perfectionism & procrastination when it comes to work

[Green Triangle]

Hello-hello!

I am student and I have noticed that I find it hard to work continuously and without beating myself up over the quality of my work. I have noticed that I have incredibly high standards and that I sometimes quite energetically decide to rather do nothing at all than to to try and do something might fail or not be perfect.


I am very conscentious in all of my paid work, if someone *tells* me or maybe even orders me to do something, but when it comes to my own work, I am passive and insecure and procrastinate a lot. I have noticed that I am also highly highly critical about my work.

I also measure myself based on how well my work is going.

I know that much of this is still based on my childhood experiences, where my parents were highly highly highly demanding in many ways and didnt leave much space for me and my own decisions and explorations. I have worked this through in therapy and I know that this is the reason for my issue here. I am more or less fine now with my parents, but I can see how this key experience still affects my work.

Thing is, I like my work but I struggle so badly with my standards and my black - n - white thinking.

All of this, at the end of the day, is dragging me down. I dont want to go on like that in the long run (I work on a long disseration project).

I am going to talk about this with a counsellor in a fortnight and I have looked up books on Amazon.

What I am looking for in this post is maybe some experiences of fishies who have dealt with similiar issues, how they have managed to be less harsh on themselves and more consistent, maybe some book recommendations or affirmations....????

I am good worker but not a happy worker and I would like to change that.

Hilde

[Jezebel]

I can completely understand where you are coming from. Most people do not understand how perfectionism and procrastination can sometimes go hand in hand...to most it sounds like they would be complete opposites. I used to (and sometimes still do) put off writing papers till the night before because I fear it will not be good enough and that I will continuously revise it for weeks. Eventually I would probably just throw it out and start a new one. I've actually done that before, and I nearly went insane. So I began waiting till the last possible second, writing the paper and then turning it in so that I didn't have time to berate my work. And for the most part, they end up being A level papers.

I don't have any real useful advice about how I have helped alleviate this problem. One thing I find myself doing these days is not spell checking the posts I post here or re-reading emails I send out to family members (or other people that could really care less about typos)...so starting small, knowing that the :bowl and the people I email do not care about whether or not my fingers typed the work "the" right or accidentally typed it "teh" (which commonly happens! :winky). Slowly I have been less critical of myself. Maybe it would be a small stepping stone for you!

[Radar]

:hugon hilde :hugoff

i dont have any advice either, just wanted to let you know i am the EXACT same way. i started making my sister a scrap book as a wedding present, i figured it was the perfect gift because it was straight from the heart and i was a college student with no money, but her five year wedding anniversary is coming up this september AND I AM STILL DOING THE BOOK! i think it looks ugly and i can do better and i hate working on it because its never good enough. she just wants the darn book at this point,but it makes me feel so bad about myself.

i am also trying to write a paper RIGHT NOW, but i know its not enough either, so here i am surfing through the bowl.... when i think about the grade i could possible get on the paper, which might not be an A, i freak out. at this point i just want to get it done because its making me crazy, but i cant deal with typing something that i know isnt good enough.

its frustrating, isnt it!!!!???