So, I’ve had a few significant ah-ha moments and paradigm shifts already this year.
Which, realistically, are the amalgamation of the learning / reflection / true-self-adventure I’ve been on for a while now. Because that’s how things happen, yeah? You seem to come across things that are important for you when you’re open to receive them.
Anyway, I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into thinking around innate creativity (stifled by perfectionism), acceptance and allowing (hampered by control). And today I came across two massive truth-bombs / perspective shifts / reframes. In. One. Day.
First, I came across Elizabeth Gilbert’s take on perfectionism.
For those who think perfectionism is a badge of honor some people are bestowed, or a virtue to strive for… please hear this… what it can actually be like to live.
Liz Gilbert nailed it, for me anyway, in a podcast: “I think it helps to call it [perfectionism] by its real name, which is terror. It comes out of a place of tremendous lack and tremendous fear that you’re not enough. That you don’t have enough. That you’ll never be enough. That you’re supposed to be more. That your life has to be constantly proven and earned and proven and earned. You have to prove it and earn it through all these torturous tests that never really succeed… It is fear based.”
Oof.
For me, perfectionism (and its best bud, procrastination) can look like not being able to:
1. Start something… for fear of not living up to my expectations.
2. Send that email/text/document… for fear I might be misunderstood.
3. Finish that novel/painting/presentation… for fear it’s not good enough yet.
4. Post that LinkedIn article… because surely it needs one more edit.
It’s exhausting.
So, what’s the antidote for perfectionism? Up until today, I thought (have lived my whole life with the assumption that-) you research and learn and think more about the thing, right? Knowledge is power! But unfortunately…
“There’s a part of the brain that sees fear and it’s like, ‘I will fix this by controlling everything’. And that’s where the perfectionism comes in, the perfectionism is trying to control the fear. ‘I will learn everything about this subject so that we don’t have to be afraid of it’. But learning doesn’t take fear away (this is where I went still, and my brain said – oh sh!t). You think it would, ‘if I could master this, then I wouldn’t have to be afraid of it anymore’, right?”
Wrong. These two things, fear and control, apparently just get in a feedback loop where one feeds the other.
So… if perfectionism is our desire to control everything out of fear… what, pray tell Liz, is the antidote?
Simple (but not easy) … have more curiosity than you have fear.
If we sit in curiosity, not from a place to learn or to trick ourselves with the illusion of control, but to be interested and open-minded / open-hearted / open to what might be possible… then we stay out of fear. Negating the necessity for perfectionism.
Now, if only I could research and learn more about that so I can do it right…………………
But let’s get real, we all have the capacity within us, I have the capacity within me, to be curious. We were all born with it. I need to tap back into it. Because from what I can tell from the outside looking in, it feels very much like abundance and truth and … freedom.
Ellie Mason Consulting 