Present Perfect: A Mindfulness Approach to Letting Go of Perfectionism and the Need for Control

Approval-hungry/validation-hungry perfectionism parallels the so-called conscientious compulsive variant of OCPD (Millon and Davis 2000). Conscientious compulsives tend to be hard working, dutiful, and ever eager to meet others’ expectations. They fear “that failure to perform perfectly will lead to both abandonment and condemnation” by others (200

Accept and change: accept that at any given moment you are doing the best you can do and, having learned from the experience of this given moment, try to change and improve the next moment to the extent that you can.

as a perfectionist, you define perfection as a theoretical best. That’s exactly why you are never satisfied with reality as it is. The real world—the one and only world that there is at any given point in time—always pales in comparison with a better world that you can imagine. In any

As a perfectionist, you are programmed to perceive differences more than similarities. This “difference filter” tends to first bring into focus how this circle is not quite perfect or how it’s off center.

You’ve come to equate the meaning of success with “not-failure” or “un-failure.” You are either a failure or a not-failure. If that’s the meaning you assigned to the notion of success, it’s no wonder you never really feel successful. You’re only someone who once again didn’t fail. So, of course there’s never any reason to celebrate or allow yoursel

constantly strive to meet everyone’s expectations and you essentially live in fear of others’ disapproval of you.

perfectionism, as the central feature of OCPD, is also characterized by such traits as excessive concern with details, an extreme devotion to work and productivity (at the expense of leisure), excessive conscientiousness, scrupulousness, thriftiness, inflexibility and rigidity in the issues of morality and ethics, reluctance to delegate tasks, and

trying to attach your well-being to what once was creates attachment, a holding-on to what must inevitably change and fade away. Attachment isn’t only a loss of contentment, it’s also a loss of independence. By making your well-being dependent on the perfect circumstance, you lose the sovereignty of your well-being. Your inner life becomes dependen

a mistake is either a mismatch of expectations or an accident. That’s all!