I’m currently reading “Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done” by Jon Acuff. It was a recommendation by Marcel and I enjoy reading it. One thing I recently learned through this book is that I’m motivated by fear. Jon Acuff says that this is fine, but I kind of think bad of it. Anyway, that’s how it is.

Today I had this thought, that I hate to make mistakes and I merged it with my recent discovery that I’m motivated by fear. I’m motivated to do everything as well as I can possibly do it so I don’t make mistakes. I don’t do things to earn praise or celebrate the results or feel good about myself. I go to great lengths just to avoid making mistakes. I know it’s a bad character trait, but it forces me to get better at anything I do.

I think perfectionism in part is similar. I’m definitely a perfectionist for better or for worse. The fear of not making something perfect, the fear of messing up, the fear of not being good enough drives me to continually get better. It’s also the reason I think it’s good to surround yourself with people who are better than you. Let’s say in sports. As I was younger I joined a soccer team that was really good and I felt I was a worse player than almost everybody else, but it made me train as hard as I possibly could and I earned myself a spot in the starting line-up. I continued to grow and get better, but I never really felt good enough. But that in itself drove me further than I could have ever imagined. It’s basically the same with web development, too.

I know that perfectionism is bad. I know that making mistakes is okay and even necessary to grow. I know that I should let myself off the hook more often and enjoy things as they are and be content. But at the same time I have this incredibly big fear that my whole life only works because I am never satisfied with my results and never really feel good about the things I make and that that’s the reason for the success I sometimes have. I fear that I will fall off, get worse at everything I do and generally won’t be good enough as soon as I allow myself to not strive for perfection and accept that I will make more mistakes than I want to.

I fear losing a part of what makes me who I am - even though I know that these characteristics and habits are not a good thing.

Or are they? 🥚🐔