Ep. 51: How Compulsive Perfectionists Can Cultivate Happiness

Stop thinking you’re supposed to be smelling the roses when you know that planting and managing the garden is what really makes you happy. Wouldn’t it be nice to be happy? I suspect that most of my listeners would agree, but find that as hard as turning off the sun. It feels out of our control. Everything that’s unresolved, imperfected and out-of-order are exposed to the light whether we want to see it or not. I think that to the degree that we can control it, it requires a different approach than the one that’s often suggested—or perhaps I should say, an additional approach that doesn’t go against popular wisdom, but takes into account the psychological territory we’re in.  So, in this podcast I will make some realistic suggestions about how people with compulsive and perfectionistic tendencies, planning and list-making in particular,  can work with those to achieve some degree of happiness.