Day 33 Journal Entry On Perfectionist Trait

Why might I be a perfectionist? Well I am not sure if I am usually always a perfectionist, but there are parts of me that are trying to be a perfectionist. There is a little voice in the back of my head, telling me why what I am about to do is not the best thing to do, why my current thinking is not me, is not true, is not helpful. I try to be a great student, but I am not perfectionistic about it since I often decide to instead have a bit of fun, instead of going flat out into studying. This seems like the sensible thing to do, take a break from studying so that you can perform better at it, but often I take way too long of a break and also once I am studying again and see deadlines approaching that voice in the back of my head says “I was telling you, you were doing something wrong, you did not listen and now you pay for the consequenses”. So I am a perfectionist if we can consider part of me, that voice in the back of my head as the perfectionistic part, which by the way is not a literal voice but more of the thoughts of myself that are trying to be the best for me. I am quite sure that part of my the perfectionistic personality trait developing in me were my parents. My parents always wanted me to perform as best as I could in school and how I behaved around other people. I believe that this has clashed with certain situations, such as when I do not study for a test and get a mediocre grade, or when at work I do not produce the best results.

I am not sure of how to go about listening to the good arguments of my perfectionistic side, such as do not stay up for 3 extra hours playing video games or watching movies because it will affect you, but ignoring the bad arguments such as study this whole day and disregard journaling, exercising, and meditating since it will lead to better salaries, etc. as the line is not always as finely laid out as these examples make it out to be. I guess it is something I will have to work for as I continue to understand how TMS affects me.