Feeling of Being a Perfectionist

[JoeB]

This is simply a discussion sort of post, just to engage and see how others are compared to myself.

I find myself, especially in the last few years, seeking a perfectionist role in my life in certain ways. For example, I cannot do several things at a time because I want to focus on one and make sure it's perfect before I move on to another thing. I mean, I have the ability to do more than one thing at a time and still do on occasion. But my major thing is that I seek to be perfect on something.

I especially get angry at myself when I feel it's my fault for a mess up. Like, if I take the wrong exit on the interstate. I know I was driving, it was my fault. I get so angry with myself because I wanted my trip from my house to my destination to be perfect.

I am too hard on myself and I can easily see it, I just cannot seem to stop it.

This has been known to happen for many with ADHD. So, I was wanting to know if anyone else had the same feeling of wanting to be or do perfect with things.

Let me know!

[fracturedstory]

I can be. Like when I was trying to send an envelope overseas so I could get this very rare limited edition collector item. I kept messing up and forgetting to put in key bits of information, like what country I'm sending it to.
But now it's become easier to shrug it off. I'm not sure when I started to get less bothered by my little mess ups but I stopped blaming myself. I know even on medication I can't completely rely on my brain to get everything right the first time.

I'm being really patient with my writing too. I'm putting in time to do thorough research and I spent a few hours writing notes to something in the story. I feel great. Like, this idea I suddenly had solves a problem I've had for about a year. It took time to know what to do but now that I have I've realised this is going to take some time, as it should if I want this to as successful as those stories I read.

Also, I've come to terms with there being smarter people than me, people who have an ability I may never achieve. There's been a great evolution happening in my mind right now. I'm changing my way of thinking, I'm sharing less with people. You might think that's a negative thing, but no, the world is full of trolls. We speak our thoughts so freely and may not always think about what the reaction will be. People can tear down our character just by the information we give them. No more I say.

So, yeah...as hard as it is try to remember that these mistakes you make aren't always in your control. Ignore what people say. Just try one day to not be hard on yourself. Distract your mind immediately from it. I'm really trying to remember what got me to stop blaming myself, stop calling myself stupid, but it's just not there. It could have something to do with the 10,000 plans I have in my head at any given time.
And there goes another one...

[tudorose]

Originally Posted by JoeB

I especially get angry at myself when I feel it's my fault for a mess up. Like, if I take the wrong exit on the interstate. I know I was driving, it was my fault. I get so angry with myself because I wanted my trip from my house to my destination to be perfect.

I am too hard on myself and I can easily see it, I just cannot seem to stop it.

This has been known to happen for many with ADHD. So, I was wanting to know if anyone else had the same feeling of wanting to be or do perfect with things.

I understand this. I used to be like this. For me the big changes in mindset happened when I got sick last year and realised the energy it took for a lot these behaviours was unsustainable.

Nowadays when I stuff up I try and laugh it off and not take myself too seriously.

I realise that I can't be perfect but then again I also recognise that imperfect can be just as good if not better. I'd rather listen to a rock band play with passion and flair but maybe be a little out of time then something overproduced and sterile but technically note perfect.

I didn't actually get to the point of self acceptance until I let this go. Until I did I was constantly beating myself up because of the ADHD whereas now I just run with it and life is easier.

[scrambled86]

I am also a perfectionist and get very angry with myself when I make mistakes or mess up.

However, I also take on way too many things at once and generally I start out trying to do everything perfect and then I get so fed up / bored with whatever task it is and rush it to finish.

Usually I lack the finishing touch.

[Drewbacca]

@Joe,

Check out The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore. It specifically addresses procrastination as perfectionism. You might find it useful.

[Assumption]

The way I see it, being a perfectionist is awesome, so long as you never, ever fail.

[Crackpotdad]

I've actually wondered sometimes how much ADHD is actually more of an OCD type of thing. The problems with focus aren't really a lack of focus, but a case of our minds attemtping to obsessively focusing on way to many things at one time. When that focus is able to be narrowed to one subject, that is when we become Hyper-focused.

I don't know about others, but I get a major addrenaline rush when I reach a hyper-focused state, and I theorize that that is the result of satisfying an OCD need.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Drewbacca

@Joe,

Check out The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore. It specifically addresses procrastination as perfectionism. You might find it useful.

I'll look for it and see if it can help. But, I cannot say I procrastinate. I just dive into something and want to make it perfect before moving on. Which is weird I guess

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Crackpotdad

I've actually wondered sometimes how much ADHD is actually more of an OCD type of thing. The problems with focus aren't really a lack of focus, but a case of our minds attemtping to obsessively focusing on way to many things at one time. When that focus is able to be narrowed to one subject, that is when we become Hyper-focused.

I don't know about others, but I get a major addrenaline rush when I reach a hyper-focused state, and I theorize that that is the result of satisfying an OCD need.

Now, I have some OCD things, and this is sort of one of them. But, one thing for me is my breakfast. I like to make some eggs and toast every morning. Getting that Vit B!

And I want to make sure everything is placed just perfect and if messed around with I get so ticked. I do the same when I eat a sandwich and chips, I may sure they are in the perfect place. So, yeah I've got the OCD issues too. People without ADD/ADHD have this too, but it seems a lot more common with us

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by Assumption

The way I see it, being a perfectionist is awesome, so long as you never, ever fail.

Lol, and there in lies the prob, lol

[keliza]

I used to be for a long time. But it was so exhausting, especially when having ADHD means that a lot of minor details tend to get looked over or forgotten in the course of executing a task. It was a battle I couldn't win; I wanted everything to be perfect, but because A) I'm human, and B) I'm a human with ADHD, nothing ever ended up exactly the way I wanted it.

Somewhere around my sophomore year of college I realized that I would be much happier with myself and my achievements if I could drop the need for everything to be 'perfect.' I went to a prestigious university full of people who, in high school, had been valedictorians, class presidents, club leaders, team captains, gold medalists, state champions, etc. And I was one of those people, too. We fed into each other's crazy-making need for perfection, because it's what we had done our entire lives. Being surrounded by people like me made me realize that perfection was something I could never achieve. When you're a big fish in a small pond, it's easy to feel close to perfect; when you're surrounded by thousands of big fish just like you, perfect looks a lot further away. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life like Sisyphus, pushing that boulder of perfection up a hill in perpetuity because it could never truly be attained.

And the amazing thing is that once you stop trying to achieve 'perfect', you can start working towards 'personal best', and that is so much more rewarding than 'perfect' ever was anyway. Personal best meant that I could accept a C on my math final, because I knew I had tried my hardest, and math is a bad subject for me, and C is passing. Personal best meant that I gave myself room to be thoughtful and creative, and not write a 15-page midterm agreeing with everything my professor said just because I wanted an A and that particular professor was kind of a jerk. (I got a B on that paper, by the way, because the professor disliked my thesis. I was okay with that.) It turned me into a bit of an aberration among some of my classmates, who never learned how to let go of the eternal search for perfect, but it made me a lot happier overall.

[hanikamiya]

People tell me I'm perfectionistic, and I generally agree

... but I'm not even sure I understand what they mean with it.



I want to have a 'plan' of what I'm about to do in my mind. So I visualize the steps it will take until I think I know what they're for and how to do them, and then try to do them.

Like, I want to take the bus and there's a ticket machine I haven't used recently.
So, I want to look at the fare table. I want to make sure the place I go to is the one I pay for, after all. I want to look at the instructions and find the ones relevant to me. I want to look at the coin denominations the vending machine takes. I want to look into my wallet (and oh fu... I hope I have coins with me), and select the right ticket and insert my coins. And then I want my ticket.

When I do it again the next day I probably don't need to check the instructions and the fare table, but I do want to do the rest attentively. Unless it's a routine I really trust I don't want to have gaps in my memory because they make me panic.
Like, when I routinely buy a ticket and somebody comes to check tickets and I do not remember if I've bought one today. Panic. I can't hold that panic off to come only when I've checked my wallet and find that, indeed, I didn't buy a ticket. It comes when I check my recent memory and there's a gap where 'buying a ticket today' should be.


I think I do most things I consider to be important like that. With checking and double-checking and want-to-lash-out-at-other-people-when-they-talk-to-me focus, so that I don't make any mistakes, and so that I don't forget I did them.
Apparently, that is perfectionistic.

[Drewbacca]

Originally Posted by JoeB

I'll look for it and see if it can help. But, I cannot say I procrastinate. I just dive into something and want to make it perfect before moving on. Which is weird I guess

In that case, I think a little perfectionism is healthy.
Although, I suppose it depends on the project at hand.

[Clouded-Mind]

Perfection can be either good or bad in the end it all boils down to if you believe the task is physically possible or not which decides whether you quit or continue.
To me I find I'm never satisfied with anything I do but in the rare instances when I do get it right I feel invincible.

[Zevispaz]

I'm definitely a perfectionist when it comes to art, I won't turn something in half *****, and I won't turn it in if I'd cringe when someone said I made it. But I feel that has worked to my advantage in my design career.

I'm also OCD when comes to being late, which is ironic because I'm never on time no matter how much I stress over it. I'm either very early or very late, but there's not really a middle ground, if I'm not there at the agreed time you can bet I'm going to be a bit late. When I had a boss that was uptight on time, I'd be there 15-20 minutes early. When I had a boss that's lax on time, I'm 15-30 minutes late.

I don't feel like I'm a perfectionist in my every day life, but when I ask anyone I know if I am, I get a "UHM YEAH! DUH!". So I suppose I do go a little further than the average person with making sure things look/turn out good.