Embrace Imperfection

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Problem:

Why do perfectionism and procrastination often go hand in hand, especially in Ex-gifted types?

Perfectionism is so misunderstood.

People think that perfectionism means you always put a lot of effort into everything

We think of perfectionists as these type A folks with unlimited energy who live the beautiful lives we see on Pinterest and Instagram, with perfect homes, perfect jobs, perfect kids, even perfect pets.

Most of us would laugh if you called us perfectionist.

That's obviously not perfectionism. Right?

Perfectionism does not mean that you're perfect or that you do everything perfectly.

Perfectionism is not a state of your life, it's a state of your mind.

Gifted kids often think that if you’re going to put in the effort that you need to do it flawlessly.

Procrastination can stem from a fear that you won’t do something well enough or the thought that you don’t have time yet to put in the effort needed to do it well enough

Perfectionism can look like:

• putting things off to the last minute.
• half assing things to protect our egos
• Editing, editing, erasing, rewriting, then shelving indefinitely
• paralysis - just not doing anything at all
• I quit art altogether for 25 years after getting a B on a midterm report card in third grade. Because I had one setback, I chose to do nothing rather than learn and improve

You can have high standards without the fear that comes from perfectionism

What we can do about it:

Intentionally practice imperfection. Allow yourself to do things well enough. Even allow yourself to do things badly.

Let people see your mediocrity and let people see your failures. Don’t just sit in shame.

What you see as imperfect, others may see as gorgeous.

Make bad art, play bad music, do things badly.

As they say, anything worth doing in life is worth doing poorly.

Let people see your mistakes. Let people see your flaws. Let people see you.

The next Ex-Gifted is May 28th about the difference between quitting and running away.

Credits

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Music

Kawai Kitsune by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4990-kawai-kitsune

License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

About the Ex-Gifted Podcast:

If you are a former gifted kid who grew up to struggle with basic adulting, then you need the Ex-Gifted podcast.

Host Ren Eliza talks about gifted kid burnout, and the damage that lasts long into adulthood. Damage like battered self esteem, decimated internal motivation, and a continued failure to live up to expectations even while we were placed on pedestals and alienated from our peers.

Ex-Gifted will cover failure, procrastination, imposter syndrome, and chronic anxiety and depression, and a whole lot more.

Each episode also offers suggestions to deal with your executive dysfunction in adulthood so you can rebuild the systems that allowed you to shine so brightly in childhood.

We’re making exceptional children into functional adults.

Thanks!

Transcript

Hello there.

If good enough is never quite good enough, then this is the show for you. Welcome to Ex-gifted.

Hi friends, I’m Ren Eliza and this is the Ex-gifted podcast.

So what I’m doing today is I’m going to embrace my imperfection and make it public, which means this episode is getting no edits for content. I’m going to go ahead and apologize in advance because today I’m going to take a little bit of my own advice.

They seem like strange bedfellows, so why do perfectionism and procrastination often go hand in hand, especially in Ex-gifted types?

Perfectionism is such an odd thing and so misunderstood. People think that perfectionism and procrastination can’t really go together because in order to make things perfect, you have to spend a lot of time on it, right? You have to put the effort in to make something very polished and refined.

We think of perfectionists as these type A folks with unlimited energy who live the beautiful lives we see on Pinterest and Instagram, with perfect homes, perfect jobs, perfect kids, even perfect pets.

And most of us with executive dysfunction, if you called us a perfectionist, we would just fucking laugh at you. “There’s no way I’m a perfectionist because you know my life is a wreck. My home is a wreck. I halfass everything I do.”

That’s obviously not perfectionism. Right?

Well, obviously no because otherwise this episode would make no sense. Protectionism does not mean that you’re perfect or that you do everything perfectly. Perfectionism is not a state of your life, it’s a state of your mind.

It’s very easy and very common for gifted kids to think that if you’re going to put in the effort that you need to do it flawlessly.

It’s kind of going back to episode one, right?

That there’s no reason for you to try at something you’re not going to do well.

That’s just perfectionism. That’s just thinking that you shouldn’t do things that you can’t do perfectly.

So when you put off, put off, put off, put off until the last minute, sometimes after the last minute, it’s often because you’re afraid that you won’t live up to your own standards – or maybe it’s that you’re just waiting until you have the time and energy that the assignment deserves, because the truth is that perfectionism can manifest in several different ways for gifted kids.

It can look like putting things off to the last minute. It can even look like half assing things and putting in low effort to protect our egos. It also can look like paralysis – just not doing anything at all. So for example, I got a B in art on a midterm report card in 3rd grade. And so when that happened, it became part of my story that I am bad at art, so I should basically never try it again and it took more than 25 years and focused personal mantras to make bad art and embrace imperfection before I even started trying to rewrite story and the truth is that I love art and love making art and have always loved trying to make beautiful things despite struggling with realism. But The thing is, I could have studied so much more and learned so many more skills. Except that because I was bad at art, I would have risked an actual B on my actual report card, or even worse. Something that would affect my GPA. So it was never even an option to me to try something that I couldn’t do perfectly.

Perfectionism doesn’t mean being perfect. It means that you believe that if you can’t do something perfectly, you shouldn’t do it at all, or if it’s a mandatory assignment that you should just put in as little effort as you can so you have an excuse for your mistakes. Again, this is going back to episode one. You didn’t really fail, you just didn’t really try.

Perfectionism edits and then edits and then edit some more and then it erases and rewrites. And then edits again. Then decides it’s not ready so you’ll just come back to it later, which you won’t.

Perfectionism does not mean having high standards, it just means being afraid.

And perfectionism is a tough nut to crack. I’ve taken the route of intentionally seeking it out. Like I said, make bad art. You don’t have to seek out failure, like I’ve said before that doesn’t really make sense to me, but don’t hide from failure, or mediocrity either. Embrace imperfection.

It’s like what I was doing with my spring cleaning challenge. Half of that was cleaning, but half of it was also reminding myself that good enough is good enough.

I want my house to be cleaner and I want to be able to find things when I need them, but if I don’t address the perfectionism in my head telling me that my house is not clean enough, then it will never be clean enough. I will end up spending hours stuck on a single minor project, making sure everything is exactly perfect before I move on to the next step.

And that’s going to get in the way of making progress. Perfectionism impedes progress every time.

While you’re embracing imperfection, go public with it. Let people see your failures!

I have a friend who has been doing this on social media and I don’t know if you want me to drop your name here or not, so I won’t just in case, but she posted a picture of a skirt she made for Star Wars day with a hemline that looked absolutely straight and perfect, but then the next day she shared a picture of the rest of the hemline – which to be clear also looked amazing – but she admitted that she had only shared a small section because she didn’t think the rest was good enough for public consumption, and she wanted to demonstrate exactly what it is that a perfectionist thinks is not good enough. Stitches that, to my admittedly non-seamstress eyes already looked flawless!

Let people see your mediocrity and let people see your failures. When people see your failures, it will make you feel better because you’re not just sitting and stewing on them. And maybe you’ll even see small successes or areas for growth from those failures. And when you share things that are, you know, kind of mediocre, you might find that other people think they’re gorgeous, or even perfect.

So go out there, make bad art, or play bad music, or do whatever it is that you like to do badly. As they say, anything worth doing in life is worth doing poorly. Let people see your mistakes. Let people see your flaws. Let people see you.

Check the show notes, there’s a link to sign up for the Ex-Gifted mailing list. You’ll get a reminder each week about a new episode plus a little deeper dive into the subject at hand, including the email that goes along with this episode, talking about several of the different manifestations of perfectionism that are common in those of us with executive dysfunction because I didn’t have time to go into all of them on the show today. Which types are you? Let me know! No seriously, send me an email I want to hear from every person that listens to this episode!

And then join me again in two weeks on May 28th for the next Ex-Gifted because I’m going to be talking about the difference between quitting and running away. Byeee.