Sometimes you say a thought out loud to give it weight because it matters. Sometimes you say a thought out loud to let it go because it's trivial. Until you let the words hit the air, it can be difficult to tell which is which.

Humans have a special talent for complicating simplicity. We make a spectacle out of simple.

You can perfectly paint by numbers without making a single mistake, but you'll never create a masterpiece that way.

Enthusiasm itself will not be enough to sustain an endeavor.

Exploration doesn’t need to culminate in bullet-pointed certainty about anything. Thoughts and feelings don’t need to operate with an itinerary. It’s okay to hold something for a long time, look at it, turn it over, feel it, think about it, turn it over again, talk about it, write about it, and then look up and say, “I don’t know.” It’s okay to not have closure.

A lot of perfectionists think they're driven by success when what they're really driven by is the avoidance of failure-two very different animals.

Energy management beats time management.

When you ruminate, you mistake replay for reflection. When you catastrophize, you mistake worrying for preparation.

You don’t heal by changing who you are; you heal by learning how to be yourself in the world.

It was never the terrible things that happened to you that made you stronger; it was the resiliency-building skills you engaged to process the terrible things. What doesn’t kill you can make you stronger, but only if you feel your feelings, process your experience (i.e., figure out what the experience means to you), and engage the protective factors around you—mainly, the power of connection.

It’s not mere talent that rises to the top, it’s persistence.

For perfectionists struggling with emotional perfectionism, everything is timed and measured. They attempt to control their feelings like a volume knob, and not just the "bad" ones.

You will never experience the future; you’re always and only in the present moment. If you’re waiting on the future to feel joy, you will never feel joy.

Your memories of perfect moments are memories of moments in which you were most present.

<ul><li>Intense perfectionists: laser-focused on a goal and will do whatever it takes to get there.</li><li>Classic perfectionists: highly reliable, consistent, detail-oriented, but they can struggle with meaningful connections.</li><li>Parisian perfectionists: strongly driven by connection with others and can have people-pleasing tendencies.</li><li>Procrastinator perfectionists: great at preparing and using impulse control but struggle with starting or finishing out of fear it won’t be perfect.</li><li>Messy perfectionists: they love starting with unbridled ideas and energy but struggle to maintain momentum when the excitement wanes.</li></ul>

Five types of perfectionists

From psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schafler, an invitation to every “recovering perfectionist” to challenge the way they look at perfectionism, and the way they look at themselves. We’ve been looking at perfectionism all wrong. As psychotherapist and former on-site therapist at Google Katherine Morgan Schafler argues in The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, you don’t have to stop being a perfectionist to be healthy. For women who are sick of being given the generic advice to “find balance,” a new approach has arrived. Which of the five types of perfectionist are you? Classic, intense, Parisian, messy, or procrastinator? As you identify your unique perfectionist profile, you'll learn how to manage each form of perfectionism to work for you, not against you. Beyond managing it, you'll learn how to embrace and even enjoy your perfectionism. Yes, enjoy! Full of stories and brimming with humor, empathy, and depth, this book is a love letter to the ambitious, high achieving, full-of-life clients who filled the author’s private practice, and who changed her life. It’s a clarion call for all women to dare to want more without feeling greedy or ungrateful. Ultimately, this book will show you how to make the single greatest trade you’ll ever make in your life, which is to exchange superficial control for real power.

KATHERINE MORGAN SCHAFLER

Similar ideas

BUSINESSWEEK, 1998

PHILIP APPLEMAN

Losing weight