Dear Friends,

As I have been reading your replies to my essay about the God Breezes. I have been touched by your simple words of encouragement. I would like to quote one of my FlyBabies. She said, “Often pursuing the perfect makes us miss the good.”

Perfectionism robs us of our contentment. It takes our happiness and stomps on it. It tortures us with “NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” Perfectionism puts us back into our childhood terror of having to re-clean our rooms and re-do any task we were assigned just because it was not correct.

I fight perfectionism with every breath I take; you have heard me say this many times.

Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family.

I have cautioned you against being overly critical of how your child makes their bed. I have tried to help you notice when perfectionism is rearing its ugly head. When you hear yourself say, “I don’t have time” you are really saying, I DON’T HAVE TIME TO DO IT RIGHT!

Your home is just that! Your home, not your mother’s or father’s home! It is up to you to put an end to the perfectionism that was forced down your throat. We took to heart those terrible words. “If you can’t do it right; don’t do it at all!” This is why our homes are in CHAOS.

There is a fine line between a born organized person and a FlyBaby. They are both perfectionist. Yes you heard me right. Perfectionism is the fine line in the sand. With the FlyBaby they get up to that line and back away and do nothing. This is when their home begins to fall into CHAOS. With the Born Organized person; she steps over that line and pushes herself until there is not a speck of dust or hair out of place. She never gets to rest because she is always working to make everything “Perfect” in her life. She is living in fear of making mistake!

Mistakes help us to learn. I am so thankful for all the mistakes I have ever made. They have brought me to the place I am today. I have taken those mistakes and turned them into lessons for all of us to learn how to let go of perfectionism.

Perfectionism makes us sick. I will never forget my first lesson on this when I was a stained glass artist in the early 1990s. I had spent three weeks working on a very large window. It had over 600 pieces in it and was 6 feet by 4 feet. I would spend every waking hour on it and only slept about three hours a night. I pushed myself so hard on this window. After I installed it; I got sick for three weeks with bronchitis. This is when I realized my all or nothing way of doing things and how perfectionism hurt me.

After this I began to pace myself and place one piece of glass in each project that was wrong. It became my signature and a reminder that I don’t have to be perfect to be loved. No one else knew it but me. I could see that it was backwards and rejoiced at knowing that the window was not perfect. I think it was my very first act of finally loving myself.

Are your ready to FLY without the bonds of perfectionism tying you down?

FlyLady