Is the Pursuit of Perfect How to Find Happiness?

April 5th, 2009

Is the pursuit of perfect how to find happiness?

In a new book, The Pursuit Of Perfect, Ben-Shahar identifies two ways of living, whose distinct patterns of behavior provide an important key to our understanding of success and self-fulfillment. They are the Perfectionist and the Optimalist, and there’s a little bit of both in you and me . . .

I once worked for a company whoose CEO was a perfectionist. He regarded excellence as not good enough. Perfection was what was expected. This resulted in many projects taking ten times as long as they needed to be as we became bogged down in the minute details in order to create this state of perfection. I came to the view that the insistence on perfection was holding back the growth of the company.

Employees lived in fear that their work, though excellent, was judged not good enough because it failed the test of perfection.

So what is the difference between an optimalist and a perfectionist and do any of them give a clue on how to find happiness?

The differences between the two types of people are:

The Perfectionist views life’s journey as a straight line. The Optitmalist sees it as an irregular spiral.
The Perfectionist is afraid of failure. The Optimalist uses failure as feedback.
The Perfectionist is rigid, critical, and defensive. The Optimalist is adaptable, forgiving, and open to suggestion.
The Perfectionist focuses on the “destination,” setting goals that are overly ambitious or unobtainable. The Optimalist focuses on the joumey and the destination.

According to Ben-Shahar, we can learn a lot from these types. By rejecting the all-or-nothing thinking of the Perfectionist and embracing the more nuanced, complex mind-set of the Optimalist, we can learn to accept our failures along with our successes — and lead much happier lives.

Which type are you, the perfectionist or the optimalist? The quest for perfection is not the way to find happiness,

For more information on how to be happy download the free book How to Manage Stress and you wil receive a bonus book on how to be happy.