Earlier this week I shared a post on Linkedin about primary stressors; I forgot to share the follow up resources in the comments and froze.
As the world seemed to slow down at the end of March, I decided to invest my time into upgrading the garden and growing all our own veg, just like my mum did. Then I got busy with work and it didn’t happen. This week I cheated and bought vegetable plants to be delivered.
I had planned to deliver the next workshop in the Grit and Resilience series this week, but then a few others things took longer than I had planned and I didn’t give myself enough to time to prepare, advertise and deliver.
I’ve been looking at redrafting the book I started last year but haven’t yet published, Burnout The User’s Guide, because boy do I know so much more than I did then, but the thought of pressing publish leaves me feeling sick with nerves, what if it’s not good enough.
Have you noticed the golden thread running through all these thoughts? The line that says ‘if it’s not perfect, you’re a failure’.
Just typing these statements out has my stomach in flip flops and a feeling of exhaustion settling over me.
Never good enough.
Never smart enough.
So stupid.
Why do I keep doing this.
I shouldn’t even bother.
Perfectionism has had a stranglehold on me this week and the bitter pill of it is that it often comes out of successes, out of the fear of keeping up and keeping going. Like waiting for the other shoe to drop, when perfectionism comes out to play then everything is already broken and tarnished.
Perfectionism shows up and, like your Great Aunt Vera who never married or had a career or did any of the things that you do but tells you endlessly how you should be doing them better and lose 7lb whilst you’re at it, breaks apart everything that’s good and tells you how it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
Perfectionism was the trait that drove me to working longer and longer hours, checking my emails 3,4 5, 6 times before sending.
Perfectionism’s voice told me that when people came after me and criticised me for not being qualified enough, not having the right piece of paper or background or as many years of experience as they did, that I should give up.
The problem with perfectionism is that it doesn’t account for growth, development, creativity, experience, learning from mistakes or any of the other weird and wonderful things that we have to go through in the pursuit of careers, lives, loves, families, creative pursuits, simply living.
Perfectionism demands that it be beyond reproach from the moment of conception. Perfectionism accepts nothing less than, and allows to room for error or consideration.
Perfectionism forms part of the chorus of malcontents, singing it’s line of ‘not good enough’ together with imposter syndrome ‘and who did you think you were to do this anyway’, people pleasing ‘until everyone else likes it you can’t like yourself’ and burnout ‘I’m exhausted and it was stupid to even try’.
Together they deliver a perfect four-part harmony of worthlessness, hopelessness, inadequacy and pain.
Well, that sounds terrible. I should just end the blog here and go get that pint of ice-cream out of the freezer and eat it with my hands…
As if!
If you recognise the stranglehold that perfectionism has over you, here’s where to start:
What is it stopping you doing, being or feeling?
Perfectionism tends to be action-oriented, whether that’s stopping you from taking an action or nudging you to take a fear-based action to avoid it. Ways that perfectionism has shown up for me personally this week are in stories that I should just not bother/no-one cares anyway/it doesn’t even matter, but it’s shown up previously in over-working (running across the room to rip open my outgoing post and check it for the fifth time, check, reading and re-reading sent emails to look for a hint of a problem, check) and can show up in over-compensating (come in, would you like a cup of tea? How would you like it? Here’s a Pantone colour chart of options and twelve different milks and sweeteners. Maybe a cookie? I could bake a cake if you like? Watch me juggle these flaming torches and knives please like me) and in never being satisfied (see also the crossover with imposter syndrome and ‘my success was a fluke but my failures were all my own’).
Once you know what direction your perfectionism is taking you in, you can plot an alternative route to get you back to where you were.
For me, this often means starting with my thoughts - key phrases peppered throughout my speech such as ‘progress over perfection’ and ‘I’m always learning and growing’ together with ‘I didn’t get as much as I wanted done today, but that’s no problem because there’s always time’ and ‘thank god I don’t expect myself to perfect’ (usually said with two fingers up at my perfectionism monster).
I’ll then look for active evidence that what thought was imperfect was good enough, whether that’s feedback from clients or noticing how my mood shifts when I get into action (hello action of writing this blog) even when it’s not done yet.
Finally I remind myself of the difference between perfectionism and healthy striving, often by playing through what I would say to a client if they presented the same issues to me.
Luckily for me I love my clients to death and am far kinder to them than I am to myself at times, so I have a great template for how to speak to myself.
The fact of it is, I know that there is SO much more I could be doing, SO much more I could be producing and SO many ways I could have an impact.
Right now in my head there are four low cost course bundles dying to be made, a complete redraft of last year’s book together with a physical resources workbook. Then there’s the plants and the veggies, spending time with my partner, our both spending time with our pets, sorting out and upgrading the house, paying off my debt, solving the issue of the economy taking a dip.
But here’s the thing…
My. Work. Will. Never. Be. Done
Neither will yours.
And perfectionism can kiss my ass if it thinks that that concept is anything less than perfect.
Because I’m going to spend my entire life learning and growing and being better each day than I was the last. And that’s healthy striving in action.
PS I’m supposed to have something to sell here but I have about 12 things.
So, I’m going to give you the link to three Pay What You Can courses to give you more support; take a look at Eliminating Exhaustion, The Crash Course to Boosting Your Confidence at Work and Difficult Conversations and Clients by clicking this link. They are all imperfect courses about getting you into imperfect action - because doing something is better than doing nothing and sitting in your own filth about it, right? Each course is tiny; 7 days long, 10 minutes a day, and you can pay as much or as little for them as you would like.
If this blog has hit home and you would like more individual support then Let’s Talk. No really, that’s a link, click it. Throughout the summer I am offering these one-off 1:1 calls at a ridiculously discounted rate because we’re living through the apocalypse and sometimes that means you need a little support without having to worry about anything extra.
And if this blog has hit home for you or helped you, please do drop me a comment, share it on social media or come and find me on facebook or linkedin and tell me about it. Because it’s nice to know I’m not alone on this!