Customer Reviews

Be Happy Without Being Perfect: How to Worry Less and Enjoy Life More

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been a perfectionist or striving toward perfection ever since my pre-teen years. As an oldest (hero) of a family with an alcholic mother and an engineer/lawyer for a father, my perfectionism runs deep. For my grades, I got "why the B?" and for my adolescent weight gain, I was ridiculed by my family. But the criticism that my family innocently enough started, I "perfected". I became a master at self depreciation. In fact, telling myself that "I did a great job" is painful for me, even when obviously true.

However, after reading Dr. Domar's book, I believe that I can change my thinking and become a much happier person. In fact, I have started using the cognitive restructuring tools and wow, what a difference. Here is an example: my son's birthday was last week and instead of ripping myself for not wrapping his package (and placing it in a blanket), I said to myself, "he is 12, we are away from home, who cares if the package is wrapped?...he just wants the present". And guess what? I was much happier because I didn't lay into myself with criticsim for somehting that really didn't matter. And, I enjoyed a very unperfect party. Yahoo!

For all the women who either struggle with, are paralyzed by or even just flirt with perfectionism, I highly recommend that you read this brilliantly written book. For me, freedom from constant perfectionistic thinking is happening! Thank you Dr. Alice Domar and Alice Lesch Kelly!

In a world of quick read self-help books all too often serving up platitudes, it is a pleasure to read a thoughtful, constructive, guide book on such an important subject. Author Alice Domar does a wonderful job of weaving short snippets about her patients (anonymity protected of course), candid confessions about her own struggles with perfectionism, and compassionate guidance as to self help remedies. An occasional dash of humor makes for a most enjoyable read. (My wife and I howled at the story of Martha Stewart's "perfect" Thanksgiving.)

Couple of caveats for potential readers. This book was written for woman, a point not clear on the book's jacket front (what with the one highlighted reviewer being a male stating "Dr. Domar teaches `us' how..."). I believe the author's major points are largely applicable to men, albeit in a different enough context that males will likely not find this as effective a book. And, this book is much more about "perfectionism" than being happy. Perfectionism obviously is a barrier to happiness, but certainly not anything close to the end all of happiness. There has been a raft of excellent books of late on the overall subject of happiness (e.g., Marci Shimoff's Happy for No Reason) that would be a good companion read for reformed perfectionists looking to progress further on the road to deep happiness.

Notwithstanding those two caveats, I thought this was an important book, well written, and fully deserving of five stars.

Now, if only I had written a perfect review...

I picked up this book after 6 months of seeing a psychiatrist and therapist. I felt as if I was making significant progress through medication and cognitive behavioral therapy. However, I found there were certain feelings of perfectionism I was still struggling to shake. After initially picking up the book I passed on buying it because my feeling was there was little I could learn from a book that therapy hadn't taught me. However, after seeing the title again at another bookstore something told me it was worth buying. As I am sure you can tell by the 4 stars I gave it, I am very glad I picked it up.
The most valuable part of this book for me was to be able to read the stories of others. There were so many stories in this book that felt like they were written about me and knowing that these women were able to overcome their perfectionism and go on to lead healthy lives gave me hope. It was also helpful because I think sometimes you can more easily see the flaws in someone else's ways so reading the stories of others was a great way to dissect my own behaviors in a non-threatening way. As a geek I also enjoyed the history of perfectionism as I love whenever a behavior or trend can be put into context.
I also really appreciated the exercises and techniques described in the book. They reinforced a lot of what I had been practicing in therapy for great continuity. Combined with the stories this book really guided my thinking about my tendencies and helped me make great efforts to adapt them. I've even brought the book in to my sessions with my therapist to help guide our conversations.
My only complaint about this book and the only reason why I give it 4 stars and not 5 is that in many parts of the book it felt like it was not speaking to all women, but in fact married women with kids. There was so much I found helpful in this book that I did my best to overlook it, but as a young, single woman it was sometimes off putting.
I highly recommend this book for women who are dealing with perfectionism whether you have already seen a professional or not.

This is not a book about conquering low self-esteem, but rather one about overcoming perfectionism. It is also written specifically for women. According to Alice D. Domar, perfectionism is a particularly American problem and also one that women are especially susceptible to.

The first few chapters offer a general overview, but then Domar drills down into the areas where women are most likely to suffer issues with perfectionism: body image, the home, work, relationships, parenting and decision making. Early in the book there is a quiz which helps the reader to identify their key issues (for me it was parenting and decision making, so I focused on those chapters).

Domar has a chatty writing style which makes the book easy to read but gets irritating after a while - I felt like saying to her enough about you, let's get back to my issues! She also spends a lot of time telling the reader why they need to change, but I would have thought that the fact that they were reading this book meant that they were already interested in changing and would like some advice on how to do it. Reading the chapter on parenting and all the problems that perfectionism can cause just made me feel worse about myself as a mother rather than feeling optimistic about how to do better.

In terms of how to change, the book is moderately useful. There are some good examples of cognitive distortions and how to replace them with more constructive thoughts. Domar also talks about the need for relaxation and offers guidance in visualization techniques, relaxation techniques and journal keeping. This section of the book also contains some excellent suggestions from stressed women on how they unwind. However at other times the advice given comes down bland suggestions like "accept your children's weaknesses" and "don't compare your house to others".

There are a lot of suggestions given and probably everyone will find something useful in this book, but my impression was that it's too topline to be truly helpful.

From the need to please everyone to the need to be right, this excellent guide will hit home with every woman who lets perfectionism cripple her life. (The book is written for women, but male perfectionists will find a lot here too.) Alice Domar writes with compassion, and while her professional credentials are outstanding and impressive, she writes as though she were talking to a friend. Her guide covers topics of key interest to perfectionists, including making peace with our "imperfect" bodies and personal appearance. She reminds us that nobody's home is ever as perfect as Martha Stewart's, and that our friends and family won't always live up to our expectations. Of particular interest to me were the opening chapters explaining how and why perfectionism is so pervasive among women today. Letting go of perfectionism is the path to inner peace -- and this helpful guide points the way. -- Cindy La Ferle

I don't consider myself a perfectionist, and wouldn't generally look at a book meant for that audience. But I have to say that I found myself over and over in this book (particularly in the parenting section!) This book is useful to anyone who works hard to get things right, and still questions whether or not s/he has done enough or his/her best. It's for the person who worries at night over small mistakes or minor slights; it's for the person who will say an automatic yes to someone else's request when a no would be just fine. Don't think you have to be a 'perfect or nothing' obsessive to benefit from the book. Read it and learn how to be nicer to yourself in a reasonable, unselfish way.

Have you ever read a book and thought "They have totally got my number!" ? Well, this book is painfully accurate about my life.

Co-written with a psychologist, this book starts out by addressing the social influences and pressures, especially on women beginning in the 1940's, to have everything perfect. It points out that media and consumer culture (especially the culture of Martha and Rachaele Ray) exists purely to sell us an image that is basically unachievable (unless you also have scores of makeup artists, set dressers, cooks, etc. helping you) and in turn sell us things to make us feel more successful.

Once the societal pressures are covered in the first few chapters, the following couple of chapters help identify whether you are a perfectionist, or essentially discover whether you're letting perfectionism affect your life and create anxiety and depression. (Here I check a big box for YES and ALSO YES)

After that, it introduces coping mechanisms, exercises, and a chapter-by-chapter examination of how perfectionism can play out in careers, scheduling, decisions, and relationships. I hate to use the term "eye-opening" but it really was.

One of the best takeaways from this book is the point that everyone should be mindful of their priorities when making decisions. When you are saying "yes" to one thing and agreeing to spend your time on it, you are saying "no" to spending your time on something else. And if the thing you're saying "no" to is more important to you, you need to spend more time making decisions to be able to really follow what you want. This may include turning down things that sound fun, or just essentially developing the habit of telling people that "you'll get back to them" in order to give yourself time to ruminate. As someone who perpetually overextended herself, I find this incredibly important in re-evaluating how I make decisions.

If you find yourself continually stressed about issues like housework and whether you're doing enough for your friends, then it would probably be a good idea to check out this book.

I find this book is good for helping me as a type A indecisive overachiever to base my expectations in reality and in doing this has helped me find happiness in the every day events. It's so easy to keep saying I'll be happy after this happens or after I achieve this goal and forget to enjoy the journey. This book has good exercises for getting over perfectionist thinking.

This book spoke to me more than any others I have read in a long time. The chapters were broken down into topics that we can all relate to: self image, home, spouse/relationship, children, career, etc. I found the excerpts from real women inspiring and felt I could really relate to many of the things they were saying. I was moved to pick up a pen and make notes or highlight sentences that really applied to my life. I couldn't recommend this book more for those of us who are our own worst critic!!

Perfect reading for perfectionists! If you frequently feel that your body/home/job/relationships/parenting/fill-in-the-blank are not good enough, this book is likely to provide some welcome relief. Based on cognitive behavioral therapy, Be Happy Without Being Perfect provides ways to identify and restructure the cognitive distortions that often lie at the root of perfectionism. The book's easy-to-read and easy-to-apply information, advice, and techniques help pave the road to escape from the "perfection deception" and arrive at a life that can be perfectly imperfect.