Hi there! You described me, for the most part. Just a few months ago, my therapist informed me that I'm a perfectionist, and a whole lot of stuff clicked into place.
I can plan for things, and I can do stuff when I'm not in my head fussing about it--but when I overplan or overthink any situation I get paralyzed by wanting it to go EXACTLY RIGHT. And knowing that it probably won't, I have a really hard time taking that first simple step, even it if would be pretty easy.
Holy shit, that makes so much sense. I've actually considered myself a bit of a perfectionist for a long time, but I never realised that this could be the reason for procrastination.
I always thought it was just stopping me from being happy with a near-perfect piece of work, to the point where I never felt happy calling it 'finished' (which I have been working on). But that could also be why I have trouble starting. I look ahead and see that it won't be perfect, so I don't want to start until I can foresee that it will be perfect.
Thank you for posting that. Now I know the issue, I can work on it. Now I know that all I need to do is power through the start, then the other part will kick in and not let me stop working on it until it's perfect (though I'll have to cut this short for practical reasons).
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u/[deleted] May 30 '17
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