When Perfectionism Gets in the Way of Progress

Recently, I’ve been reading a book recommended to me by one of my clients called Page One to Done by Jessica Brody.

My book shelf is filled with writing books. Bird by Bird, Writing Down the Bones and about 50 others.

I've certainly gotten something out of all of the books, because I've been buying and reading these things for 30 years. I'd argue that I've done more reading than writing though...

Eventually my take-a-way from everything was that you just have to write. Just do it.

Which is true, obviously.

To me what that meant was muscling through. Sit down, tie yourself to the chair with a pair of panty hose (I did that once. You're probably more surprised that I had panty hose), and do it.

And how's that working for you Kim?

Thanks for asking. The self-berating, force yourself, it's simple-just-sit-down-and-write-Kim hasn't worked. Not for the bigger projects I have in mind.

I know my motto is kindness, but when it comes to creating art, turns out I'm really mean to myself.

What I was missing in my writing approach was a specific strategy. I knew about free-writing, sure. I've talked before about setting a 10 minute timer, which helps me start.

But in the book, she pushes the strategy of not editing when you write. Makes sense, right?

I just tried this exercise of not self-editing for the first time this morning.

I've done plenty of hard things in my life.

Turns out that letting go and being messy is a skill I haven't developed yet. (Growth mindset).

Play is one of my core values; not just because I like sports, but I like being playful. Someone once told me that I was so type B I was almost a type C.

While that's true in a lot of areas of my life, turns out I'm super uptight in creating art.

I had no idea how often I deleted words and phrases and sentences when I was writing. I type fast (thanks Mrs. Kodman), and I just never noticed how often I hit the backspace button to delete. ​

It was actually painful to leave some of the sentences and phrases on the screen without deleting them. I didn't realize just how present my perfectionist, critical editor was showing up every time I sat down to write.

I've known the concept of free-writing for my entire adult life. I just never recognized how much my control-freak editing was taking over.

Perfectionism comes up often in my work with clients. Getting it right, (whatever right means to us), not looking stupid, being okay with messy.

I never thought I was a perfectionist, and if you saw my desk you'd know why. But perfectionism isn't about having high standards; it's about believing that anything less than perfect doesn't count. That there's no place for messy.

When it comes to habit change, what's do-able is repeatable (I know, I came up with that all by myself..).

Sitting down and forcing myself to write good stuff every day isn't repeatable.

Sitting down with a writing prompt and word vomiting on a page for 15 minutes is.

Fitness, writing, or art doesn't reward perfectionism. I'm probably saying this more to myself than any of you right now). It rewards repetition and consistency.

Being perfect isn't repeatable.

But allowing ourselves to show up as we are to whatever process we're working on?

That's repeatable.

Also thank God the All-Star Break is over. It's been a long four days with no Pittsburgh Pirate baseball.