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Yet another way of silencing the inner critic and perfectionist is trying not only to cope with failure, but to ENJOY it! Gretchen Rubin explains in her blog, “Enjoy the Fun of Failure. At Least Try” that two of her happiness-project resolutions are enjoying the fun, and not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. She writes:
I’m a perfectionist. I hate to be criticized. I’m defensive. I’m thin-skinned. As a result, I really, really, hate to make a mistake or to be connected with things that aren’t perfect.
The problem is, failure and imperfection are quite common (maybe you’ve observed this yourself), and if you aren’t willing to make mistakes or to accept flaws or failure, you can’t achieve much.
Novelty and challenge bring happiness, but they also bring frustration, anxiety, flaws, and failure – in fact, the more challenging the undertaking, the more likely it is to fail or to be flawed.
I often feel myself shrinking away from opportunities or ideas, because I’m worried about doing a less-than-perfect job – even though I know that I’m happier when I create, when I push myself, when I try new things. That’s why these two resolutions are important for me.
Enjoy the fun of failure reminds me to lighten up – to accept failure or mistakes as an important part of a process. It’s okay if something fails. In fact, that’s part of the fun!
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good reminds me that it’s more important to do something at all than to do something perfectly. Many things worth doing are worth doing badly. Doing something badly is often a necessary stage toward doing it well.
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Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet and is a regular contributor to the award-winning blog, World of Psychology, on Psych Central. Therese is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit. Subscribe to Beyond Blue, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.
Meet others on the journey in
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Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet and is a regular contributor to the award-winning blog, World of Psychology, on Psych Central. Therese is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit. Subscribe to Beyond Blue, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.
posted July 8, 2009 at 11:51 am
Wonderful post on Gretchen and enjoying the fun of failure! It’s such an important thing to do because we’re all going to be faced with failures at one time or another. It’s how we handle them that’s most important.