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"&amp;quot;I have heard that an eagle misses 70 percent of its strikes. Why should I expect to do better? And when he misses, does he scold himself, I wonder, for failing at the task?&amp;quot; \u2014SOPHY BURNHAM, Writer  I have a friend, let&amp;#039;s call her Allison. Her house is always impeccable, even if you drop in unexpectedly. She is always tastefully dressed and coiffed, even when we take our daughters to the park. Her husband is an extremely successful businessman, and Allison has an interesting job with flexible hours. Sounds like a wonderful life, right? Wrong. In fact, Allison is miserable most of the time. In her eyes, her house is never clean enough, her accomplishments never good enough. She is perpetually fearful of making a mistake and constantly anxious that she is not measuring up to some standard she can&amp;#039;t even describe. Perhaps some of this has a familiar ring: Do you freak out if your child leaves a wet towel on the floor?-Do you hyperventilate if your layer cake is lopsided? Are you afraid to try something new because you&amp;#039;re not already good at it? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be caught by the demon of perfectionism.-What fuels this demon is the great fear that we are not good enough, a fear many of us try to control by seeking even more perfection. The problem is that perfection is not possible. Sooner or later, each of us will stumble as we try to fulfill the expectations we carry around in our head \u2014 what we think our mothers, our husbands, our friends, or our bosses would demand of us.-And yet so many of us continue to try, and berate ourselves when we fall short. That certainly was true for me. I can laugh about it now, but I spent years of my life convinced that I couldn&amp;#039;t slip up, even a little bit. And I had a hard time accepting the imperfections of others as well. Then, in my late 20s, I made a big mistake at work \u2014 a mistake that was unfixable and entirely my fault. I was supposed to create a special calendar that readers could tear out of a magazine and keep for a whole year. I received the first copy, and the month of December fell right off because of an error in the instructions I gave to the printer.-I felt horror, shame, guilt; I thought I would die.  But I didn&amp;#039;t. I didn&amp;#039;t even get yelled at. My boss shrugged and said, &amp;quot;Oh well,&amp;quot; and life went on. But I was changed \u2014 for the better. If my boss could accept me even though I had screwed up, I reasoned, maybe I could too. Though I tried to be diligent at work, I began to let go a little bit of my need to be perfect. And it was a good thing I did. For life continued to show me \u2014 in the form of a marriage that collapsed, challenging stepchildren, and business difficulties \u2014 that I was definitely not perfect. And that my need for perfection was in large part contributing to my problems.  For example: I used to judge every word and gesture my first husband made in public and call him on the carpet as soon as we were alone. Needless to say, he felt attacked and therefore retreated, which did little for feelings of togetherness. &amp;quot;Perfectionism drives you to to bully yourself and others with your demands,&amp;quot; notes Kathy Cordova, author of Let Go, Let Miracles Happen.  It also keeps us from growing in wisdom. We become rigid, inflexible, and judgmental. Unable to learn from our errors, we are condemned to repeat them. Perfectionism focuses exclusively on failure \u2014 you didn&amp;#039;t do it right, you idiot \u2014 and we get stuck. Think of it this way: When a baby falls as she&amp;#039;s taking her first steps, she doesn&amp;#039;t say to herself, Stupid baby, you just fell over. Rather, she just picks herself up, incorporates the learning, and tries again. That&amp;#039;s why she learns so quickly.  The more we just take notice of our perfectionist responses \u2014 for instance, &amp;quot;Oh, there I go again, being so worried about doing it right that I&amp;#039;m not doing anything at all&amp;quot; \u2014 the more the behavior will disappear. The trick is to do it without beating ourselves up. When we treat ourselves to the same encouraging attitude that we show a child learning algebra or a new sport, we actually increase our capacity to do things well.  The commitment to break the cycle of perfectionism may be strongest when we notice the damage it&amp;#039;s causing those we love. One day my friend Allison heard her five-year-old daughter cry out, &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t do anything right!&amp;quot; after failing to separate an egg properly. Says Allison, &amp;quot;I was shocked. I heard myself, and I knew that history would repeat itself unless something changed. So I took her in my arms, dried her tears, and urged her to try, try again.&amp;quot; After that incident, Allison made a point of telling her daughter, &amp;quot;Oh well, mistakes happen.&amp;quot; Soon she was saying it to herself as well. I was reminded recently of how important it is to make room for mistakes when I sat in on my five-year-old daughter Ana&amp;#039;s gymnastics class. There she was, with five other little girls, all looking up at the imposing balance beam they had to walk across. The first thing the teacher did was to say, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to teach you how to fall.&amp;quot; And she did. Soon all the girls were falling on purpose, landing on their feet, and then climbing back on. What a great lesson for us all \u2014 afraid of falling? Fall on purpose! Of course you&amp;#039;ll tumble off your perch; it&amp;#039;s inevitable. So learn to fall in such a way that minimizes injury and maximizes trust in yourself. Ultimately, our errors remind us that we are human. &amp;quot;In Iran,&amp;quot; writes Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., in My Grandfather&amp;#039;s Blessings, &amp;quot;even the most skilled of rug weavers include an intentional error, &amp;#039;the Persian flaw,&amp;#039; in the magnificence of a Tabriz or Qashqa&amp;#039;i carpet. In Puritan America, master quilt makers deliberately left a drop of their own blood on every quilt they made; and Native Americans wove a broken bead, the &amp;#039;spirit bead,&amp;#039; into every beaded masterpiece.&amp;quot; These deliberate flaws were meant to remind their creators that nothing human is perfect, nor is it supposed to be.  That awareness can go a long way toward helping us love ourselves just as we are. I am currently experiencing, to put it nicely, short-term memory problems. Yesterday I left my ATM card at the bank and spent at least 15 minutes unsuccessfully searching for my computer glasses. And I still can&amp;#039;t find the folder with notes I&amp;#039;ve been collecting for a new book. I could beat myself up for being absentminded. Or I can acknowledge that I am not perfect, enjoy a good laugh at my predicament, and allow compassion for myself to blossom.  Why mistakes are a good thing If what we are really looking for in perfectionism is excellence, then we should relish the chance to make mistakes. In their book Art &amp;amp;amp; Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland tell the story of a pottery teacher&amp;#039;s experiment. The teacher split a beginners class in half and told them that the students on one side would be graded on quantity \u2014 the more pots they produced, the higher their grade. The others would be graded on quality \u2014 to receive an A, they had to create a perfect pot. Can you guess which group made better pots? The quantity group, who improved through trial and error. The quality group got hung up on attaining perfection and never learned. Think about that the next time you get upset with yourself for making an error! Don&amp;#039;t be so tough on yourself! Read on. \u2022 Make a mistake on purpose and notice that you&amp;#039;ve survived. \u2022 Be like Julia Child. When things went wrong on her cooking show \u2014 and they often did \u2014 she took it in stride. Pulling out a fallen souffl\u00E9 in front of millions of viewers, the cooking expert exclaimed: &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t win them all!&amp;quot; \u2022 Track how many times per week you scold yourself mentally for making a mistake. Just note it without doing anything about it. Awareness that avoids judgment, says W. Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Work, can create change. \u2022 When you realize you are chiding yourself, think of what a loving friend might say to you in this situation. Chances are she would be much easier on you than you are. Better yet, call up a good friend and ask! \u2022 Try an experiment for a day. Ask yourself as you go about your daily routine, &amp;quot;What would I be doing differently right now if I didn&amp;#039;t worry about doing it perfectly?&amp;quot; Then do that. At the end of the day, notice how you feel. Good enough to try the experiment again tomorrow? \u2022 Next time something doesn&amp;#039;t work out as you wanted, try the technique known as reattribution: Ask yourself what factors (other than your own mistakes) contributed to the situation. Studies show that our happiness has less to do with the number of bad things that happen to us than whether we consider them to be our fault. According to The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People, by David Niven, Ph.D., those who blame themselves for negative events are less satisfied than those who don&amp;#039;t. \u2022 When you make a mistake, try saying, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m still learning.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/health/wellness/advice/a16140/trying-to-be-perfect-jan04/>