What's wrong with being a perfectionist? You get good stuff done, working hard all the way, right? Maybe some of the time. Always hard-working - possibly - but not always getting stuff done. Sometimes, getting stuff done can be compromised by being so driven.

Perfectionists start by setting very high standards. You want to be brilliant and the only way to do this is by expecting the best of yourself. But in the perfectionists' case, 'the best' becomes perfection. That automatically becomes a problem. Perfection isn't a high standard. It's an impossible one.

You can't control what you feel. Not completely. So, if this is true then ask yourself, why are you continuing the struggle?

Despite how successful we are in dealing with problems outside our skin, we humans tend to run into difficulties from the way we deal with problems inside our skins. Often, we try to apply the control rule that works so well in the real world, outside our skins, to the virtual world inside our skin. We try to change, remove, or avoid the thoughts, feelings and memories that we don't like. But this doesn't really work inside our skins. It's not easy to just stop thinking about something we don't want to think about. In fact, don't you find that trying not to think about something just makes you think about it even more?

The problem is that when we try to control thoughts and feelings, we embark on a no-win struggle with whole chunks of our own experience. And this internal struggle costs us. Ironically, the stuff we struggle with is likely to become more, not less, important. And the struggle will continually draw us away from the present moment, from the here and now. The struggle may also involve us avoiding situations or people, and can reduce our ability to meet our goals in life.

Because of these costs, in the world inside our skin, our efforts to control it becomes the problem, not the solution. Don't take my word for it though - have a listen and a think about whether this applies to you.

The metaphor of observing like a curious scientist helps to foster openness and curiosity towards our own feelings - approach instead of avoidance. The simple act of observing or noticing a feeling with curiosity rather than being caught up in it often leads to acceptance - and if not, at least it is a step in the right direction. Here's a guide to how to take that step in the right direction.

Sometimes, especially when we are trying to dismiss thoughts from our minds, it can feel like we aren't on the same team. The more you try not to think about it, the more it is there. Even if you get practice suppressing the unwanted thought, that doesn't seem to work in the long-term either. Trying to push it to the back of your mind just - does - not - work. Thought suppression has behavioural impacts too. In one experiment, people asked not to think about chocolate ended up eating more chocolate when given the opportunity than those who weren't given the instruction to suppress the thought.

One theory to explain this is that we try to distract ourselves by intentionally thinking about something else. Secondly - and here comes the ironic bit -  out minds start an unconscious monitoring process to check if we are still thinking about the thing we are not supposed to be thinking about - you know, to check if our conscious process is working or not.  The problem comes when we consciously stop trying to distract ourselves and the unconscious process carries on looking out for the thing we are trying to suppress. Anything it sees that looks remotely like the target triggers the thought again and round we go in yet another loop of thinking the same thought we were desperately trying to forget about.

So, the irony of thought suppression, then, is that actively trying to manage our own minds can sometimes do more harm than good.

We don't really use our rational brain that much at all. Instead, we rely on our emotional brains for most decisions  When we weigh up between multiple choices, we don't carefully weigh up the options and then come to a conclusions, no matter how appealing that sounds as an explanation. Instead, we tend to use mental shortcuts - many of which are inaccurate and can mislead us.

The society we live in values acquisition - property, money, skills, knowledge - we should have more and more of everything. We rarely see modes of existence that value 'being'. So, is it any surprise that  we see the acquisitive or 'having' mode of living as the norm? This so slanted towards the side of having, that is often really hard to understand just what is meant by 'being'. Join me as I talk about the difference between having and being, and how to spend more time being.

In this show, I talk about a list of questions that can assist you in discovering your purpose and understand the values that are important to you and that can guide you when you are lost in figuring out what you want to do at any point in your life.

Your needs can steer you off course as much as they can act as a compass in your life. The trick is to recognise the needs that drive you, and to ensure that these are met by acting in accordance with your values.

Join me on 'Thanks for Calling' - my new short podcast series with life antidotes from 27 years as a psychologist.