When you read the word “Perfectionist” what comes to your mind?
What about when you read the word “Prideful?”
Now think about these two words as they relate to you…

You may be a free-spirited lady who much prefers the word “messy” or “organic” over the word “perfectionist.” If that’s you please stick with me, you may learn a lot about your sister, your mom or your co-worker through this post.

When I read the word “perfectionist” my thought are generally pretty good…I can see the negative, but in general it’s something I have found myself striving for in life.

However when I think about the word “prideful”, it is not a quality I want to attain.
But then I read this quote…

“although perfectionists seem very insecure, doubting their decisions, and having low opinions of themselves, at the same time, they have excessively high personal standards and exaggerated emphasis on precision, order and organization, which suggests an aspiration to be better than others.” Perfecting Ourselves to Death

I had to stop and read it again and again…that doesn’t sound like the positive view of “perfectionism” I have. That sounds exactly like PRIDE!

I honestly scared myself.  Reading through this list the attributes of “perfectionism” gave me a wake up call.  Not all the time do I find myself living out all these attributes, but I have seen all of them take a deep root in my life at some point. In fact I used to gain a lot of my confidence from being a perfectionist.

Now what do I do?  I just realized that this is pride and now I have to work through it.  I wrote out all these prideful attributes I had just identified in myself, because I had never thought I was really just living out the definition of Pride.  I slowly began to work through these over the next week in my conversations with God.  They certainly are not gone, but Ihave started to be able to indentify them quickly and say a quote I picked up from Beth Moore’s book So Long Insecurity, ”That’s nothing but pride.  God, forgive me.  Self, get over it.”

Can you identify with the perfectionist? Can you see how Pride can hinder your leadership?