Dear FlyLady,

Today I had a taste of my own perfectionism and how bitter its taste is!

I teach English to nonnative speakers online. One of them is a dear friend of nearly 40 years living in Europe. She wrote a sweet paragraph on her own, to me, in an email. It wasn’t perfect but she did it! She went “above and beyond” of what her assignment was.

What did I do with it? I dissected it into sentences and corrected it, as the “all-knowing” perfectionist. And send it with my comments that I THOUGHT were helpful. Wrong!

She replied and her response opened my eyes to my perfectionism. Instead of letting it be, I unwillingly corrected her in, now I think, a callous manner. Where do they say “your best thinking brought you here”?

I wanted to acknowledge your part in recognizing my perfectionism.

In my next email to my friend I apologized for my perfectionism and hope we will continue our online lessons.

I “sold” her a “car” and need to let go of the  want to direct her and how she should be “driving it”. That is, let her use English the best she can. After all, I also had to learn it and thanks to caring teachers, not perfectionists, got a good command of it.

Perfectionism, by the way, was present in so many walks of my life. No wonder I felt hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. Thank you for pointing out time and again that perfectionism doesn’t bring the results we want.

What are you waiting for? Procrastination hurts you!

We have everything you need to keep your home shining! Sometimes we need a little motivation. Our efficient tools give us a jump start! They make a tough job fun. If you make it fun; it will get done!