My last piece took three months to write. When I get on a rant I can write for days. It’s easy, I have a direction, if I’m lucky I have a template to respond to. When left on my own I go off on tangents, I go off topic too easily, I babble, my words become redundant. Even now I still nitpick my last piece. It should be more concise, succinct, expanded, delete, worded differently.

There is a voice in the back of my head that sounds IMPORTANT. It says to me, “You should be better.”

There is nothing really wrong with me. I’m average, with a strong addiction to the written word. I am adequate in most respects. I don’t need to be “better”. Besides saying “you should be better” is not a measurable statement. The drive to better could very well follow me forever.

To counter this, I often say an affirmation to myself. It goes like this, “I am good as I am.” Does it work? Some days better than others. I also repeat “This too shall pass”. Or whatever else I can come up with that counters my current thoughts.

Perfectionism has been known to completely debilitate me. I prefer writing to speaking, because it gives me time to ponder over my words. When I speak it’s on the spot, off the top of my head, and I fear I’m going to say the wrong thing or my words will be misunderstood. So I am a wall flower, shy, standoffish. I am trying to get out there. It is a work in progress. As I wrote my opinions more, I feel more confident in personal expression. This maybe an age related thing, as I reach adulthood I am more comfortable in my own skin.

For me, quite literally, perfectionism is the cause of procrastination. The logic of it goes like this:

Me: I think I’ll work on today.

Perfectionist Voice: What you wrote yesterday needs work. Why bother writing more?

Me: I’ll edit it later. Rewrite. IT just feels nice to write, who cares if it’s good?

Perfectionist Voice: You’ll never do anything with it, just like the rest of your projects. Your work isn’t good enough.

By this point I’m either writing or surfing the web randomly, depending on who wins the argument.

Perfectionism is a trait that appears to be passed on. I learnt it from my mother, and my dear, sweet child is hardest on herself. Five years old and she thinks she should know everything. If a picture doesn’t turn out the way she envisions it, she tosses it aside (I did the same as a pre-teen when I flirted with drawing. I’ve since stopped drawing and stick to writing). We feel for her teachers, I promise them; we are not pushing her to be better.

I feel inclined to point out there is some good points to being a perfectionist. Okay, very few of them. Okay, maybe two.

When I do work, it is good work. I won’t let it out until I’m happy with it. (Which have been few and far between so far). Perfectionism makes for hard workers. I want to be The Best [person/job title] Ever. I only need to be shown once or twice. I need very little supervision (except when it comes to boring jobs, then I lose focus). I give my best effort to the point of exhaustion and beyond it sometimes.

Occasionally; perfectionists employs persistence. If I don’t master something I will work on it until I am master. I will find another way of getting the job done. Unless the voice wins, then I abandon the task.

Perfectionism gives me a need for validation. I recall an episode of the Simpsons where the teachers go on strike and Lisa freaks out because she’s not being evaluated, tested, and graded. That’s me. I need to feel special.

I don’t like criticism. If it’s the only thing coming, it’s harsh. Balanced with good, I can deal. But then, bad criticism is better than nothing at all. No comments, no indication of my status; I end up following people around asking if I’m okay, my work is good right? It’s why I fail at long-term blogging. No comments? Kill me, I must suck. That damned inner voice (which wants to add that criticism validates it’s opinions).

I thought about doing a section: ‘How to Overcome Procrastination’. But, I’m not a self-help writer. I only have self-awareness not advice. What works for me, wouldn’t likely work for other people anyway.

It’s only an inner battle for me.

If I can get to a task before that Voice starts in, if I can do a task in spite of that Voice.

I win.

More often though, I lose.

A life coach I admire, because he doesn’t give advice; says that the Inner Voice exists because of the belief we can scare ourselves into working harder and better. Sadly we just get too scared to do anything most of the time.