There is a vast difference between striving to do your very best and trying for perfection. One will give you the drive to keep searching, seeking, getting better, and trusting yourself. The other will leave you filled with anxiety and doubt and closer to a mental breakdown. Why? Instead, it is a better strategy to focus on the overall quality of your work. Running after perfectionism will make you frustrated to no end, since you will always look to make every single detail of your work seem perfect. People who believe things must be done only if they can be done perfectly often end up procrastinating their work. They wait for the “perfect moment” to begin work. However, that perfect moment often does not arrive, resulting in the destruction of your productivity.

Pervasive fear of failing is at the heart of unhelpful perfectionism and seems to drive most unhelpful behaviors. “Failure” can be a wide range of things such as making a mistake, being socially awkward, not being liked or loved enough, or not earning enough money. Fear of failure is generally more intense when other people might see you fail.” – Jennifer Kemp What if you wake up someday, and you’re 65… and you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life.” — Anne Lamott If Fleming were hellbent on being perfect, we would never have this invention. He would return to his lab, see what was happening, freak out, throw it away because it was not perfect, and we’d all be popping zits while coughing up a lung.Perfectionism causes problems in relationships of all kinds. You may work so hard that your relationships suffer or find yourself married to your work rather than in a loving relationship. You may worry about how you look or what you say, stopping you from deeply connecting with others. Perhaps, you find it hard to take a risk to start a new relationship altogether. After all, what if it doesn’t work out? You might also worry about how other people see you and believe you are not good enough for your partner, friends, or colleagues. Plagued by self-doubt, you may crave reassurance, but it’s never enough.” – Jennifer Kemp Striving for perfection out of the gate adds more obstacles to the path than it eliminates; ultimately, striving ever closer to perfection is a potentially an infinite goal. However, striving for great… then testing, iterating, and continually improving towards perfection allows for testing of assumptions, gathering data, and progress.” - Quote: I have to say that I’ve always believed perfectionism is more of a disease than a quality. I do try to go with the flow, but I can’t let go.” — Rowan Atkinson Perfectionists strive to never make mistakes and are excruciatingly hard on themselves when they do.” – Sharon Martin

Another interesting, but likely insignificant difference is enumerability of shimmed methods. Unless methods are added using ES5 additions that allow to specify property enumerability ( Object.defineProperty or Object.defineProperties), methods end up being enumerable: Perfectionism—the drive to achieve more, be more, and prove ourselves— can be so compelling that we feel driven to go, go, go. We can’t stop.” – Sharon Martin Perfectionism keeps you busy. It pushes you to achieve more, or avoid the things that scare you. Your perfectionistic habits might protect you from failure, but they probably don’t fill your life with joy. Unfortunately, stopping your perfectionistic habits is not enough to create a life that enriches you—you must replace your unhelpful behaviors with purposeful action in the direction of things that are important to you even though it means moving closer to your fears and your desire to hide or escape (Walser 2019).” – Jennifer Kemp Host objects have no rules” doesn’t apply either. This is native objects we’re dealing with, and semantics of native objects are very well defined in those same ECMA-262 specifications. What this means in practice is that unless we’re dealing with faulty implementations, adding method bind to Function.prototype should allow us to add it. There’s no uncertainty about Function.prototype throwing error on extension, or silently ignoring our command (after all, the spec says: “The initial value of the [[Extensible]] internal property of the Function prototype object is true”). Ditto for other objects. Although ostensibly about wanting things to be perfect, perfectionism is actually fueled by an intense fear of failure. As a result, you often adopt a mindset of, If I can’t do it perfectly, then I won’t even try. So you don’t go for the new job, apply to give a TEDx Talk or pitch a media outlet that could help market your business. In essence, your fear of failure actually makes you fail. 4. Your creativity is suffocated.Mind Your Mind - Don’t let your thoughts go unattended. Watch your self-talk and see if your thoughts are giving you space or creating constriction. Accept the losses knowing they will fade. Celebrate the wins knowing that is what you will cherish more over the long term. How can we reconcile what we thought was at the root of productivity with maintaining optimal performance at times of greater disruption? Well, for once, there are cases when certain scripts mess up native objects/methods in a non-compliant way. Kind of like what Prototype.js does with some of its methods (e.g. Array.prototype.map or Array.prototype.reverse; standard-compliance is planned for future releases, as far as I know). If the shim adds standard-compliant methods, and application expects those methods to be non-compliant (but script/library-specific), then there could obviously be problems. PDF) The psychology of perfectionism: Critical issues, open questions, and future directions (researchgate.net)

If you are constantly stressed about doing something perfectly (and not failing), then your imagination and creativity are squashed. And innovation, which is necessary for positive change and success, is hindered for a perfectionist. 5. You strive to keep everyone happy. The limits of perfectionism are not a life sentence. They can be deeply imbedded in the personal psyche, but with effort, there is always a way out.” – Ellen Bowers The desire of perfection often leads to the awakening of the Procrasdemon. Allowing yourself to make mistakes is the single most effective way to get rid of it.” — Neeraj Agnihotri Unhelpful perfectionism makes living a fulfilling life more difficult. You may find it difficult to do the things you love because you fear making a mistake, or struggle to try something new because you might get it wrong. The influence of this on your mood can build slowly over time.” – Jennifer Kemp To avoid any confusion, by native, built-in objects I’m talking about objects and methods introduced in ES5 — Array.prototype extensions ( forEach, map, reduce, etc.), Object extensions ( Object.create, Object.keys, etc.), Function.prototype.bind, String.prototype.trim, JSON.*, etc. These are the things that are shimmed most often. And the question is — is it OK to extend native, built-in objects with these standardized methods?A little anxiety can create energy. But a preoccupation with a fear of failure and disapproval can deplete energy. A person doesn’t become perfectionistic overnight, and reversing the trend will also take some time.” – Ellen Bowers

Feeling worthless leads to missing work deadlines. This turns into an endless cycle of despising yourself and your own work. The most successful people are not the most perfect, but the imperfect who dare to believe that they can despite the damning verdict.” — Bangambiki Habyarimana Good enough is good enough. Perfect will make you a big fat mess every time.” — Rebecca Wells, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder Perfectionists are constantly judging themselves. And because what we say to ourselves is often reflected in how we interact with other people, you’re probably judging other people, too. You might overtly point out what other people do wrong or be more passive aggressive, saying things like, “It must’ve been nice to be able to go home at 5 p.m. instead of finishing your work.” Being highly critical of others reduces the productivity of your team, and that can lead to your failure. 7. You can’t delegate. At least in the field and expression of Art, the chase for flawlessness is sincere, for at least in the bright lights, the darkest shadows and the fullness of representation is at its most positive, it has the want to be great, not for its own sake, but to spread joy, satisfaction and contemplation of the idea at hand, the concept as a belief; for everything else, politics, love, life, relationships, the way we talk, the way we act, it is an illusion and Perfection Kills.

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Too often, perfectionists rely on their own definitions of perfection, which is often stricter compared to the general view, and this results in constant working and reworking on the same thing. When we are at our most creative or engaged in a creative endeavor, we welcome mistakes, throw out rules, and do not strive to get things perfect. Creativity demands free thinking, open acceptance of whatever inspires, and knowing the process is just as important, if not more so, than the product. When we relate to ourselves with loving kindness, perfectionism naturally drops away.” — Sharon Salzberg Perfectionism can be obvious or it can be quite subtle. Sometimes it’s hard to spot, because it doesn’t impact all areas of your life. It’s possible for perfectionism to be causing problems in some areas of your life, but not others.” – Sharon Martin