Perfectionism: One Of The Stronger Enemies Of Confidence

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Confidence is built on the acceptance of yourself and your abilities. Perfectionism is the belief that you should do nothing if it is not done perfectly. So perfectionism is one of the stronger enemies of confidence. If you are going to develop your confidence, you need to suppress any leanings towards perfectionism. What is Perfectionism? Perfectionism is the unwillingness to do something unless you are guaranteed that it is perfect. In other words, perfectionism is holding yourself to an unattainable standard. Since nobody is perfect, and everybody makes mistakes, perfectionism will hold you back from doing anything new, different, or challenging. After all, you say to yourself, I might make a mistake. Perfectionism has two sources. The first source is a collection of fears. Fear of failure contributes; anything challenging carries the potential of failure, so fear of failure means you will not do anything challenging. This is rationalized by saying you want to make sure you do it absolutely right, which can never be assured and thus is part of perfectionism. Fear of looking bad to others is another contributor; if you cannot be guaranteed success, you might look bad to others, so you wait until you are guaranteed success (which is never), a form of perfectionism. Fear of the unknown also contributes, since unknown things may behave unexpectedly, and perfect people have everything under control. …show more content…

You know the current situation, and you are comfortable if not happy with the way things are. Why change them? Why take the risk? Why expend the effort? The only reason would be that you are guaranteed positive results, which means the situation must be perfect. Since guarantees are not possible, the situation is never right and nothing ever

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