Clebrity Night Shot

Treatment Planning and Action Steps against Perfectionism

Your job is not to totally overhaul an individual personality or makeup. Wouldn't you prefer to have a perfectionist performing heart surgery on you than someone who just is willing to be good enough? We need to celebrate what they bring to their work while helping them to manage it in a manner that minimizes damage to themselves and others. on himself than he is on the client.

*Action Steps*

1. Determine your Personality
Do some self-exploration by taking a personality inventory such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator TM or other similar tests that are available online. This is a great way of discovering what makes you tick. Seeing yourself on paper and realizing that you have personality tendencies that are similar to others can be part of your life journey in discovering the you God made.

2. Change is not the issue
You do not need to change so much as begin to understand your God given nature and how to use it when appropriate and reign it in when not appropriate.

3. Learn flexibility and acceptance
* Realizing, for example, that I am more rigid with my time and you are more flexible, is okay and does not mean that I am better than you.
* Ask, What the worst that can happen? The answer (for example, that the report goes through with one typographical error) probably is not worth losing sleep over.
* God love is unconditional. You don't have to earn His love by being a perfectionist or by setting unrealistic standards for yourself or others.
* God sets no conditions that we have to meet in order to be His children. We, in turn, need to be unconditional in how we accept and love others.

4. Laugh a Little
Don't be so judgmental of yourself and others. Find humor in who you are! (God must have had a sense of humor, right?)

5. Be realistic
* You are not going to be God, so stop trying.
* Look at life as it is, not as you think it should be.
* Meet people halfway.
* Don't expect the impossible of yourself or others. Set attainable goals and reasonable time limits.
* In your life, determine where perfectionism is appropriate and where it is not. Learn to accept good enough on certain tasks.
* Realize that many positive things can be learned from making mistakes.

6. Be Perfect in heart
* Concentrate on having a perfect heart with God. This will release you to a less stressful life. You will live for God and not for your perfectionist tendencies.
* Being perfect in heart (not being a perfectionist) and having one will with the Father enable you to overcome perfectionist tendencies that disconnect you from your loved ones and inhibit your relationships in general. A Web counselor will provide you enough help.