What would my life be like if I weren't a perfectionist?

Let's start by stating that one who strives for perfection isn't necessarily a perfectionist. Someone who seeks to better himself or herself isn't mistaken; indeed it is a noble goal to try to become a better person. The problem, or more specifically my problem, is the obsession with perfection that changes it from a worthy goal to a self-destructive driving force.

Someone who strives for perfection isn't one who never fails. Nor do they get discouraged by failure. In some ways that kind of perfectionist looks forward to failure as a way to learn and grow, as a way to do better the next time around. When things go wrong, they may be disappointed, but they don't then feel worthless or stupid for making a mistake. Not so for a perfectionist like me.

As an example from my life, I am a electricity nazi. I'm not quite to the point where I have one lightbulb that I move from room to room, but that's mostly because the people who lived in my house before liked Ikea lights and those things don't take normal bulbs. Anyway, every night I try to remember to turn off every source of power in the house that I don't need to keep running; things like my fridge get preferential treatment and stay on. If I wake up in the morning and find that I didn't remember to turn something off, I have that moment of "I'm an idiot". If I wasn't so obsessed with getting things right, perhaps that "idiot" thought would be a "woops" thought and bother me little if at all.

I'm not a perfectionist about everything. Anyone who has seen my lawn would agree with that. ;) What I am obsessed with doing "right" is enough to disrupt my day anyway. So I guess I should just say what would be different about my life in general.

• When driving, other people doing stupid things wouldn't bother me so much; perhaps I wouldn't even think them stupid, but commiserate their bad day.
  
• When having a rough night at kung fu, I would praise myself for sticking with the class rather than belittle my abilities for feeling so weak.
  
• When I made any random mistake my first thought wouldn't be one of irritation or anger, just acknowledgement and possibly an effort to remember not to repeat that mistake.
  
• When dinner burns, my egg yolk breaks at an inopportune time, or my dough just won't rise, I'd just roll my eyes and start over instead of growl with frustration.
  
• Since I wouldn't be as busy thinking about what's wrong, it's quite likely I'd do everything in general better. In an odd way, being less of a perfectionist would allow me to be a more effective perfectionist.
  

I suppose my fear in giving up on trying to be perfect is that I will lose that drive I have to strive for excellence. If I'm not pushing to be perfect then I might not be even leaning towards perfect, or even just trying to do well. The idea of aiming for "good enough" rather than "very good" doesn't sit well with me. To give up being a perfectionist I will have to find a way to continue to strive for greater things without having the anxiety or guilt of not doing as well as I think I should. Not sure how to do that yet, but CBT is today so pehaps I'll have something useful to work with in a couple of hours. Here's hoping!