Hi ,
Does perfectionism ever sneak up on you and derail your artistic attempts to create? Maybe you don't even realize it until later, when you're looking back through your sketchbook and wonder what you thought was so wrong that you abandoned the page mid-process?
I've been having one of those months. It seems I've been tripping over my perfectionistic self on a near daily basis and
it's getting tiresome! Not to mention annoying and unproductive.
I consider myself a recovering perfectionist because I'm not sure we can ever move completely past this need to be perfect in our efforts. It seems to be a condition of the human psyche that some of us suffer from more than others. I say recovering because I recognize the trait in myself and do my best to move past it when I see myself falling into that quagmire of fear and failing to
climb out of it.
Rather than giving into it and waiting for the feeling of "not good enough" and "who do you think you are to try [fill in the blank]," I decided to push through it. At times, it worked and I was somewhat pleased with my efforts, if not thrilled. Other times, I have to admit, the results were pretty lame and cost me a number of hours of lost productivity as I wrangled the fear of not being able to deliver.
Looking for a
potent antidote, I stumbled across a quote from Mark Twain and it resonated with me on a very, deep level:
Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
Reading those seven words gave me an instant shift in perspective! Suddenly, instead of my efforts being not good enough, they became an effort in continuous improvement. It was as if a
load of bricks dropped from my back and the flow of effort became just that, a flow rather than me trying to slog uphill in the mud.
Did it completely eliminate those feelings of inadequacy or the fear that I was going to make a complete and utter fool out of myself? No. Not hardly, but it did allow me to ignore them and move ahead. Do I think I'll fall prey to perfectionism again? Yep. It's an ongoing struggle with myself.
The odd thing about this recent attack of
perfectionism is that it had nothing to do with my art but with web site technology and my fledgling attempts at writing. I believe we sometimes fail to recognize the pitfalls of perfectionism in other areas of our lives (I certainly do), but it can strike anywhere. Perhaps it's just easier to see with our artistic efforts.
Before it strikes you, if you are one of the chosen ones who suffers from this malady, I hope you'll tuck these words away in your heart. Pull them out
and reframe your efforts when perfectionism tries to stop you and then get busy "improving" one more time.
Now, let's talk about upcoming NEW classes for August and September!
All the best to you,
Laure
