Just over twenty years ago I wrote my first homeschooling workshop for conventions. It was a three-part series titled “Helps for Homeschooling Moms—Prioritizing, Organizing, and Scheduling.” And guess what the first thing in the first session was (the Prioritizing one)? Yep—it was about getting rid of perfectionism!
I was never a perfectionistic. However, I had many friends who were—and they complained to me often about its effects (sometimes without even realizing that it was perfectionism that was causing the glitch in the schedule or the complaining husband or the uncooperative children).
And I’ve been teaching this concept everywhere I go every chance I get—that perfectionism causes us not to move forward in the home, relationships, a business, and life. And—ways to conquer it. This video (and outline) is intended to help you with that. Praying that it does! Blessings to you as you seek to become more productive!
Step #1 – You have to believe that perfectionism and productivity seldom co-exist
1. You are a perfectionist if you don’t finish tasks because you want them to be perfect
2. Can also result in procrastination since you want to find the perfect way to do something
Step #2 – You have to believe that perfectionism hurts your family and/or your business
1. As a homeschooling mom, this can leave you never being able to do anything because you can’t find the right books or curriculum
2. As a business owner, it can cause you to never move forward because your charts or ideas are not perfectly done
3. As a parent, it starts a cycle of everyone feeling like things are never good enough for your expectations
Step #3 – You have to ask yourself if your perfectionism is actually an act of selfishness
Step #4 – You have to implement your dailies
1. A daily doesn’t have to be perfect to get it done
2. They don’t require a lot of overthinking
3. You have the opportunity to get really good at them
Step #5 – Use the “more often than not” approach
1. If something is a priority, we will do it more often than not
2. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing
Step #6 – Say “it doesn’t have to be perfect” 3 times a day
1. This will enable you to get over something that is holding you up
2. This will help you discern what is important or not important
3. You will give your children an amazing gift
Step #7 – Make a 1% improvement each day
