Well, "PERFECTIONISM" is one such word.
Now, the first time when i heard this word i thought it had something to do with all the perfect things and those who practiced it were perfect. But then, one great day i came across an article on perfectionism (thanx to google!) and my "PERCEPTION" changed.
Perfectionism, according to psychologists, is a belief wherein the person ( i.e. the perfectionist) very strongly believes that perfection can and should be attained. A perfectionist's most often used phrases go somewhat this way..." I can't start my project until I know the 'right' way to do it ", " Oh! I can't believe I don't know how to go about solving that problem", " I'm unable to understand why I'm not doing my work in spite of knowing exactly how to do it perfectly well; It's driving me nuts; when will i ever stop PROCRASTINATING?"
The perfectionist is almost always obsessed with doing things in a perfect way that he/she almost always loses sight of the main purpose. In short, a perfectionist, like someone said, "cannot see the trees in a forest". In other words, this is an individual who becomes so focused on the tiny details that they forget that there is a purpose to what they are doing. That is why some perfectionists become procrastinators. The perfectionist is like the person who has a fully fueled car, has an international driving license, knows all the traffic rules and above all, knows how exactly to drive well but never gets around to driving.
To some extent perfectionism has few positive traits like driving the person to achieve his/her's goals. But beyond that point, i.e, when the obsession crosses limits it leads to a number of negative effects such as low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive-disorders, lack of motivation, rigidity and immobilization. Because of all these reasons he/she never gets around to actually doing the things they want to do. They actually give up things altogether just because they believe they can never do that thing perfectly. So it's something like either do it perfectly or leave it for good.
Perfectionism did pay me a visit a couple of years ago but unfortunately i haven't realized it until about a month ago. In fact i didn't even know that i was actually having some psychological problem. All those times i was putting away things saying that i didn't have mood i was thinking i was just lazy. But then the obsession reached that point where i was actually noticing changes in my behavioral patterns...a few years ago for eg, i used to read a lot of new books every now and then, i used to do all those things that fancied me then at that point of time.
For the past couple of years and more so in the last year I've seen myself crawl through all those days where i wanted to do many things i was interested in but wasn't able to get myself to start any of them. And trust me when i say that if there's an award for "googled the most number of times" it should be conferred upon me :p. Honestly, I guess I've googled for almost every minuscule thing that ever crossed my mind right from the most clichéd to the most bizarre of things.
And it was one such googling that changed my PERCEPTION about PERFECTIONISM and helped me understand why I was the PROCRASTINATOR that I was. So I'm working to overcome all these negative effects now and i guess it's working coz i don't think this blog post would've ever surfaced on my blog if i were still procrastinating!!! :):p
P.S: After a long time i spent my day really well today by doing all those things that i love...completed this sketch today...:):p
