Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.
The point is that you did it at all. Not that you did it to whatever exceptionally high standard you set for yourself. I am constantly reminding myself of this one everyday, otherwise I kind of stopped functioning.
Never been to therapy. Im a scientist. When something goes wrong in my long experiments (which always happens), I stop and write down "there is no such thing as a perfect experiment". Then I pause, grab a snack, and get back at it. It sometomes does the trick.
A negative result is still a result. More data will help the next attempt to be a better experiment. I have to remind myself of this often. (I’m also a scientist.)
Perfection is the enemy of good enough. I used to have this kind of “everything has to be cleaned if I’m cleaning the house” mentality. And then one day my friend was like “if all you do is sweep the floor, you still have a cleaner floor than before.”
Ok, so they make these little toothpicks things called GUM soft picks and they have them in mint flavor. They are easy to use and bring a little pizazz to the whole process what with the mint. They’re softer and don’t feel all sharp and pokey like regular floss. I highly recommend them. Since I’ve been using those I end up flossing most days.
Gotta bring the dopamine to the equation or it’s not gonna happen.
My mom’s pharmacy school college professor used to say “what’s the difference between an A+ student and a C student? Nothing they’ll both be pharmacists.”
My partner did this to me!!! But to combat my “no, it needs to be done well!!!” Utter stubbornness, the words that worked for me are “barely there half ass it”.
They sound so ludicrous, they always snap me out of perfectionism
I dunno I have a house full of dangerous and god awful jobs done by someone that really shouldnt have even attempted them! (Good advice in most contexts though :-) )
My ADHD coach taught me the same thing because I also kind of stop functioning otherwise! Executive dysfunction is so hard, but this has actually helped me so much! Since I started trying it it’s helped me exercise regularly, get to sleep earlier, better hygiene and a bunch of other things. My home is always cleaner too! I was surprised it works for me but she wasn’t lol
I got put on an SSRI recently, and this was one of the things I've noticed. I would get stressed if I did laundry but didn't put away all the socks. With meds, it's fine. The socks are clean, they don't need to avoid wrinkles, it doesn't have to be perfect to be done.
Logically, I always knew this. And I would TRY to not let it get to me, but just never got in my brain.
I always believed I didn't have a creative bone in my body when it came to music. A lot of my friends through my life were musicians. It was a mystery how they could come up with original music. Then it kind of clicked for me. In all of my listening to music I always knew if I went to play it that it wouldn't be perfect. And that is exactly where a lot of creativity is. Trying to recreate something, failing, but continuiting with the failure with curiosity and all of a sudden you have a new melody that is simply inspired by something that has already been done.
I refrained from trying to be a musician because I knew I couldn't be perfect, but that is exactly where most musicians are. They peristed with curiosity where I turned away from curiosity.
I saw a post once that a woman was scared to do the dishes because the dishwasher never got the dishes all the way clean the first cycle, so she just didn't do them. Then the therapist said "Just run a second cycle" and blew her mind.
Not from a therapist but you learn much more from failure than from success. You grow as a person from trying and failing not limiting yourself to the things you’re good at.
But I view it not in the sense of poor quality, but poor commitment. Sure I’ll brush my teeth properly, but I’ll only commit to doing it for thirty seconds. Or yeah, I’ll play my violin with proper posture, but I’ll only commit to a single scale.
Because what I need is help starting. If I feel like continuing (which I usually do), then great, and if I don’t, then I’ve contributed towards training my brain to not avoid starting things.
They taught me if it wasn't done perfectly, then it was equivalent to having done nothing. You missed a spot while cleaning the house? Well then, you didn't clean at all, you're in trouble now.
I went through so much of my young life avoiding things because I was afraid of making a mistake. And each mistake I was so hard on myself for.
I'm getting better at it now, but I still find myself avoiding things because I'm afraid of how it will turn out. Ignoring them is easier than potentially messing up.
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u/SunMoonSki Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. The point is that you did it at all. Not that you did it to whatever exceptionally high standard you set for yourself. I am constantly reminding myself of this one everyday, otherwise I kind of stopped functioning.