Being a perfectionist deep down is about not seeing or accepting a greyscale. I wonder if to some extent this is genetic? I am not the extreme perfectionist others are but I have so much of it that I sort of know. I practiced with house cleaning a lot. Everything here was a mess, why? Because if I could not clean to total perfection, it was ruined anyway. So then why clean? I had to practice to make things halfassed and it took quite a long time before I actually thought that was OK and not a reason to feel really bad.

Perfectionism can go hand in hand with OCD but IS not OCD per se. Perfectionism can also be from autism spectrum, ADHD and OCPD.

It really does take the joy out of things. I have both a perfectionist trait and OCD and I can say that this not really OCD.

I also obsessed about lost money, I still do to an extent, but I sort of learned not to. If I lost 10 Euro I can think "Would I actually pay 10 Euro to get rid of this feeling of worry that I lost 10 Euro?" And I would think "Yes, easily!" In my mind that sort of solved the problem...

There is a lot of practice one can do to ease the blows from perfectionism. But it IS hard work and it IS anxiety provoking. But it is worth it.