When I was in school (and I was in school for a very, very long time), I tried to be the perfect student, the perfect friend, the perfect daughter, and the perfect big sister.

When I worked outside the home, I aimed to be the perfect employee, the perfect co-worker, and later the perfect boss.

When I stayed home with my children, I tried to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, and the perfect homemaker.

Now, even in my free time, I still find myself trying to be the perfect knitter, yanking out and starting projects over time and again so that I follow pattern instructions perfectly.

Even just now, as I wrote this, I started and restarted it until I finally had to tell myself, “It’s never going to be perfect. Just get it done!”

So many women I work with and know are perfectionists or recovering perfectionists. Our society compels us to be this way. The training starts early: I recently watched a television program in which a young teen said she feels pressure to be really smart, participate in lots of extracurricular activities, be good at sports, and also be fun and sexy.

Alice Domar believes that pushing yourself to perfection is not only unrealistic but potentially emotionally and physically unhealthy. (She wrote an entire book on the subject called, Be Happy Without Being Perfect.)

Striving for perfection also takes a lot of time, wastes energy, and fills your mind with unnecessary clutter.

So, what do you do about it?

I wish I had an easy solution, but it’s not so easy to overcome perfectionism. Doing so takes time and practice. As I said, I still struggle with it. (Thankfully, Alice Domar admits that she still does, too!) And, as is almost always the case, everyone is different, so solutions can’t be “turn-key” or “one-size-fits-all.”

What I can tell you is what I think is the best way to get started, TODAY: Focus on the positive.

Perfectionists are overly critical. They know instinctively what is wrong and exactly how to fix it. They see faults in both themselves and other people.

So what you need to do is to begin breaking the habit by simply noticing when you start to criticize. When you find yourself mentally criticizing, or pointing out faults, just try to notice that you’re doing it. You don’t have to correct yourself at this point. Just say, “Oh, there I go again.” That’s it.

Do this for a week until you’re able to notice how often you take on the role of critic. You’ll be amazed at how pervasive your criticizing is.

When that awareness kicks in, you can then take the next step of trying to stop your mental critique as it happens. Again, you don’t have to do anything—just try to stop your criticizing thoughts.

For some of us, simply stopping negative thoughts can be very hard. Sometimes, it is easier to replace negative with positive ones. Ask yourself, “What’s good about this?”, “What’s working?”, or “What’s going well?” Or, try a mantra that works for you. When you start thinking negatively, try to replace it with a simple message like, “I’m doing the best I can.” Or, “this is good enough.”

As I said, this is just a start. But I promise you that if you try my suggestions, you’ll be surprised by the results.

Don’t critique me yet, just try it.

(This newsletter article was originally published September 2008. For other articles, please see [lifejunctions.com]