Perfectionism is telling me there’s only one way to do this. There’s only one plan. It’s this way or not at all. It’s all or nothing. There’s no middle ground.
I hate how perfectionism shows up for me. It really does hold me back. It’s probably at the root of most bad days I have.
I've written about here (2018) and more recently here:
"Perfectionism holds us back from doing our best work, because
perfectionism protects us from failure, and
from being judged, but
to produce anything at all
we have to be prepared to fail, and
to take risks.
If we wait for the perfect conditions,
we’ll never produce anything.
And to be great, we have to produce."
I have to keep coming back to it: In what ways is perfectionism holding me back from doing my best work?
Today, for example, I'm telling myself:
I hate how perfectionism shows up for me. It really does hold me back. It’s probably at the root of most bad days I have.
I've written about here (2018) and more recently here:
"Perfectionism holds us back from doing our best work, because
perfectionism protects us from failure, and
from being judged, but
to produce anything at all
we have to be prepared to fail, and
to take risks.
If we wait for the perfect conditions,
we’ll never produce anything.
And to be great, we have to produce."
I have to keep coming back to it: In what ways is perfectionism holding me back from doing my best work?
Today, for example, I'm telling myself:
- It's 7:46am, you said you'd start at 7am. You're late. No point in starting now.
- You don't know what you're doing.
- It's messy. It's untidy. It's unclear. It's ambiguous.
- I can't do this.
On the days where I'm more vulnerable, I could easily slip into a hole...but not today! Writing about it here is helping me to overcome it for today.
Steven Pressfield would probably wrap perfectionism up in Resistance.
Here's what perfectionism looks like for me:
- Fear
- Ego
- Protectionism
- Defensiveness and feeling like you are being attacked with feedback on your work
- Procrastination
- An unwillingness to fail or make mistakes
- Worrying too much about what other people think
- Not asking for help and finding it difficult to delegate
- Starting a lot of things, but nothing seems to get finished
- Self-doubt and insecurity
- Comparing yourself to others
- Beating yourself up
- Thinking you're smarter than you actually are
- The need to look smarter than others
- All or nothing - I'm either obsessed with the work or I can't get started!
Bloody hell!
Just looking back over this list makes me wonder...why do I make life so difficult for myself? It doesn't have to be this hard! No wonder there are some days when I'm not happy doing my work!
I've got a lot of work to do on overcoming perfectionism. But at least for today, I've dealt with it and it's time to get started on my writing.
New story: You're more capable than you give yourself credit for. Turning up is 80% of the solution. Do the best you can. Trust yourself...you will figure it out. Find joy in your work!
I'll do deep work from 8am - 10am this morning and then go for a walk.
Let's get to work.