Don’t try to change something unless you’ve paid attention to it first.
This is a piece of advice I figured out that I need because I have a bad case of free-floating perfectionism—a standard comes into my consciousness, and I’ll immediately try to make things “better” (the things are frequently my state of mind) without any further consideration.
I suspect that the lack of respect implied by this habit contributes to depression and akrasia.
Give moment-by-moment attention to something you usually do.
Is there a chance that something you’re doing to make things better is actually making them worse?
The first and last of these are a little short on actual ‘do this today’ implementation advice, so I’m trying to re-word them. The first one looks good as “Today, before making changes to something, make sure you understand why that thing is in the state it’s in. Just because something appears wrong or sub-optimal doesn’t mean it is.”, but then it’s not clear how the last one is different enough to get a separate entry. Perhaps you could clarify that a bit?
The first also implies that something could be wrong, but your first idea about what needs to be changed might not be accurate.
The first one is about a specific discovery I made as a result of following the second.
Now that you mention it, the third is a somewhat different angle on the first—I didn’t realize how closely linked the three are. The first one is about my finding out a very specific bad approach I’ve been using.
The third isn’t as specific about the problem, but acknowledges that even actions which jam problems into place are well-intended. It was actually a revelation that a mistake I’d made was an effort to improve my life instead of generic evidence about how fucked up I was.
At this point, I’m curious about whatever people might want to say about problems which aren’t related to perfectionism.
Don’t try to change something unless you’ve paid attention to it first.
This is a piece of advice I figured out that I need because I have a bad case of free-floating perfectionism—a standard comes into my consciousness, and I’ll immediately try to make things “better” (the things are frequently my state of mind) without any further consideration.
I suspect that the lack of respect implied by this habit contributes to depression and akrasia.
Give moment-by-moment attention to something you usually do.
Is there a chance that something you’re doing to make things better is actually making them worse?
The first and last of these are a little short on actual ‘do this today’ implementation advice, so I’m trying to re-word them. The first one looks good as “Today, before making changes to something, make sure you understand why that thing is in the state it’s in. Just because something appears wrong or sub-optimal doesn’t mean it is.”, but then it’s not clear how the last one is different enough to get a separate entry. Perhaps you could clarify that a bit?
The first also implies that something could be wrong, but your first idea about what needs to be changed might not be accurate.
The first one is about a specific discovery I made as a result of following the second.
Now that you mention it, the third is a somewhat different angle on the first—I didn’t realize how closely linked the three are. The first one is about my finding out a very specific bad approach I’ve been using.
The third isn’t as specific about the problem, but acknowledges that even actions which jam problems into place are well-intended. It was actually a revelation that a mistake I’d made was an effort to improve my life instead of generic evidence about how fucked up I was.
At this point, I’m curious about whatever people might want to say about problems which aren’t related to perfectionism.