2: a disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable
Yesterday, my head was aching painfully and I needed a reprieve from the hustle, bustle and noise generated by three daughters. J graciously agreed I could go upstairs and retreat for a bit. As I headed up, I grabbed The Birth Order Book. I had finished a fiction book earlier that day and wasn't quite ready to dive into another. I've read snippets of The Birth Order Book before and knew it was one I could read a bit of without committing to the entire book. As I picked it up to read, I was thinking of reading a section about middle children. But God had other plans. He wanted to talk to me about me, not about B.
I opened the book to a chapter called "Just How Serious a Problem is Perfectionism?" Not surprisingly, this is a follow-up chapter to the one on First Borns. Flipping through it, I came across a quiz. While I've struggled with perfectionism, this is something I think I've improved on in recent years. The quiz results seemed to affirm this - I was a "mild perfectionist." OK, that sounds pretty good. Moving on...
But as I turned the pages, my eyes fell on a story about how procrastination is tied to perfectionism. In this story, a man recounts how hard he finds it to fully finish projects that he starts. The author tells him, "My big guess is that you grew up in a home where criticism reigned... you protected yourself from criticism by not finishing things."
Hmmm. That hit a bit too close to home. Months ago, I wrote a short story with A and she asked me to submit it to Highlights. I haven't. Weeks ago, I had an idea for a book about the Fun Jar, so that other parents are equipped with fun ideas to fill their summers. I was excited and inspired. I worked on it until I had a parial introduction, a few sample chapters and a full outline. Nothing since then. If you asked me about it, I'd tell you I've stopped working on it because I don't think publishers will want a fully finished manuscript. Or I'd tell you it's been hard to work on it since Kate stopped going to day care for the summer. Those would be half-truths. If those were my real concerns, I would be researching potential publishers. I would be finishing the intro at night. I would be working on it. And I decidedly am not working on it.
Instead, I have distracted myself with worthy projects like cleaning out my basement or buying and setting up a pool for my children or preparing K's old clothes for a consignment sale. Anything but writing.
I'm a little ashamed to admit this. It shows my fear - fear of rejection, of failure, of what will happen if I really try. It shows my pride. And worst of all, it shows disobedience. When I had the idea for the Fun Jar book, it felt inspired. It felt like the Spirit saying to me "You should do this." So why am I not doing it?
7 comments:
i am right there with you, shannon! i do it most often in my writing...
Your honesty is so appreciated shannon. And because your honest it helps me turn and look and evaluate myself. I struggle in the exact same way, it's the follow through-the "what if i keep going with this(writing, art project, etc) and it's not as good as I want it to be, it doesn't meet my perfect vision?" I think I have worked on the perfectionism thing too, but just reading your blog is reminder to me of how far I have to go. Thanks for the insight on how procrastination and perfectionism are linked, leaving out the critical voice is one of my goals with my kiddos. Now start working on the book-get a list of publishers together.
Have been wanting to catch up on your posts, so i kept waiting for a big chunk of time to read them all in order, but that's not going to happen now that I'm in this summer course, so I thought I'd just jump in the middle of things. I must've procrastinated visiting back here, because I wanted to do it "right" and orderly and without missing a word. But then i just missed Word Girl. I completely understand the perfectionism thing.
Thanks for the kind comments, friends. It's good to know I'm not alone in struggling with this. I've never seen myself as a big procrastinator, so this came as a bit of a surprise. Isn't it funny the things we do and don't see about ourselves?
Oh my goodness, I do this too! I had no idea that my procrastination is linked to my perfectionism, but that makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing this.
I can identify with this! Also, I just read your book review on The Heretic's Daughter. I chuckled at how different people's impressions of a book can be! :) I generally don't read historical fiction because I tend to prefer books that are real. I like knowing that what I am reading actually happened, and wasn't just invented by someone. Isn't that strange? I'm not sure why. Anyway, I've had books recommended to me by people who said they were great, and I read them and didn't like them at all, so no hard feelings!!!
Post a Comment