitpicky. Perhaps this would be a good time to call it quits. — Cherise Sinclair

You can waste a perfectly good life trying to meet the standards of someone who thinks you're not good enough because they can't understand who you are. — Barbara Sher

If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage. I doubt that you would read a close friend's early efforts and, in his or her presence, roll your eyes and snicker. I doubt that you would pantomime sticking your finger down your throat. I think you might say something along the lines of, 'Good for you. We can work out some of the problems later, but for now, full steam ahead! — Anne Lamott

Annabel, one of my clients who cherished her perfectionism because she felt that it made her a fine writer and an excellent mother, was having a hard time with some of David Burns's teachings against perfectionism in his book, Feeling Good. Dr. Burns, she thought, told her to give up all ideal goals and stick only to realistic and average ones. Then she couldn't be disappointed or depressed. — Albert Ellis

Be in beta. Do things badly. Abandon perfectionism. Following this advice can seem nearly impossible when pitted against our identity. But when we allow ourselves to go into the rapid iteration of trial and error, like a child learning to walk, the feel-good neurological response just may charm away the snake of a strangling ego. — Whitney Johnson

She was restless. She drove a little too fast, swam a little too far offshore. She hitchhiked. She skied recklessly. While Sylvia's rabid perfectionism was very real, she was far from the good-girl persona she worked so hard to cultivate. — Elizabeth Winder

Perfectionism is an enemy of good time management. If you are one of those people who needs to finish every project with absolutely no imperfections, you are undoubtedly wasting a great deal of time. Learn to recognize what is "good enough" and which activities don't demand absolute precision, and revise your approach accordingly. — Ernest Christo

Twenty centuries later, Jesus speaks pointedly to the preening ascetic trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, to those of us caught up in boasting about our victories in the vineyard, to those of us fretting and flapping about our human weaknesses and character defects. The child doesn't have to struggle to get himself in a good position for having a relationship with God; he doesn't have to craft ingenious ways of explaining his position to Jesus; he doesn't have to create a pretty face for himself; he doesn't have to achieve any state of spiritual feeling or intellectual understanding. All he has to do is happily accept the cookies, the gift of the kingdom.4 — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun. — Richard Louv

And all that time I was lying to my support group. I told the ladies, "Sure! I'm writing!" when I wasn't. Yes, I could have filled all those newfound minutes with actual work, but I had no confidence in myself. I was a fraud. Who was I to pick up a pen and expect anything good to come out of it? I expected perfection as soon as the pencil hit the paper, and since that's impossible, I couldn't get myself to start. Then I felt guilty about not starting, which made me want to start even less. And with no game to bury the feelings, I got very depressed. No wonder I didn't book any acting jobs in the last half of 2006. No one wanted to hire a clinically depressed person to sell snack foods. — Felicia Day

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again. — Julia Cameron

I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it's just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more that a deep existential angst the says, again and again, 'I am not good enough and I will never be good enough. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Perfectionism is a time waster - 20 percent of the effort you put into any project accomplishes 80 percent of the outcome - so this is a time to ask yourself when good enough is enough and then stop. — Mira Kirshenbaum

Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it's going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move. — Anne Lamott

Did you ever get the feeling that everything was too perfect? Like the moment was so good that something had to be wrong? Kind of like the way a fish sees that bright, shiny lure just before it chomps down and gets hauled out of water to become someone's lunch. — Neal Shusterman

Because children take everything personally, they believe that if they are being mistreated, it's because they haven't been "good enough." Being good as an adult makes them believe, incorrectly, that they have some control in life. They think that they will be rewarded for their goodness and that it will protect them from harm. — Marcia Sirota

Perfectionism may look good in his shiny shoes, but he's a little bit of an asshole and no one invites him to their pool parties. — Ze Frank

It starts by forgetting about perfect. We don't have time for perfect. In any event, perfection is unachievable: It's a myth and a trap and a hamster wheel that will run you to death. The writer Rebecca Solnit puts it well: So many of us believe in perfection, which ruins everything else, because the perfect is not only the enemy of the good; it's also the enemy of the realistic, the possible, and the fun ... The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a virtue. — Elizabeth Gilbert

If you're thinking, 'Great! I just need to be a superhero to fight perfectionism,' I understand. Courage, compassion, and connection seem like big, lofty ideals. But in reality, they are daily practices that, when exercised enough, become these incredible gifts in our lives. And the good news is that our vulnerabilities are what force us to call upon these amazing tools. Because we're human and so beautifully imperfect, we get to practice using our tools on a daily basis. In this way, courage, compassion, and connection become gifts - the gifts of imperfection. — Brene Brown

Good enough is good enough. Perfect will make you a big fat mess every time. — Rebecca Wells

It's what I call the haute couture, high-end version of fear perfectionism. It's just fear in really good shoes. But it's still fear. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Perfectionism doesn't believe in practice shots. It doesn't believe in improvement. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly
and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner's work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn't know how to say, "Good try," or "Job well done." The critic does not believe in creative glee
or any glee at all, for that matter. No, perfectionism is a serious matter. — Julia Cameron

Just doing as well as you did last time is not good enough. — Michael Jackson

Perfectionism is searching for faults to justify low self-esteem. It is a guaranteed failure and fantasy. — Brittany Burgunder