If anything, perfectionism is the drive that makes us be at and do our best. Progress should mean doing and being our best more.

Your fear of mistakes is holding you back. That is what you should criticize. It has nothing to do with perfectionism. Just because you made no mistakes does not necessarily mean that your work didn’t suck. It could be of horrible quality, even though it is entirely free of any mistakes.

You can avoid making any mistakes by doing nothing at all. But you cannot make progress by compromising quality in favor of quantity.

The quality of your work could always decrease if you keep lowering your standards for the sake of making more progress. And then, all this quantity you’re proud of will be trash, at least in terms of quality or how good it really is.

You have to aim for perfection, even if you didn’t reach it. You still have to aim for it intentionally, and do your best anyway, in order to not suck colossally.

At the same time it doesn’t mean sleep on the same piece of content forever, because quantity doesn’t matter. This is how you get reward that makes you sane and able to keep being functioning. This is how you become able to move, so you need more quantity. More achievement. So you just need to be fast. Smarter. Not hateful of being a perfectionist.

Simply put, Make a ton of work, that every single piece of it is just perfect.

More work, all with perfect quality.

Aim for the highest quantity of output, with every single part of that output being perfect in every way possible or imaginable.

Even if you didn’t hit that target, or reach that standard or goal, your work will still be amazing.

Do not lower the quality of your work to make more quantity. Learn to make more quantity of your work without decreasing your work’s level of quality.

You will not get reward from low quality work. Even if the quantity is infinite.

Only when your work starts surpassing a certain level of quality will you start getting enough reward from or because of it.

Nevertheless, don’t think that this kind of reward will last forever. You will want more. And here is where quantity of work will come in handy.

You ask everyone is quality better than quantity? They all say yes.

You ask them again, is progress better than perfectionism? Or is more quantity of work done better than trying to make that work perfect? They all say yes as well.

Ironic, isn’t it?

The power of mass indoctrination.

None of these people criticizing perfectionism are producing more content or work by sacrificing their perfectionistic tendencies for the sake of more output.

They all produce masterpieces that say fuck perfectionism. Just do it, with disregard to quality, because making progress matters more.

Let that sink in. They all never compromise perfectionism.

Also you don’t keep raising your standards ad infinitum in the same single piece of content until you are stuck in it forever. You need to be smart. Get everything you wanted to say written, in the best way possible, as fast as you can, and then leave. Don’t take forever. This doesn’t mean decreased concern for the quality of your posts, articles, books, or content. This just means you did your best without sacrificing quality for the sake of anything else. You did not compromise quality for the sake of making more progress.

You think aiming for some degree of excellence is better than succumbing to perfectionism?

On the contrary, there could always be something else that could’ve been done to enhance the quality of your work. Your work could always have been better if you did this or that. Aiming for a certain level of excellence will make you unable to leave now anyway regardless of the quality. That is why everybody hates perfectionism. When you aim for perfect from the start, you don’t keep trying to increase the quality to meet a certain standard. You aim for everything to be epic from the start to the best of your ability. In this case you will never have a hard time leaving the piece of art, content, or your work, because even though it’s not the best, or perfect by any standard, you did everything in your power from the start to make it not suck. You went all in. And now you can leave it without feeling bad about it. Being at peace with your work is priceless, and is always worth the effort.

Stop denying yourself reward. Don’t turn your creative endeavor into labor.