Even if you want to live a life as a minimalist or simplicist, creative person or the most happy person on this planet, you won’t always reach the level you want to reach.

It can be a big challenge for all of us, if we try to make everything as perfect as possible.

Said, to reach a level of perfectionism that can not be exceeded.

Perfectionism and holding your focus have a lot in common. To reach perfectionism, you must focus on your tasks to improve what you do.

I always try to reduce distraction, when I am writing on my novel or some software application. Does not work very well most of the time. Damn streaming providers.

Do not abandon perfectionism (at all)

On the hunt for this level, it can paralyze and demotivate us.

We are no longer focused on the things that we normally love to do. This leads to stress and we could harm our own healthiness.

Nevertheless, we should not abandon perfectionism at all. In general it is not a bad thing. It means that we try to give our best and are curious about creating really wonderful and innovative results.

But, if we exaggerate it, it can lead to mental disorders. Therefore, we should keep in mind.

Often it starts in school

In school, this was always a problem for me.

I was pretty good, but even if my marks were great, I always wanted to reach the best results.

That led to immense stress and in the end, the joy of learning new things has been more and more gone.

Why?

My mind thought only for results, not more.

A more value relevant perspective

We should switch our minds from the emphasis of always reaching specific goals to a more value relevant perspective.

Means, what did we learn by doing something, instead of only emphasizing the outcome. The way to the aim is at least as important as the aim itself.

In software engineering, technologies are changing rapidly. Therefore you have to learn consistently, if you want to keep with the other developers and the technological change.

The obstacles that we master on our way to reach a specific skill are the basis of how good we will be. Grades in a specific test are an indication of how good a person can be, but they are not always the best measurement.

Often, life experiences, the willingness to learn daily and the willingness not to give up, if life puts some challenges in your way, are better indicators.

Relax yourself with perfectionism

We are all unique and each of us handles perfectionism differently. Nevertheless, there are some abstract ideas which can help.

Some ideas to overcome this state of perfectionism are:

• We should not take others’ judgements about us or our performance too seriously. Otherwise we will always want to be measured by them and believe that we have to do better.
  
• Define a result that you personally want to achieve, without thinking about a result that maybe others would expect.
  
• You can strive for a result that solves your problem as a start. This can be far away from good or even perfect. But, I have a solution. If this is good enough for us at the moment, we are done. If not and we see a better approach, we can improve. The wonderful thing with this situation is that we already have a solution. Everything that comes now, is a bonus. The pressure is definitely less present.

Pick what fits to your personal situation.

Think about what makes you happy

Finally, let me tell you what I think.

We measure our lives too much in terms of what we must achieve and whether we are successful, whatever this means for each of us, but not enough in terms of what makes us happy or what we already reached.

Often the simple things are much more important and make us happy. For me, that are my family, my health and the freedom to work creative as a software engineer, author and content creator are much more important than titles or excessive promises.

See ya.