As an amateur gardener (and recovering perfectionist), I learned about the “stress wood” phenomenon last year, when I adopted an indoor tree. In addition to cultural and self expectations, I also feel like I further reinforced perfectionism in my career by self-selecting into fields that required precision like quant consulting, quant research, data science, etc. I’m still learning the art of failure well into my adulthood—so I appreciate your wise POV on this topic!
Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed reading this. I was in a very similar situation a few years ago when I used to nitpick a lot about things at work, which now in hindsight, were definitely not worth my time.
I've come to accept that perfectionism is inversely proportional to the number of concerns in a context. As my responsibilities grew at work, and got pulled into more and more things, I had to shift away from perfectionism to good-enough. Same in my personal life. When I became a parent, I accepted that I won't have the same amount of time to keep the house clean and cook. I learned that a 30 minute good-enough meal along with 30 minutes of rest is way more valuable than an hour spent on the perfect meal
"That's why one way to break out of perfectionism and imposter syndrome is to redefine yourself as someone who is hardworking and on a path of learning."
I love the idea of 'stress wood'. Thank you for these wise words, Deb.
Regarding the relationship of success and failure, there’s a lovely piece of poetry in Urdu:
“Pasti hai toh bulandi hai,
Raaz-e-bulandi pasti hai”
The loose translation of that is…
“Because there are lows, there can be highs. The secret of (your) highs are your lows”.
I love this poem. What a beautiful tribute to the ups and downs of life.
Love the insights thank you for this ! love the tree example
Thank you for this wonderful write up 🙏🏽
As an amateur gardener (and recovering perfectionist), I learned about the “stress wood” phenomenon last year, when I adopted an indoor tree. In addition to cultural and self expectations, I also feel like I further reinforced perfectionism in my career by self-selecting into fields that required precision like quant consulting, quant research, data science, etc. I’m still learning the art of failure well into my adulthood—so I appreciate your wise POV on this topic!
I loved the article thank you for sharing it, came at the right time :)
Love this, and also greatly appreciated your writing on this topic today. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed reading this. I was in a very similar situation a few years ago when I used to nitpick a lot about things at work, which now in hindsight, were definitely not worth my time.
I've come to accept that perfectionism is inversely proportional to the number of concerns in a context. As my responsibilities grew at work, and got pulled into more and more things, I had to shift away from perfectionism to good-enough. Same in my personal life. When I became a parent, I accepted that I won't have the same amount of time to keep the house clean and cook. I learned that a 30 minute good-enough meal along with 30 minutes of rest is way more valuable than an hour spent on the perfect meal
"That's why one way to break out of perfectionism and imposter syndrome is to redefine yourself as someone who is hardworking and on a path of learning."
this is the best! Thank you for this :)