Striving for excellence: “Perfectionism has taken a bum rap.”

“He is a relentless perfectionist who never allows a single detail to go by without notice. Jerry Bruckheimer [right] is a consummate filmmaker.. because you know that you are always going to get 120% from Jerry on anything that he does. I don’t think it is any great mystery that he has been so successful: He works harder than anybody else.”

Walt Disney Studios chairman Richard Cook. [Hollywood Reporter, Nov. 17, 2003]

Psychologist Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. declares that “Perfectionism has taken a bum rap. Were it not for perfectionism, we would be in short supply of all those myriad human activities we deem extraordinary, excellent, outstanding or great in quality.”

From his article In Praise of Perfectionism

But perfectionism – often a virtue in the pursuit of excellence and mastery – may also have a dark side, enabling unhealthy obsession or impeding spontaneous imagination or creative play, among other harms.

Here are a couple of related articles:
Addiction to Perfection – by Dr. Margaret Paul
Perfectionism – by Douglas Eby
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