Perfectionism is a demanding relationship with standards in which mistakes, criticism or an imperfect result can feel unusually difficult to tolerate.
Caring about quality isn’t automatically perfectionism. The question is what happens when the standard stops helping you improve and starts making it impossible to finish, begin or be seen.
Is it getting better, or getting further from anyone’s eyes?
Another revision may genuinely help. It may also delay the moment when someone can dislike something you care about.
Both can sound like "I’m just making it better."
The Creative Hero’s Journey explores this in I’m Done Asking, the guided immersion connected with the realm Permission. You look at what the revision changes, what information you still need and whether the next useful step involves letting somebody appropriate respond.
A high standard can guide the work. It doesn’t need to promise that you will be beyond criticism before the work leaves your desk.
Feedback helps you choose the right question for a reader or collaborator. All-or-nothing thinking examines the leap from one imperfection to declaring the whole attempt worthless.
Dan P. McAdams’s Self and Identity, published by Noba, offers context on self-descriptions and goals. It is relevant when the result of one piece of work begins to feel like evidence of your entire worth.