Hope you are having a nice week, how has it been for you?
I have been hanging out with my husband at home, which has been really nice.
I still feel pangs of that common seasonal loneliness and grief for my parents, but it’s pretty good over all.
Been loving that I can make my husband watch some movies with me, he usually doesn’t have the time.
Today we are talking about my favorite book of 2023:
” Everyone has perfectionistic tendencies about something. When those tendencies (the desire to bridge the gulf between an ideal and reality) present more often than not and are accompanied by the impulse to actively strive towards bridging that gulf, you can consider yourself a perfectionist. “
Katherine Morgan Schafler’s book The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control is a must read.
Shout out to Jacqui Acree for the recommendation.
I’ve been chewing on it for months. It’s made the kind of long lasting impression on me that my 2022 book did.
(In 2022 my book of the year was Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain, which got me deep into digital organization principles.)
If you read one book in 2024, this is a good one!
And here are a few more quotes from it:
Thinking of yourself as a perfectionist is an enduring identity marker. We don’t talk about perfectionism episodically because we don’t experience it episodically. For example, a person may say something like, “I went through a depression after college,” but we don’t “go through” perfectionism.
Perfectionism invites a deep, unending exploration of who you are and what you most desire from this life. After you figure out what it is that you want, the attendant pressure of your perfectionism will be there to motivate you towards your goal. Unlike an idealist, you won’t be satisfied daydreaming; you’ll have to do something about it.
You begin to appreciate the drive inside you. You see that your drive isn’t there to hurt you, it’s there to usher you towards your potential. You shift from avoiding your drive to honoring it, which requires you to stop misdirecting your energy. Then you get to grow beyond your wildest dreams.
Perfection is a paradox—you can never become perfect, and you already are perfect. A perfectionist in an adaptive mindset believes both those statements are true. A perfectionist in a maladaptive mindset believes both those statements are false.
[G]ive yourself permission to embrace the energy of your perfectionism, and learn to work with it, not against it. The work is not about fixing anything, getting rid of anything, or correcting anything; it’s about connection.
Enjoy
The 21 Day Heartfelt Writing Challenge has started!
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Sign up for all the free 21 day writing challenge announcements + resources here.
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with prompts and inspiration from me to help you know what to write to connect to your heart.
