How the Constant Need for Perfection Obstructs the Process of Learning Something New

In “The Perfectionist Trap”, the School of Life talks about the how the constant need for absolute perfection acts as a barrier to learning new skills. Instead, it is suggested to accept failure as a necessary starting point toward success.

We become stuck in an uncomfortable paradox: our ambitions have been ignited by greatness, but everything we know of ourselves points to congenital ineptitude. We have fallen into what we can term the Perfectionist Trap, defined as a powerful attraction to perfection shorn of any mature or sufficient understanding of what is required to attain it. …We need to recognise the legitimate and necessary role of failure, allow ourselves to do things quite imperfectly for a very long time – as a price we cannot avoid paying for an opportunity one day, in many decades, to do something that others will consider a spontaneous success.