My definition of perfectionism for myself is that I want to do a job or a task perfect (no mistakes)......at least that's my goal....but I have always felt that if my goal is to be perfect & I don't make it at least I will end up a lot closer to having done an excellent job on something than if I had lower standards.

My H always wanted to JUST GET BY in doing stuff....then I would always have to do it over because what he did never worked or broke immediately....I promised myself I would never hold those low standards for myself. Even at work, I put a lot more time into the design end of my engineering firmware & the programming flowed & I had less debug time than the other engineers. I was always better at the design end anyway than trying to figure out what was broke or how to fix it......so I always aimed at that initial perfect/ or at least excellent job on everything I do.

However sometimes for some perfectionists, it they feel they can't do a perfect job they won't do it at all.....I never allow myself to go there.