Productivity, Perfectionism, Small Steps, Consistency - Psyletter #3

I've experienced wanting something. Wanting it immediately. Wanting all of it. It requires hard work and time.

I am reading Atomic Habits. I am a perfectionist, and the problem with that is I was impatient - I didn't set a deadline for what I should finish in a day but rather to do everything that's possible.

This caused a lot of tension because I never reached the end, and even after working for ten hours a day, I was still not satisfied and felt a lack of something.

Moreover, I neglected other areas of my life - proper nutrition, exercise - just because of work.

I was going down a slippery slope.

Because I neglected exercise and proper eating, I became tired more easily, and my thoughts became muddled.

Since there was no regeneration for my mind because I just sat in front of the computer, my work became sloppy.

The fact that I wanted to perform a task maximally and put everything into it achieved the opposite - it became increasingly difficult.

While I exercise, meditate, rest, I recharge and get inspired.

However, in Atomic Habits, it is well illustrated that if you do one thing a day and are 1% better than the previous day, it represents a lot of progress over time. You don't have to cram everything into one day that can't be done.

Now, I praise myself if I exercise - no matter how much. If I lifted the weights a little, then that's fine.

The goal isn't to work out like crazy right now, but rather to get used to making exercise a part of my identity.

Because, I've noticed too, that when I start something, I do it in the long term, I automatically get better at it.

Every day I discover something new, sleep on it, and the next day I apply a more efficient methodology.

So, I don't have to worry about whether I'm doing it right or whether I should drive myself to death because sooner or later I'll get used to how I do it, get bored with it, and therefore do it harder and better.

Striving for perfection is severely hindering.

Suppose I work on my newsletter for a thousand years to make it perfect, I wouldn't feel the flow of just writing, coming, and sending it out.

I would always stop, think, and wait with it. It wouldn't work.

However, if I accept that it is what it is, then I continuously send them out, but they will get better day by day because it has become a habit, an automatic routine.

It's not just one thing where if I've been doing something for a long time, I can perform the same task in 5% of the original time.

If I can do it that quickly, then there's also time to perfect it, with pleasure, since I want to step out of my comfort zone, I want to do something new.

However, at the beginning, this is counter-productive because the task is inherently difficult, and I would make it even more difficult, which would take away from the enjoyment.

Have you had a similar experience? Is there something where you currently have huge expectations of yourself and can't finish the task? Have you experienced getting better at something day by day, even if you only do it a little?

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