Wow. I have always known that I’m a perfectionist, but I am amazed. I had a moment this evening when I had to pause and laugh at myself that I really am a perfectionist.  When most people would have looked at what happened and been THRILLED at what I was examining, I looked at those minor things that weren’t ‘perfect’. It’s like getting 98% on an exam, and being upset at the loss of the 2%. Silly.
This comes into play in most areas of my life: school, personal, running, finances, home.
With school I get really upset and overwhelmed when I’m not ‘perfect’ but I need to get over that. I KNOW that I don’t need to be perfect in this program. But the reality is I always try to be perfect.  Finances, too and so I stress out if things aren’t perfect (according to my thoughts/dreams).  And my home? I’m usually embarrassed to have people over without days and days of planning so that it’s ‘perfect’.  But, by having people over more I can make my budget cheaper if I host potluck dinners and we hang out at my house. So I’m trying to plan for this, but not too much!
One drawback of perfectionism is that it can paralyze me if I don’t have tools in place. Some things I’m doing to manage things better so that I’m not paralyzed is changing my financial management tools (blog post to come) so that I’m less stressed and can calmly manage things. School-wise I’m trying to plan ahead better. Personal I need to focus on what I can control but will make changes to meet new people and branch out.