“Know Your Warning Signs That You’ve Persisted Too Long

Because anxiety causes thinking to get narrow and rigid, it can sometimes cause you to persist too long on certain tasks. Since anxious perfectionists tend to be particular and don’t like unfinished tasks hanging over their heads, they can be especially vulnerable to this trap. Know the signs that you need to stop persisting. For example, if you work online, one of your personal signs of overpersistence might be that you’ve searched a forum for over 30 minutes looking for a solution to a problem and haven’t found it. This would be a cue that taking a break from trying to solve your problem is likely to be more effective than banging away at it. Another example might be if you’ve been trying to convince your partner of something for over 10 minutes. You’ve explained your point of view several different ways, and you’re still at loggerheads.
Define your overpersistence warning signs in objective and specific ways. This will make it harder to ignore them than if your definitions were fuzzy.”