Help with being a perfectionist.

I am a perfectionist. I do things bordering on obsessive because of it, it hinders my poker game among other things and I need help with it.

There, just wanted to get that out of the way.

The odd thing is that it is selective. My house is a pigsty. Dirty clothes litter the floor, unwashed plates pile up wherever I happen to eat, and I don't get enough exercise. However, with things that I really get into, I get far too particular about.

That was vague so let me give some examples. About a year ago, I was really into an online video game (Warcraft). However, I never got really good at it despite putting in fairly absurd hours as because as soon as an account I was using had too poor a record, I couldn't bear to use it any more and started a new one. I made a ridiculous amount of accounts but couldn't shake my habit of starting a new one any time I got a record I deemed poor.

Another example is when I was starting out at poker, I watched many high-stakes games to get a feel for how the best played it. (silly, i know). I made a little chart to document the games I watched so I would know who the best players were. However, after I'd been doing this for a while I realised to my horror that I had accidentally recorded 2 6th place finishes and no 7th for one of the tournaments. Instead of trying to fix the error I immediately deemed the whole thing worthless, promptly deleted it and started over from scratch. I know it seems ridiculous but it's a real problem for me.

Now I am having trouble documenting my results because as soon as I deem that I have not played to my potential, or I discover make a mistake in recording my results they are instantly flawed and I delete them all. This is obviously making it difficult to gauge how I am really going.

I don't understand this at all, but it borders on a compulsion for me and I am not sure how to help myself.


I apologise for the long, rambling garbled mess I have written here but I needed to get it out of my system.

I would be GREATLY appreciative if you could offer any help.