How To Do Things When You Are A Perfectionist
Hello World!
Perfectionism is one of those things that I thought of as kind of a bad thing, but secretly I was also kind of proud of it.
It was sort of a badge of honour to say “Oh yeah, I do it perfectly or I don’t do it at all.”
Honestly, it made me feel superior (“I’m above doing it sloppily” ) — but when I think about it, it also made me feel inferior ( “My work isn’t good enough” ).
I was afraid of being judged. I thought, “What if people see my work and realize the truth, that I really am not good enough?”
I felt like I had to work so hard and make things perfect so that people couldn’t criticize me.
It sounds kind of “pretty” to be a perfectionist, or nice to have “perfect” work, but the result of that thinking is that I rarely put myself out there.
Posting a dance video: it’s not smooth enough, better not post it.
Writing a Facebook post: it’s not interesting enough, better not write it.
Saying a comment in a group of people : it’s not witty enough, better not say it.
When I did create something, it exhausted me so much both because of how long I worked on it, and also because of stress of starting at the last minute. Yes, procrastination and perfectionism go hand in hand. Because if you know something is going to take so much effort and time, it really makes you not want to do it. Until you basically have no choice because the deadline is right around the corner.
So what can you do?
Get your calendar out and decide in advance when you are going to do it, and how long it will take. Start when you say you will and stop when you say you will.
When that “appointment” comes up, expect your primitive brain to function normally: It evolved to make us want to conserve energy for survival and avoid the pain of rejection so it will try and convince us to not start…
“We are too tired.”
“We can do it tomorrow.”
“It’s been such a hard day, we deserve a rest.”
…and not to stop…
“It’s not good enough.”
“I need like 3 more hours to work on this.”
“Why didn’t I start sooner?”
It’s ok that your brain does that. You get to be in charge. “Thank you primitive brain for trying to help me survive. We are safe and we are going to start/stop this thing now.”
Of course you can schedule time to work on it at a later date, but you want to first start allowing yourself to show up in the first place. And what you will find is that your imperfect work, is actually pretty good, and it EXISTS!
Having never before edited a video, I put this video at the bottom of the page together in 7 hours and am happy with how it turned out, with the final product, but more importantly that I didn’t let my perfectionism stop me from showing up.
After the 7 hours I assigned myself, did I still want to change and add more to it? Of course. But what I want to do is develop a relationship with myself where I can put work out into the world rather than hide behind my perfectionism.
If this is something you struggle with and would like support in, I can help.