Self-development/perfectionism/how to be less judgmental?

[Myst]

I mention it because of the many exercises, but also because it defines perfectionism in a few ways. It breaks perfectionism down into, for example, directed at yourself and/or directed at others. Do you accept yourself but are critical of others, critical of yourself but more accepting and supportive of others, or maybe critical of both yourself and others?

Is the perfectionism in specific areas of your life, or is it generalized across a variety of domains?

Is your perfectionism a pursuit for perfectionism for its own sake, or is the perfectionism a means to an end?

I thought those breakdowns were interesting, and it forces contemplation and defining what you're actually dealing with. Kind ofmgoes along with 80% of the solution is clearly defining the problem, sort of thing.

The preview also included defining perfectionism as a hunger, then broke it down into three categories of hunger.
1. Perfectionistic hunger for approval/validation...to be praised, patted on the back, etc.
2. Perfectionistic hunger for reflection/attention...to feel seen, heard, acknowledged, attended to, etc.
3. Perfectionistic hunger for control/certainty...to be reassured that you are on the right track, to have a sense of control over something or even over yourself.

Ultimately, this book defines perfectionism as a desire or expectation for reality to be different from how it is, to be better than it is. The exercises seem geared towards helping the reader learn to accept the moment, to accept self and others as being perfect now, in their own ways.

Interesting, the idea on how there's so many versions of perfectionism. I thought I didn't really have it that much because I'm not the very critical type and while I can be a bit obsessive about some details, I stop myself from going beyond a limit beyond which I simply see no point as the goal is overall more important; but I see myself in the 3rd version of this list a looot. And I guess I have another version of it that's not listed here. This post is quite illuminating really, thanks.

Not sure what the OP was about but having struggled with perfectionism a bit since I was younger I would say that perfectionism can be emotionally stifling and can border on delusional. It's this strange obsession with seeing one's ideals as the something more real than the reality in front of you and blinding oneself to the fucked up psychological complex that informs it. As a form of avoidance it also feeds into one's fear of intimacy with other people -- either by masochistically judging oneself too harshly or judging the people or environment around oneself. It provides this strange sense of safety that just leaves one feeling empty and attached to routine behaviors and not fully investing in life. It's amazing to me that people who have it worse than I do somehow actually come to realize how fucked up their situation is and get some help.

I also liked reading this post as it again makes quite some sense to me. Except for how it leads to feeling empty and the attachment to routine behaviours? Explain that part a bit more?