Archive for April, 2009

You cannot do everything perfectly

April 22nd, 2009 @ admin

Perfectionism is protectionism. If we never finish anything, we can always say we are working on it. The next time you get a small project, like the menu for the company picnic, try this exercise to break that habit. Don’t try it with your annual budget review, the designs for a new space shuttle, or your boss’s European schedule.
Decide how long you need to spend on it. Cut off one-quarter of that time. When three-quarters of the time is gone, review it. Finish it on time. Read it over once. Correct any errors. Let it go. We spend too much time “perfecting” things that don’t need or deserve the attention we give them. Redoing them five times “improves” things that don’t need fixing. Trust yourself to do it as right as you can the first time, allow yourself a once over, and be done with it.

Don’t worry; you’ll learn some tools that will protect you

April 7th, 2009 @ admin

The decision-making skills, but since fear is what keeps you from making them, stop worrying right now. There’s a backup method that prevents you from making irrevocable mistakes. Stop dwelling on your mistakes. Just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean you are a failure. Your self-esteem is more than your job performance.
The safe path is not to make any decisions, never to throw anything out. So our Shadow Self, our cluttered self, tells us. But it is lying. When our files and Doing lists are so cluttered that we can’t use them, it’s like trying to get a dress or shirt out of a closet stuffed with every piece of clothing you’ve every owned. It’s there, but it’s not available.