The bigger they are, the harder they fall on you

Actually thats a line from Dire Straits, which is a well used phrase that might well describe the state of our educational system in the UK at this present moment. However there is a light at the end of the tunnel and if we are lucky it might not be a City Express steaming towards us.

This recent article of a head teacher who seems to have fallen from grace might give the impression that something is actually starting to change within the walls of education. Yes! Investigated for bullying no less.

Surprise, surprise. We heap on the accolades, the beacon awards the golden girl monica and what do we find lurking beneath the peroxide blonde. You've got it. Just another plain old sociopath. One of the hard faced shiney suited ones. Someone who has to get to the top of the pile no matter who's face gets ground into the dirt for that to happen, allegedly. This young woman is under investigation from bullying her staff. What a surprise it must have been to have been escorted from her office after being given the job to raise another school from the doldrums after her great success with the first school.

It is music to my ears. I can think of a few people I would like to see frog marched from their offices for the same reasons. Take heed all you empire builders out there. Big brother is listening!!

New Website for Confidence Building

OMG! I can't believe it is almost six months since I last posted on this blog. In part that has to do with the fact that I have so much work on my hands that I haven't had the time to think about it. Right now I have contracts all over the midlands IVing. Eving. Teaching, Training Assessing and the like. In addition to my practice which is doing very nicely thanks.

I just wanted to let people know that I have launched another website. On this one you can access all sorts of materials relating to self development. They are all free so why not help yourself.

I will be adding more as I can build them. Look out for my new IT resources. You'll love them.

Speak to you soon

Strike kills woman in childbirth

Nobody can deny that life in Zambia is harsh, this is a country in which people often don't have enough to eat, leave alone tapping into an infrastructure that is geared around providing the best service possible. In recent months Zambia's medical staff went on strike for better pay and money.

Unfortunately this left one women giving birth on the street just outside of the hospital. Her family were so distressed by this event they sent a photograph of the baby, clearly in the breach position with its legs sticking out of her vagina while both mother and child struggled for life.

The recipient of this photograph a doctor forwarded the photo to the president of Zambia urging that the strike reach an amicable end quickly since it was costing lives. What do you think happened? Was she commended for her humanitarian act. NO CHANCE! This poor woman has been arrested on a charge of distributing pornographic images. Since when did giving birth become pornographic. Neither mother nor baby are experiencing any sexual gratification for the act. The photograph has been described a obscene, completely side stepping the issue that what is obscene is that any woman in this day and age should be forced to give birth in the street.

What sickens me about this event is that it is a 7 day wonder. After the press have done with it this poor Doctor is likely to be jailed for 5 years for committing an illegal act and the rest of us will forget about her. Another clear example of the powers that be using double talk to get themselves out of an embarrassing and tricky situation. I hope that common sense prevails and this woman is given an apology for the appalling treatment she is receiving and a commendation for trying to put an end to this despicable state of affairs.




News article

Workplace Bullying

When we talk about bullying in the workplace people can quite often state those obvious inflagrations such as being shouted at in front of others or having credit for their work stolen by a colleague or boss. Actually I think workplace bullying starts in much more subtle ways.

Top of my list comes the implication that if you have time off work for sick you are 'giving in to it'. A phrase that I have heard more than once from manangers and colleagues alike directed at both myself and others. The idea that the common cold is a piffling little matter and that one should adopt an attitude of stoicism, coming in to work ignoring the cough and the red eyes despite the inevitability that you will pass it on to others is ridiculous. The common cold is a high invasive virus that affects many of the organs in the body, along with th mucous membrane, connective tissue, muscle and bone. You'd be amazed at the number of people who have a heart attack while fighting or whilst recovering from a cold. Just because it is common, doesn't mean it's not dangerous. Yet this attitude is sanctioned by law where a person can be sacked for having more days of sick than is stipulated in their contract of employment. We are no talking big numbers here. People have been sacked for taking more than 8 days of sick in any one year. Ridiculous!

The next on my list is discounting of feelings. You know what I mean. When you tell someone you feel you have been treated unjustly and they say "oh, it's only work, don't let it get to you" or telling you that life is too short to talk about it. Nine times out of ten when people preach to you in this way you can be sure that the reason why they are so keen to discount it, is that it is not happening to them, and possibly never has.

Belittleing. This is done in a very subtle way and is similar to the one above. You are given to understand that you are a bit over emotional. Not handling it in a professional way. This happened to me in my place of work. You have to have it in context to really see the full picture. After a period of intense bullying in my work place culminating in my having a disasterious interview with the most senior member of staff in which I was shouted at and told I had no credibility. (A bullying incident in it's own right) I along with some others was informed by email that if I wanted to continue to carry out the duties of my enhanced post that I needed to reapply. I'd had a rough year so I decided not to bother. One morning I arrived at work and there were just two people in the office. One of which had had quite a meteoric rise up the ranks. She asked me how I was and I replied OK. She asked again because she thought I didn't sound ok. I again replied I'm ok. She asked again was I sure I was ok. This time I said, well what do you expect****. I've been told to reapply for my management job, I have been told I have no credibility, I've let the job go because I am not being supported by management. How do you think I should feel? For this I was summonsed back to the office from 20 miles away later that day to be told by my manager that this form of communication was unacceptable. I was being belittled by the first colleague , and when I stuck up for myself I was bullied by my boss
.
Leaving out. A little trick going on in the workplace these days are buddy groups. Little cliches of people who 'get on really well together' These people will agree to meet up at certain times, slap each other on the back with their hail fellow well met and then go off together to enjoy a chat and a drink. (Networking) naturally what this tends to do is leave behind a smaller number of people who are not in the cliche.

Witholding knowledge. Little things like not telling you a meeting has been cancelled. Or not letting you know that they date for expenses claims has been changed. Not notifying people that resources have come into stock creating a free for all in which case some people get all the resources and some never get any.

These are just some of the experiences that I had and that I saw happening in the workplace that as far as I'm concerned constitute that low level of bullying. Make no mistake though. Companies that use this kind of bullying have always got higher level stuff going on that is even worse.

If you want to access a free course on workplace bullying register on this site.
www.onlinecoachingpartnerships.co.uk

Kingston University - More Bad Press

Students at Kingston University are complaining that they are not getting their monies worth from their fees, because they say that their lecturers are not able to speak intelligible english.

“In this economy, what graduate employer is going to want someone with a 2:2 from Kingston?” he said. “I have run up £22,000 of debts and I have no hope of getting a graduate level job.” Another said: “One of the lecturers had real problems saying basic words – like ‘zero’, which he pronounced ‘chino’. That is confusing when someone is talking about economics".

There has been a marked increase in recent times of students complaining about the service that they are getting from various teaching establishments. Recently we heard about those students in the University of Bolton decided to give anonymous feedback on the poor feedback that they have been getting from their lecturers. Apparantly this caused such distress that the lecturers needed to contact their union. Personally I can't believe UCU actually kids themselves into belieivng that this is bullying behaviour on the part of the students. They ought to concern themselves more with the real problem which is that lecturers, trainers, and assessors are being so overloaded by the demands of the employer that giving feedback actually becomes a big problem.

Kingston defends itself by saying that in todays global workplace it is common place for large numbers of foreign speaking lectures to be employed by a teaching establishment. I think they said that 47% of their teaching staff was from a foreign country. Personally I think they have done the usual political side stepping that is common place in the halls of academia these days. It's not about where they come from, it's about their ability to speak English in the way their audience can understand, this is one of the first rules of communication. The transmitter has to transmit in a frequency the reciever can receive in or it all goes to rats. In which case the students are entitled to their money back and should get it forthwith.

Meetings of Death

Of course it is not clear what kind of meeting Carl Baybut attended. Whether it was a one to one meeting with his upline or a general meeting held by the Uni to advise lecturers on proposed changes, the fact that Carl took his life within days of the meeting does indeed speak volumes. Something scared him to death (no apologies for the pun)

If you don't beleive that it is going on in educational establishments read this article in the Daily Echo.

It's high time something was done about this. One life lost is one too many, not to mention all of the lives ruined by haphazard and disorganised management of our educational establishments. Believe me I have a lot of experience and I see it everywhere I go. The world of education is falling apart. There are two threats that the teacher has to defend themselves against. One is the threat of government. You can bet your bottom dollar that when governments start to tell educational establishments what they can and can't teach in terms of political content that scape goats will be made. It is happening now in as we speak. Lecturers are being villified and bullied out of posts because they try to appraise their students of the state of political machinations world wide. some have been labelled as terrorsits or insurgents. The other is when the group mentality within the particular organisation they work is so far up itself it will broker no deviation from the norm. So everyone sits around nodding their heads like those little dogs that appear on the luggage shelf in the backwindow of a car and anyone who dares step out of the norm and state obvious flaws in the systems gets squeezed out.

Milking the Cash Cow

I first become aware of this phrase when working in Further Education and I confess to being completely disgusted by it. The cash cow in this particular case being the coffers of the LSC which of course have been filled via the treasury via your hard earned cash paid in taxes.

In this particular case it is being discussed in different terms. Milking the cash cow is now moving towards cutting out the middle man. Not taking your taxes to pay for educational establishments to deliver NVQ's but paid direct from you to Colleges and Universities as the Americans begin to move in and buy up some of our educational establishments and turn them into for profit organisations.

Naturally this will open the debate of the quality of provision. Although in my experience there is no reason to suppose that for profit organisations will compromise on the quality any more than is happening now. In my personal experience some of the best courses I have ever done have been provided both by independant educational establishments and in some cases as distance learning programmes. By contrast some of the worst managed courses I have ever attended have been those delivered by traditional colleges as vocational course or franchised courses awarded by a University.

Perhaps this is just the refresher that British Education needs. Who knows, employers might actually be able to tap into training that is meaningful and moves the workforce forward. Lord knows we need it. Perhaps we should start with training the managers in education.

Times Higher Educational

Honey I'm home!!!

Well, I'm back. After spending nearly one month in the wilderness (and close to a thousand pounds)I've paid my dues and I'm back in the blogging room and raring to go. You may have already gathered that my first attempt at satire didn't go too well. Or did it? My contacts at Private Eye tell me that they get sued for libel every other day. Thing is they just pay up because they have a 'fund'. I wish I had known that before I spent my £750 quids worth. I might have taken some legal advice about what I can and can't say before I posted. Still at least PE are now very interested in the case You see I got it all wrong. Apparantly you can write that someone is a complete and utter tosser and nothing can be done. But if you say someone is a complete and utter tosser breeding a new generation of toadies that is not allowed. Or at least that's what Adam Porter says. Oh dear silly me. I guess I shouldn't tell what I think of that programme the apprentice. That for me it epitomises all that is wrong with management in the so call civilised world. Grubby little narcissists creating nasty little products that no one needs and selling them for ridiculous prices. They'd kill each other stone dead just for their 15 minutes of fame or a few bob in the bank. How cynical is that?

Still lessons have been duly learned and it is onwards and upwards.Keep your eye's peeled. I plan to bring you some exciting news about what is going on in the world of academia. The war on malignance continues and is stronger than ever!

Living the high life

I'm sure you will be interested to know that these are the calibre of people who are now running our educational establishments. Lord knows its hard to get by these days without running into another overblown bully or their toadies but I have to ask where will it end. Have we become so cynical and jaded that even those charged with educating our next generations can't be trusted to keep their fingers out of the till.

An investigation has been ordered into multi-million pound bill run up by a university's staff on official credit cards, including exotic foreign trips by the controversial vice-chancellor's wife.

Around £5million was spent over a two-and-a-half year period on everything from tickets to the Olympic Games in China to payment for a professor's parking fines, it has been revealed.

The cards were used to fund trips to Bavaria, Ethiopia, Thailand and France by Patricia Lee, wife of the £300,000 a year Leeds Metropolitan

University boss - Simon Lee - who resigned in January amid allegations about his treatment of staff.

Mrs Lee, who has no official post at the university, went on some of the foreign trips without her husband and the full cost of her travel to the taxpayer has not been disclosed.

The university, which has around 30,000 staff, receives half its £160million annual budget from public funds.

Details of the high spending at public expense have emerged from the disclosure of credit card statements to the Yorkshire Post under the Freedom of Information Act. It has prompted the university's management to ask its auditors to carry out an investigation into credit card spending by staff.

But the university claimed spending using official purchasing cards - intending to cut through red tape and reduce administration costs for business purchases - was in line with other universities.

An interim report has indicated no serious problems with expenses and no evidence of fraud or misuse of funds, a university spokesman said.

Last summer Mrs Lee went with a group of staff and students to Bangkok to 'rub shoulders with champions of Indian cinema' as part of the preparations for the Bollywood awards ceremony - the equivalent of the Oscars.

The £1,324 cost of the flight appears on a PA's credit card and the cost of Mrs Lee's accommodation is not known. A week later Mrs Lee was with 24 graduate trainees and staff in Bavaria for a trip costing £8,000.

The university helps fund a centre in the foothills of the Alps which provides leadership and management training.

Leeds Metropolitan University has asked its auditors to carry out an investigation into credit card spending by staff. She wrote on the university's website that the trip to the beauty spot was 'the realisation of a teenage dream.'

The party also visited Schloss Neuschwanstein, one of the world's most famous and spectacular castles.

A month earlier in May Mrs Lee accompanied her husband to Ethiopia at the invitation of athlete Haile Gebrselassie, in connection with the university's African partnership programme.

Six months later she returned with a party of staff and students but without Mr Lee, following another invitation from the world record breaker, this time in connection with the Great Ethiopia Run.

The £1,671 cost of her accommodation at the Addis Ababa Hilton hotel was reportedly on a staff member's credit card who also went on the trip. Her remaining travel costs and who paid for them are not known.

The report also details a trip in February 2007 to Limoges, France, which Mrs Lee went on with two members of staff. The £500 credit card costs did not include accommodation.

The university is still awaiting further information about the £20,000 spent by Mr Lee the outgoing vice-chancellor. It includes £1,000 spent on three meals at a restaurant called Brio.. Other spending by 190 university card holders between May 2006 and December last year included the payment of at least six parking fines.

Leeds Met said it spent £40,000 sending staff to the Olympics to raise the university's profile as a coaching centre of excellence (£8,000 on tickets were put on one card alone).

The university was a sponsor of the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at Wembley and it spent £2,550 on tickets for the August event - which did not include the 400 tickets it received under the sponsorship deal.

Among the biggest single transactions were £8,500 for the purchase of a VW campervan, used as a mobile exhibition unit at music festivals and events, and £11,800 on publicity material for the crowd at the Leeds

The university was a sponsor of the Rugby League Challenge Cup Final at Wembley and it spent £2,550 on tickets for the August event - which did not include the 400 tickets it received under the sponsorship deal.

Among the biggest single transactions were £8,500 for the purchase of a VW campervan, used as a mobile exhibition unit at music festivals and events, and £11,800 on publicity material for the crowd at the Leeds Rhinos v Melbourne World Club Challenge rugby league match it sponsored.

One faculty PA spent £671 on 42 bottles of Champagne for staff leaving the university. And £179 was spent at Debenhams on a suit for a chef.
David Willetts, the shadow Innovation, Universities and Skills Secretary, said: 'These are very serious allegations which do cause me concern. It is important the spending on these is clarified as quickly as possible.'

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

An Apology

On 26 February 2009 at 00:43, I posted a blog entitled “The King is dead! Long live the King!”

This blog made various references not only to Telford College of Arts and Technology but also to its Principal, Doug Boynton OBE and the Vice Principals, Janet Ellis, Ann Griffiths and Chris Scott.

I accept unreservedly that the comments I made about each of them were untrue and defamatory and I withdraw them. I have removed the blog and I will not post anything further about them on this or any other website in the future.

I wish to apologise for any hurt or offence that I caused and I have agreed to make a payment in relation to damages for the harm I have caused to their reputation and in relation to costs.

The wolf and the lamb

Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside, when, looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. 'There's my supper,' thought he, 'if only I can find some excuse to seize it.' Then he called out to the Lamb, 'How dare you muddle the water from which I am drinking?'

'Nay, master, nay,' said Lambikin; 'if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me.'

'Well, then,' said the Wolf, 'why did you call me bad names this time last year?'

'That cannot be,' said the Lamb; 'I am only six months old.'

'I don't care,' snarled the Wolf; 'if it was not you it was your father;' and with that he rushed upon the poor little Lamb and 'WARRA WARRA WARRA WARRA WARRA' ate her all up. But before she died she gasped out

'Any excuse will serve a tyrant.'


Borrowed from Australian story telling. Hope you don't mind guys, it just is very apt at the moment. I will probably take it off later.

Conspiracy Theory - Paper is Power

The distribution of paper is at the very heart of the global economic crisis. IMHO anyway. This morning I received a letter from Lloyds bank telling me that their insurance policy on loans has changed as at 1st of April. Along with this letter came three glossy paged stapled booklets that outlined the new policy. They were called, “your payment protection cover policy document”, “your payment protection cover insurance policy summary”, and “important changes to your protection insurance cover policy document”. Why three pamphlets and why three subtly different subjects I don’t know, and I never will. You see I will never read them. Why? Because I don’t bank with Lloyds anymore, haven’t done for over a month and therefore don’t have the need for any insurances. Is it just me or does it occur to you what a ludicrous situation this is. Here we are in the western world steeped in money and comfort to such a degree that we will give not so much as a second thought to the number of trees we cut down and pulp into paper so that we can send three explanatory documents out to someone who doesn’t need them and won’t read them. Not just one someone, probably many thousands of someones. Is it me…or does this just scream, WASTE WASTE WASTE. Where does these trees come from. Why the third world of course. Where food, wood and water are commodities that are so expensive your average person struggles to afford them. Who’s lives have been irrevocably changed by the chopping down of their forrests, a change that for some has been so devastating, leaving them so displaced that just feeding their children is an all consuming task. It’s not just banks that send out these unecessary documents (many of which are designed to get you to lend money that you cannot afford to buy things which you do not need to impress people that you do not like) but it is way too many organisations. I can attest to this, because on a monthly basis I cart a huge containers down to the recycle bins to re-pulp this unecessary destruction of resources. What about educations. With the advent of the NVQ I can tell you that the wastage of paper is enough to make you cry. Every NVQ gets printed with dozens of modules in a complete pack, although the learner only has to choose a number of them, somewhere between four and ten. The rest get stripped out and thrown away. In additon to that there is all of the handouts, and printouts and many other pieces of paper that get copied and put into ‘portfolio’s’. Is it me….doesn’t anyone worry about this use of paper. When you calculate the hundreds of thousand of tonnes of paper that are generated and then discarded from the production of NVQ’s not to mention the hundred of thousands of certificates that get printed off an a yearly basis this means that we in the western world, with out welfare state, national health, community policed, warm, comfortable and well fed society are educating ourselves at the expense of the third world. Is it me…..I must stop saying that.

NVQ - Is it worth the paper it's written on?

Let us think logically about an NVQ. The purpose of an NVQ was to widen participation in education. It came to light that not everybody learns well in an environment where information is to be taken on board and then regurgitated in exam format. Thus and NVQ gets born, a format in which the learner can be observed in the workplace, can produce evidence of works completed and can obtain testimony from those people who are in a position to make judgements about the quality of the work.

One of the questions that I often got asked when I was a trainer assesor is “what is it worth to me”? In other words, if the student passes an NVQ what is that certificate worth. The answer to the question certainly in my mind is that an NVQ acts as a kind of currency. The purpose of the NVQ is to help the government achieve it’s target of raising the standard of competence in the workplace to give us a better place in the global market place. An NVQ opens doors for the person who holds it. Because it places a benchmark upon the workforce that says that someone has achieved a certain level of competence and understanding over a range of circumstances that will occur in the workplace. Simple.

But hang on a minute. If you flood the market place with thousands of NVQ certificates that supposedly benchmark these qualities what have you actually achieved? Have you actually input any more knowledge and understand into the student. Has the level of competence actually been raised. Or can it be said that some of those colleges and learning providers that have cottoned on to the large amounts of government funding that can be drawn down to help provide staffing for such purposes have become much more interested in developing their assets and improving their land and property stakes. If this is so then this is at the cost of the credibility of an NVQ. The fact is that if everybody in the country has an NVQ level 2, what then has been gained. You cannot improve the economy of a country simply by printing more money. The country has to have reserves of gold against which this money is to be printed. Likewise an NVQ certificate. Unless the student actually learns something, improves competences and understanding then nothing has been achieved. All too often now greedy training providers are targetting NVQ’s at such a voracious rate it calls into question just who exactly is being served by this wholesale handing out of certificates. Not the learner certainly, handing out certificates with gay abandonment does in fact devalue its currency. If everyone has one, how then does the holder have an advantage in the job procurement stakes. If you are thinking of doing and NVQ, or you are an employer who has been told they can avail themselves of NVQ qualifications for their staff then let me appraise you of some questions you should ask.
• Who is funding this
• How much money is the training provider getting into their coffers
• What training is the provider supposed to offer. (You can garuantee that Learning and Skills Councils, through which the funding is reached will have requirements about the hours and level of training to be provided)
• How much of the training is actually class room based
• Can the provide define the on the job training that will be available
• How much of an actual involved will significant others have in the work place (Known as expert witnesses)
• How many hours face to face meetings will the provider provide
• What are the Guided Learning Hours.
• What is the workload of the individual assessor
• How many certificates on a yearly basis does the department hand out.

Armed with this information you will be able to avoid some of the pitfalls of the Train 2 Gain wave of training currently being offered.

Things to avoid.

• If your assessor tells you that the qualification should take about 12 weeks to complete. Most NVQ’s carry with them GLH of 70 or more. 12 weeks in what the individual provider would like to have because they can achieve more thereby draw down more funding
• If you see your assessor once a fortnight for 40 minutes or so
• If you are not offered any class room based training.
• If you are asked to fill in a booklet as a method of ‘training’
• If your assessor comes and ticks a few boxes and then asks you to sign something
• If you assessor gives out pre printed Witness Testimonies, or asks you to get a Witness Testimony from someone without first discussing with them the reasons for the testimony and what it should include.
• If your staff tell you that they have no idea what it is they are doing for their qualification or why?
• If the assessor frequently re-arranges appointments due to illness or pressures of work.

What you want from and NVQ

• You want to know what work you had to put into it, and what you have achieved in terms of personal development.
• You want it to upskill you in those areas that you or others have identified as needing upskilling.
• You should feel as though you have ownership of the qualification
• You want to have a personal relatilonship with your assessor.
• Your assessor visits regularly. Explains what the visit it for, conducts
the assessment and then explains very clearly what has been achieved so far.
• You will have an up to date and ongoing action plan
• Your learning is reviewed at regular intervals.

Happy learning!

For more information on nationally recognised qualifications see www.onlinecoachingpartnerships.co.uk

Wellington Shops Closing

Out of the eleven shops that I photographed two have moved into different premises within the town. The building society has amalgamated with another, and the opticians has moved next door.





The loss of Woolies is felt mainly because Woolies was quite a big shop, but woolies never did present itself in a very inviting way, unlike W H Smith which is still there on the rail bridge.



Flap Jacks will be missed.



On this cold snowey day in February I'll think that the shops might as well shut their doors to the public. Wellington struggles to be inviting at the best of times, but when the elements hits like this it just can't compete with the temperature controlled clean and comfortable Telford tow centre.

Wellington in a recession

I walked through my home town of Wellington today. It was not a pretty sight. Too many shops are closing down. A sad loss to the town was the cafe Flap Jacks which has always been a pleasant haven for a cup of tea and...well... a flap jack.
With the loss of Woolworth's and others the gaping holes where shops used to be resonate like black teeth in a line showing a grin to be scared of. The writing was on the wall back in 2008 when our shoe shop Stead and Simpson closed down remaining empty to this day.
It's winter time and maybe that has some bearing on the number of people in the town but I'll swear today was a wet Wednesday afternoon that rang with that tone deaf ring of a death bell. The recession is here. To stay if you listen to the politicians.

I think I will make it my business to chart this little occurrence so that Wellington's history can continue to be documented. Wellington has had it's casualties that for sure. She sacrificed a few sons to the first world war. I wonder who we will lose in this next battle. I'll be keeping a running commentary on that, so if you are interested tune in the for the next installment.


Here is a view of the Wrekin, a famous landmark of the Shropshire Countryside, taken from the road leading down to the A5 from Wrockwardine. If you look closely you can see the vehicles on the M54 passing by.

Irrational Beliefs

"Since I am not perfect, I am worthless".

This irrational belief was identified by Albert Ellis a psychotherapist who developed REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy). Why is it irrational? For me the answer is for two reasons. Firstly if you use it as a yardstick then since non of us are perfect we are all worthless. A view point shared by only the most hardened of misenthropes. The other reason is that it sets you up for failure. Since you cannot be perfect, ever, as the final result you have failed.
Perfectionism is a curse. Those who strive to perfect never finish anything. It is a man made concept. Isn't nature perfect? Yet we humans seek to modify and change it, to improve on it and make it better. Of course by better we mean more conducive to our existence.
Surely it is not perfection but acceptance that each one of us should strive for, an acceptance that in our imperfection there is opportunity. The opportunity to learn to expolore to evaluate, modify and change ourselves and our relationship to this planet and our fellow inhabitants.
Forgiveness facilitates acceptance. Forgiveness that we are not perfect. Recognising that our bodies, imperfect though they are, are still the only medium through which we can experience feeling and it is only when we are feeling that we really know that we are alive, whether the tangible feeling of pain or discomfort or the more ethereal emotional pain of rejection or disappointment. Experiencing those feelings means that you are alive. Could you be any more perfect? In my view it is unlikely. Acceptance that things are the way they are is the beginning of letting go of the pain and discomfort that they can cause, accepting that perfection in the eyes of mankind is definitely not a SMART target (the striving for it). Strive to be the very best you can, and when you have reached that agreement with yourself move on. Remembering that you are a work in progress. Because life is after all and exciting adventure. It is not perfecting everything you do or say or the way you look that will make you happy. It is accepting that life is your playground. The place where you can learn anything you set your mind to, and if you do set your mind to the business of learning about life, love, people and yourself you will simply forget to try to be perfect and accept that you are beautiful.