intrusivethoughts – 360 of my 180

A few days ago I wrote The Perfect Imperfection.

I wrote a blog a day since. This is out of character for me for multiple reasons.

I usually want to review over and over. Change… rearrange continuously… Have someone review and approve. Then review it myself again and again. This can take days or even weeks. And then after weeks, doubt and fear of judgement sets in and I end up not publishing it at all.

After I wrote The Perfect Imperfection, I unconsciously started working on something that came up during one of my classes with my incredible teacher, Christina De Freitas. Deconstruction. Deconstructing some of my thoughts, emotions or some of my traits.

Last few blogs I wrote, I wrote quickly with minimal review and didn’t look for outside approval before publishing. Slowly deconstructing my quest for perfection and my fear of judgement.

42 – The answer to everything – I wrote this on my 42th birthday. As simple as what I wrote is, I wouldn’t have published this a few weeks ago out of fear.
No place I’d rather be – This one deconstructed both perfectionism and the fear of judgement. I would normally have taken days to film the perfect scenes and then days or weeks to cut and move pieces. I decided to let go… just go out and start filming. My nephew and I edited it in under an hour. What was important wasn’t really how the video looked, it was the intent and the message behind it. Before publishing the video, I was afraid of what people would think of the message or the result. But I overcame that irrational fear and just did it.
Laser Focus – Here I talk about something I don’t understand well. I feared I would be all wrong in how I understand or explain it. Then, I just didn’t care if it’s right or wrong. It just felt right at the time and I went ahead.

Letting go, not overthinking and deconstructing some of our deep rooted thoughts and emotions is quite liberating.

Hi. I’m Matt and I’m a perfectionist.

I was thinking about mindset and its effects on how we see the world. If we change our mindset, we might just be able to see perfection in imperfection.

Once you realize this, you stop focusing, wasting time and effort on things that don’t matter and you move forward. You stay away from the “on & off switch”, the “all or nothing” mindset and see the 50 shades of grey instead.

Aiming for perfection is fine and we should all aim high! However, wanting to reach perfection in everything you do is a waste of time and effort in my opinion. Achieve the perfect imperfection and you’ll achieve more than most.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”

Michelangelo

Keep working until you achieve perfection and you’ll stall, stagnate and miss out on a lot of other accomplishments along the way. And let’s be honest, you’ll never reach perfection in anything and that’s a beautiful thing.

Learn to let go. Don’t let perfectionism turn into an unhealthy obsession blinding you to what really matters. I say “unhealthy obsession” because being obsessed can be healthy in my opinion. It’s how and what you’re obsessed with that matters. But I digress, obsession is probably a topic for another blog.

All of this doesn’t mean to get lazy and accept mediocrity. Lex Fridman said it best.

“Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, but also: don’t let society’s acceptance of mediocrity be the enemy of excellence.⁠”

Lex Fridman

Find balance. See the shades of grey. Achieve the perfect imperfection. And what is perfectly imperfect today most probably won’t be tomorrow, constantly evolving depending on your state of mind.