perfectionism Archives - Ingrid Murray

Bird by Bird

I just finished reading Anne Lamott’s insightful (and wickedly funny) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I hadn’t actually heard of her before picking up the book in a little library in my neighborhood — but her words found me at the right time.

I’m deeply curious about other creatives’ practices, and the writing process is still somewhat of a mystery to me. How can anyone take a feeling or experience, something so big and complex and nuanced, and capture it in something as limited as language?

But this kind of question can ensure that we never put pen to paper. Perfectionism, really, is the antithesis to play and exploration and learning. Lamott gives you permission to write badly: one of her first pieces of advice is to “write really, really shitty first drafts.”

“You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something — anything — down on paper,” she says. If you write and it turns out laughably awful, you are still doing something right. (Kind of like making ugly visual art: if you’re creating, you’re on the right path. Make ugly art, or terrible first drafts. Just don’t not create.)

The only thing to do when the sense of dread and low self-esteem tells you that you are not up to this is to wear it down by getting a little work done every day.”

Lamott also speaks about writing as a lifelong journey, with no fool-proof formula: you can only show up, pay attention, create terrible first drafts, seek feedback, learn from your mistakes, and try again. Writing, like any other kind of creating, is a process, one of self exploration and expression — and it’s the work (the verb), not the work (the noun) that is ultimately most valuable:

You’ll find yourself at work on, maybe really into, another book, and once again you figure out that the real payoff is the writing itself, that a day when you have gotten your work done is a good day, that total dedication is the point.”

(Emphasis is mine.)

More Creation, Less Perfectionism

The more uncertainty and fear and there is — like, say, in this apocalyptic year — the more I desperately try to hold on to control of anything within grasp. Perfectionism and control go hand in hand; perfectionism, really, is having ultimate control. But that attitude is crippling and focusing on perfectionism stifles everything from creativity to racial justice.

Being human is messy. We’re complicated beings filled with emotion and impulse. It’s how we have evolved, and it’s generally served us well. We are adaptive, creative, and innovative. We’re empathetic and have survived millennia by caring for and leaning on one another. The shiniest bits of this year have been these things.

But we’re also obsessed with “more” and “better”. At its extreme, your inner goblin may be chanting: You’re not special unless you are the best and the brightest and everyone knows it. You are not an artist — and shame on you for having pride in your work — unless you are the most perfect. If you’re not, don’t even try.

Brené Brown is a researcher, author, and decades-long advocate of challenging this inner voice and tearing down the impossible expectations we set for ourselves. She has a whole book about the gifts of imperfection. She says:

Perfectionism is a self destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.

But what if we redefined “perfection” as actually leaning into the messiness and the emotion of existence? Maybe perfection is actually showing up as, and celebrating, the whole complicated human you are.

In a heavy, heavy year, art is what will help us process and work through all the worry, fear, frustration, and uncertainty. Art, one of the most ancient human practices, allows us to express all that we feel and experience where words fail. It’s served us for thousands upon thousands of years.

Art is a place to show up as your messy, human self.

You deserve the best, the very best, because you are one of the few people in this lousy world who are honest to themselves, and that is the only thing that really counts. – Frida Kahlo

We may have little control over this pandemic or politics or even our own lives right now, but we can create. We can acknowledge and embrace all that we’re thinking and feeling. We can name our selves and our experiences through the stroke of a brush or the movement of your body or a trembling note that encompasses your own humanity.

And that’s more than enough.

Perfection is a Roadblock

It’s been over a month since I came to this space to share. I started reading Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write to help unblock my brain.

Julia is the brainchild of Morning Pages — three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness morning writing, for your eyes only, done as quickly upon waking as possible. She’s a big believer in creation as a practice; as she puts it, she teaches people to let themselves be creative.

So who better to turn to when facing writer’s block?

And here’s what jumped out at me:

We forget the term ‘rough draft’ and want everything to emerge as well-polished gems.

I am a perfectionist. And perfection gets in the way of creation.

Because I have painted and collaged for decades, I have experienced enough creative block in those art forms to know how to get past it. (Show up. Create anyway. Put some paint down. Make some lines. Glue something down.) Soon, I’ve created a couple art journal pages and I’m back in the zone.

But when it comes to writing, I still feel like dabbler, someone new to this creative outlet. And words, unlike visual art, are explicit and communicate a specific thought to the reader. There’s less room for interpretation.

And then I read this:

When writing is about the importance of what we ourselves have to say, it becomes burdened by our concerns about whether the reader will ‘get it’ — meaning, get how brilliant we are.

This has stuck with me.

I want my words to be eloquent and beautifully thought out and clear and perfect. I turn thoughts over in my mind like I’m polishing rocks, hesitant to turn them into written words until they are smooth and shiny, when they will have maximum impact.

I considered how I could begin to change this habit — to write for the sake of writing and publish messy and imperfect thoughts.

And then, on Monday, George Floyd was murdered by those who are supposed to protect and serve him.

And I thought about how I believe that Black lives matter, and how much anguish generations of minorities and especially Black Americans have lived through at the hands of racist institutions, and how I wished I had the words to perfectly express everything I felt.

But we don’t have time for perfection: Black people are dying as white “allies” like me wait for the right words or the right moment.

Julia’s quote could be modified to reflect this:

When condemning racism is about the importance of what we ourselves have to say, it becomes burdened by our concerns about whether the audience gets how brilliant we are.

My promise going forward is to speak out (and write out), imperfectly, against racism where I see it. I will speak to my white family and friends; in white circles, I have power there to change the narrative. I will donate when I can. I will pass the mic to those who are silenced. I will continue to educate myself.

And if you need a place to start, check out these lists full of resources – from books to read to places to donate to how to take action: one, two, three.