Perfectionism - Tumblr Posts
getting over the fear of being bad is so fucking hard… like, it’s literally a super power if you can start something and say ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s bad, it just matters that it exists’
‘bad’ is so terrifying, ‘bad’ is wrecking, and the ability to apply self-compassion to things deemed ‘bad’ is beyond amazing, to understand not everything in life will be ‘good’ and that’s okay
essays, art, novels, school, relationships, anyone out there starting things when they are terrified of the arbitrary metric of the result… I am so fucking proud of you, you are so brave and strong
keep starting new things, even if ‘bad’ is a possibility
having to resist the urge to completely trash my book bc the draft isn't perfect
Omfg I got an 80 on a test and it didn’t even affect my grade that much, I still have an A, but I still lowkey hate myself for it
Where’s the off switch? I’d like this to stop please
Wherever perfectionism is driving, shame is riding shotgun. Perfectionism is not about healthy striving, which you see all the time in successful leaders, it’s not about trying to set goals and being the best we can be, perfectionism is basically a cognitive behavioral process that says if I look perfect, work perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid shame, ridicule, and criticism. It’s a defense mechanism.
"Why Doing Awesome Work Means Making Yourself Vulnerable"
So, I’ve been waiting for someone to explain this extremely simple concept to me my entire life.
(via kelsium)
Hooooly shit I needed to read this article.
(via rouxfully)
"When I interview leaders, artists, coaches, or athletes who are very successful, they never talk about perfectionism as being a vehicle for success. What they talk about is that perfectionism is a huge trigger, one they have to be aware of all the time, because it gets in the way of getting work done."
Yyyyyyyyep.
(via rumplestiltsqueer)
I don't know who needs to hear this, but especially with the end of the school year coming up soon, and a bunch of people about to leave high school or about to leave college, I just wanted to say:
Being an adult can be really nice, actually!!!
Like, okay, yeah, life can be fucking stressful sometimes, and there's definitely an annoying amount of paperwork.
But me and just about every single adult I know will agree: I would never choose to go back to being a teenager, even if I somehow could.
Insert obvious disclaimer that nothing is universal. But for people worried about aging or graduating into the next chapter of life, here's some words of reassurance:
When you're a teenager, your brain is extra mean to you. Like, neurologically. All of the changes it's undergoing really, really increase rates of depression/anxiety/etc. A lot of the time, literally just not being a teenager anymore is really good for your mental health
Less than five months out of high school, everyone I knew my age was like "Thank fuck we're no longer in high school." Once you leave high school and adolescence there's really just such a dramatic drop in petty bullshit. Shit that would have been a huge social humiliation or gossip in high school is really often just like, "Hate that for you, man." Boom, done.
When you're a teenager or a brand new adult, you're encountering so many problems for the first time ever. When you're older, you just. Have learned how to handle a lot more things. You know what to do way more often and that builds confidence
When you're an adult, other people generally don't care if you don't do things perfectly, because jobs and life don't work like grades. This was such a trip to learn, honestly? But when you are an adult or have a job the bar for success is usually just "Did you do the thing?" or "Did you do the thing well enough that it works?" or "Did you show up to work for your whole shift and look like you were doing things?"
Similarly, if you're about to graduate college and you're really stressed about it, fyi just about everyone I knew in college ended up very quickly going "wow, 'real life' is way easier." Admittedly I went to a school full of very stressed out perfectionists and the like, so I can't promise this is universal, but there's a very real chance that life will in many ways get easier when you graduate
WAY MORE CONTROL OF YOUR OWN LIFE
Literally I cannot overstate that last point. As an adult, you are (barring certain disabilities or shitty circumstances like abusive family/the criminal justice system/etc.) able to make most of your own decisions. If you want to rearrange your furniture, you can. If you want to eat tater tots at midnight, you can. If you want to get yourself a little treat, you can. You can sign contracts and make your own legal and medical decisions and not need a parent or guardian signature for just about anything ever again
You generally learn how to give fewer fucks
The people around you have also generally learned how to give fewer fucks
Even when things are shitty, being able to choose what kind of shitty a lot of the time can really be worth an awful lot
Gifted burnout and perfectionism
At first, I couldn’t relate to all the other people with gifted burnout when they talked about perfectionism. My academic perfectionism had died already...but then I started working and good freaking grief. It happened. I made my first mistake on the first day and almost cried. It was something so small that I couldn’t have known better because I’d never worked retail, but it messed me up. Then, I made more mistakes and felt even worse. I might quit soon
Perfectionism is very addictive because it is very seductive. It’s so great to think ‘There’s a way I can do things where I can never be held in judgment by other people, that I can totally escape criticism.’ But it doesn’t work.
Brené Brown, The Power of Vulnerability (via fyp-psychology)
Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfect, and work perfect, I can avoid or minimize criticism, blame and ridicule, the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame. All perfectionism is, is the 20-ton shield that we carry around hoping that it will keep us from being hurt.
Brene Brown (via fyp-psychology)
Sage advice for perfectionists like me.
Writing Tips - Beating Perfectionism
1. Recognising writing perfectionism. It’s not usually as literal as “This isn’t 100% perfect and so it is the worst thing ever”, in my experience it usually sneaks up more subtly. Things like where you should probably be continuing on but if you don’t figure out how to word this paragraph better it’s just going to bug you the whole time, or where you’re growing demotivated because you don’t know how to describe the scene 100% exactly as you can imagine it in your head, or things along those lines where your desire to be exact can get in the way of progression. In isolated scenarios this is natural, but if it’s regularly and notably impacting your progress then there’s a more pressing issue
2. Write now, edit later. Easier said than done, which always infuriated me until I worked out how it translates into practice; you need to recognise what the purpose of this stage of the writing process is and when editing will hinder you more than help you. Anything up to and including your first draft is purely done for structural and creative purposes, and trying to impose perfection on a creative process will naturally stifle said creativity. Creativity demands the freedom of imperfection
3. Perfection is stagnant. We all know that we have to give our characters flaws and challenges to overcome since, otherwise, there’s no room for growth or conflict or plot, and it ends up being boring and predictable at best - and it’s just the same as your writing. Say you wrote the absolute perfect book; the perfect plot, the perfect characters, the perfect arcs, the perfect ending, etc etc. It’s an overnight bestseller and you’re discussed as a literary great for all time. Everyone, even those outside of your target demographic, call it the perfect book. Not only would that first require you to turn the perfect book into something objective, which is impossible, but it would also mean that you would either never write again, because you can never do better than your perfect book, or you’ll always write the exact same thing in the exact same way to ensure constant perfection. It’s repetitive, it’s boring, and all in all it’s just fearful behaviour meant to protect you from criticism that you aren’t used to, rather than allowing yourself to get acclimated to less than purely positive feedback
4. Faulty comparisons. Comparing your writing to that of a published author’s is great from an analytical perspective, but it can easily just become a case of “Their work is so much better, mine sucks, I’ll never be as good as them or as good as any ‘real’ writer”. You need to remember that you’re comparing a completely finished draft, which likely underwent at least three major edits and could have even had upwards of ten, to wherever it is you’re at. A surprising number of people compare their *first* draft to a finished product, which is insanity when you think of it that way; it seems so obvious from this perspective why your first attempt isn’t as good as their tenth. You also end up comparing your ability to describe the images in your head to their ability to craft a new image in your head; I guarantee you that the image the author came up with isn’t the one their readers have, and they’re kicking themselves for not being able to get it exactly as they themselves imagine it. Only the author knows what image they’re working off of; the readers don’t, and they can imagine their own variation which is just as amazing
5. Up close and too personal. Expanding on the last point, just in general it’s harder to describe something in coherent words than it is to process it when someone else prompts you to do so. You end up frustrated and going over it a gazillion times, even to the point where words don’t even look like words anymore. You’ve got this perfect vision of how the whole story is supposed to go, and when you very understandably can’t flawlessly translate every single minute detail to your satisfaction, it’s demotivating. You’re emotionally attached to this perfect version that can’t ever be fully articulated through any other medium. But on the other hand, when consuming other media that you didn’t have a hand in creating, you’re viewing it with perfectly fresh eyes; you have no ‘perfect ideal’ of how everything is supposed to look and feel and be, so the images the final product conjures up become that idealised version - its no wonder why it always feels like every writer except you can pull off their visions when your writing is the only one you have such rigorous preconceived notions of
6. That’s entertainment. Of course writing can be stressful and draining and frustrating and all other sorts of nasty things, but if overall you can’t say that you ultimately enjoy it, you’re not writing for the right reasons. You’ll never take true pride in your work if it only brings you misery. Take a step back, figure out what you can do to make things more fun for you - or at least less like a chore - and work from there
7. Write for yourself. One of the things that most gets to me when writing is “If this was found and read by someone I know, how would that feel?”, which has lead me on multiple occasions to backtrack and try to be less cringe or less weird or less preachy or whatever else. It’s harder to share your work with people you know whose opinions you care about and whose impressions of you have the potential of shifting based on this - sharing it to strangers whose opinions ultimately don’t matter and who you’ll never have to interact with again is somehow a lot less scary because their judgements won’t stick. But allowing the imaginary opinions of others to dictate not even your finished project, but your unmoderated creative process in general? Nobody is going to see this without your say so; this is not the time to be fussing over how others may perceive your writing. The only opinion that matters at this stage is your own
8. Redirection. Instead of focusing on quality, focusing on quantity has helped me to improve my perfectionism issues; it doesn’t matter if I write twenty paragraphs of complete BS so long as I’ve written twenty paragraphs or something that may or may not be useful later. I can still let myself feel accomplished regardless of quality, and if I later have to throw out whole chapters, so be it
9. That’s a problem for future me. A lot of people have no idea how to edit, or what to look for when they do so, so having a clear idea of what you want to edit by the time the editing session comes around is gonna be a game-changer once you’re supposed to be editing. Save the clear work for when you’re allocating time for it and you’ll have a much easier and more focused start to the editing process. It’ll be more motivating than staring blankly at the intimidating word count, at least
10. The application of applications. If all else fails and you’re still going back to edit what you’ve just wrote in some struggle for the perfect writing, there are apps and websites that you can use that physically prevent you from editing your work until you’re done with it. If nothing else, maybe it can help train you away from major edits as you go
Being a perfcionaist dosent mean i do evrything perfectly,it means i need to do evrything right, evrything good,great,exeptionaly,it has to be how imagined. i have to be the perfect friend, i have to be a perfect daughter, a perfect sister, a perfect artist,writer,student.
but i am not.
i need to be.
i also need the entire day perfect, i dont like birthdays beacuse of this , and festivals too. i no mater how hard i try , can never enjoy the day beacuse it isnt just right, a trip is ruined because the hotel isnt how i imagined , my rangoli is bad becuse its not rihght, my drawing is bad cuz its not like other artists,. even though i am a begner artist with no teacher.
i feel need to be right, a small inconvince makes me panic, like a teacher dosent have my name in a club even tho i gve my name, i panic, meanwhile my peers think i am wierd cuz i panic. i need to be perfct,not cuz i am, not cuz i want too, cuz I.NEED.TO.
it doesn't have to be perfect. you just have to start. - fighting perfectionism
How to become a non-procrastinator in 5 not-so-easy steps? I know I haven’t written a blog post in a very long time. In my defe...
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An random note on perfectionism.
Not that I've seen any recent examples, but I was thinking about this and wanted to share.
In most stories, when characters are perfectionist, it's always written in a way like the end of their world is not finishing a project or work with everything perfectly done so they have to settle for less. But, there's another form I barely see people write about.
Perfectionism can be your inability to finish anything if it's not perfect.
Take me for example.
I've been turned into a perfectionist from several things, but most importantly, from the lack of support on anything I ever did.
Then, when I got older, that turned into me never finishing anything because I assumed it wouldn't work anyways.
Now as a fully grown adult, I will actually not do something if I feel it isn't going to be perfectly the way I want it to. As if having things done perfectly is the guage for people caring about something.
Now, I've become a slacker.
So, next time you write a perfectionist, you can write a slacker perfectionist who will not do any work because they know they can't get it perfect. That is also valid.
🍂