Perfectionism might strangle your writing career. Here's why. [holiday rerun post]
Great writing is empathic, and perfectionism is the opposite of empathy.
Happy holidays, all. We’ll be back with the new posts next week—starting with one on how to map out your book-related goals for 2022.
In the mean time, please enjoy this post, which originally ran in the summer of 2020. It’s still true! Stop hurting yourselves!!
A x
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Perfectionism is a huge problem I deal with on the job. The emotional plague of the high achiever, the perceptive soul, and the people-pleaser, it is mayhaps* a little common** in book publishing (*=definitely; **=literally like 85% of our body weight by volume).
When I’m being nice, I admonish myself and my colleagues over our perfectionism thusly: we need to lower our standards. It’s okay for us to show up mediocre, as long as we show up! In a snarkier mood, I might put it this way: our “perfect” isn’t even all that impressive.
When I’m feeling brave enough, however, I admit the Scary Thing, the hulking subterranean truth from which my Bréné Brown-y slogans sprout like deceptively smol mushrooms: Perfectionism is passive-aggressive violence.
Within book publishing (and, uh, everywhere), perfectionism is a weapon we use to harm ourselves and others. Our perfectionism—yours, mine—causes profound and often irreparable injury.
Wait what no—I must be misunderstanding what you mean by “perfectionism”
I hate that word, “perfectionism.” It’s so misleading. Like “privilege,” this term describes a real, oppressive, pervasive force that cockblocks individual and social progress while causing people to do unintentional harm every day. Also like “privilege,” it sounds to most ears—or at least most White ears—like something that is definitely not their problem. I mean, perfection, right? We wish!!!
“Privilege” = Leona Helmsley and the Monopoly Man spraying each other with Super Soakers full of champagne in Jay Gatsby’s backyard, right? And a “perfectionist” is, like, an orthorexic Instagram influencer perpetually teetering on the edge of Black Swan-style collapse. That’s not my bag, baby. And it’s probably not yours.
Maybe you feel the same way as I do. You’re aware that you can’t do everything perfectly all the time. You are just fine with your Lovable Mess persona. Sure, you want everybody to think that you’re a good person, but that doesn’t mean that you’re a perfectionist. In fact, you live with a perpetual and hobbling awareness that you are not all that good.
When others criticize you—especially over behavior that is “bad,” mean, unethical, inappropriate, dull, unthinking, or complicit—you feel horrible, horrible, because you know they’re right. The shame you feel can be physically incapacitating.
That’s hardly “perfectionism,” though, is it? It’s imperfection! You’re a neurotic mess! A neurotic, funny, kind, clever, sparkly, special, and altogether lovable mess—and oh God, if people don’t perceive you as all of those things, every single last one, you are doomed, DOOOOMED.
lolsob
This is EXACTLY what perfectionism looks like.
Perfectionism is the manner in which we act on a terrifying belief that our reputation is a matter of life and death.
As such, its hallmark symptom is not being perfect or necessarily achieving anything spectacular. Rather, it is living in a state of ever-simmering shame, shame hiding in the wings at all times, like Judy Garland on uppers, waiting to burst forth and barf all over the stage.