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In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2000, Martha Stewart described herself as a “maniacal perfectionist.”
You remember Martha Stewart, right?
A woman whose career has spanned six decades. A woman who turned a Connecticut-based catering business into a billion-dollar corporation. Someone who has cultivated publicity-provoking friendships with a wide cast of famous characters: Donald Trump, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg. And most recently, a woman who, now in her eighties, appeared as the cover girl for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue 2023.
“I’m a maniacal perfectionist,” Stewart said. “And if I weren’t, I wouldn’t have this company.”
When asked by Winfrey if being labeled a perfectionist is a “bad rap,” Stewart responded, “It’s the best rap! No one is going to fault me for that. I have proven that being a perfectionist can be profitable and admirable when creating content across the board: in television, books, newspapers, radio, videos.”
Stewart regarded perfectionism as a catalyst to success, a driving force in accomplishing one’s goals and realizing one’s dreams.
. . .
Recently, while listening to a television news program, I encountered the term task paralysis.
The term refers to an inability to complete tasks and accomplish goals due to anxiety or fear of failure. People with task paralysis hang back from doing things. They avoid tackling items on their to-do list because they don’t think they’ll be able to complete them according to the standards they have set for themselves, or because they feel that they lack motivation even to set those standards.
Learning this term was a revelation for me. It was like one of those random mornings in the bathroom when you look in the mirror and discover something about yourself that you’ve never before noticed. For instance, Oh my gosh, my right eye is bigger than my left. Why have I never seen that before? Or, Oh, look! The freckles on my right cheek are in exactly the same configuration as the stars in the Big Dipper!
It was one of those moments when the lights in my brain suddenly shone a little brighter and I realized something about myself that hadn’t occurred to me before.
That’s me, I thought. I suffer from task paralysis. I’m task-paralyzed.
I’m sometimes unable to begin projects or meet deadlines because I’m held captive by my couch, or sometimes my bed. At these times, I feel ashamed. I wonder what’s wrong with me. I sometimes head to my laptop to put in a good, concentrated few hours of work, but on my way there I get distracted, sidetracked by . . . something. What was it? Anything will do. At times like that, I feel like a coward.
I always thought I was just lazy.
However, psychologists have taken the time to name and define this condition, so it must not be solely my problem.
It’s the downside of perfectionism. Rather than fueling our ambition and propelling us to succeed the way that Martha Stewart has, perfectionism can sabotage us. It can cause us to avoid projects out of fear that we will disappoint ourselves. We will not live up to our perfectionistic dreams.
It’s not just me. Others suffer from task paralysis, too. It’s a thing.
. . .
I’m a writer.
And as a writer, I sometimes spend much of my time on a self-sabotaging pursuit called not-writing.
My bouts of not-writing happen because I have an idea, an inspiration, a dream, a plan for a piece of writing, and I become convinced, down at the core of my writer self, that I will never be able to reproduce what’s in my mind on the page. I will fail. Disappoint myself. Prove myself a perpetual writer wannabe. Not a real writer.
When I have these low-down, concrete-scraping interludes of not-writing, I ooze through my day, listless as an unloved slug.
But I’m a writer, so at times like this, I turn to one of my heroes. The veritable mother-goddess of the craft: Anne Lamott. I hang on to her words as if they were her private love letter to me.
“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people,” Lamott writes in her now classic book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
I imagine her shaking her finger at Martha Stewart as she says that.
I can hear her saying to Stewart, You are leading people right into the trap set by authoritarian parents, stern high school principals, and what some people believe is a judgmental, scorekeeping God. You are hurting people, Martha. Stop that.
Lamott describes perfectionism as something like muscle cramps. “They keep us moving in tight, worried ways. They keep us standing back and backing away from life, keep us from experiencing life in a naked and immediate way.”
That’s exactly the way I would like my writing to be described. As a naked and immediate encounter with the world around me. Wouldn’t that be glorious? It’s what some of the greats such as Walt Whitman achieved in their writing. It’s what the best poets offer us, peeling off their skin and showing us their insides.
But with that goal hovering out there on my horizon, I feel my writing muscles tighten.
Psychologist Parker Houston warns, “Trying to chase perfection is like sailing to reach the setting sun. You might feel that you can reach it one day, but it is always just beyond the horizon. Even the strongest wind in your sail would never cause you to reach it.”
Among those like Martha Stewart whose success has been measured by their level of wealth and fame, Steve Jobs may be an example of perfectionism’s potential to paralyze rather than propel. While his high standards surely led to the extraordinary success of Apple, Jobs lamented that his perfectionism often slowed his progress. He learned to rein in his drive, a discipline that eventually led to Apple’s mass market presence.
Perfectionism can be paralyzing. It can cause us to shy away from trying. It can lead us into a downward spiral of inactivity.
That’s what happens to me sometimes.
On the other hand, though, I have known the upside of perfectionism.
I have felt the engine revving and heard the tires screech as I sped passionately into a project. I have known the euphoria of charging toward a goal. So caught up in a task, so intent on doing my best, yes, my very best work that I lose track of time. I forget to eat. Nothing and no one can stop me from accomplishing what I set out to do.
I have felt the satisfaction of paying attention to every detail. Reveled in stepping back, seeing what I’ve done, and declaring it, if not perfect, at least very, very good.
Psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schaffler tells us, “Perfectionism is not a pathology. Perfectionists are powerful, intelligent people.” She suggests that all they need to do is guide their high expectations through positive channels. Once they recognize that “everything can’t work out perfectly all the time,” they can turn their perfectionism into a powerhouse that makes them unstoppable.
I guess that’s what Martha Stewart did. And I suppose, in my own smaller, less conspicuous ways, I have done that, too.
. . .
For me, perfectionism is a coin toss. Sometimes it supercharges my efforts. Sometimes it leads me to achieve things I didn’t think were possible. At other times, it leads me into bouts of task paralysis where I imagine high productivity from the inertia of my recliner.
What causes me sometimes to surge forward toward a goal, and other times to get bound up in self-doubt? Why do I sometimes delight in working to dot all the things that need to be dotted and cross all the things that require crosses, and at other times to dread the prospect of even trying?
I’m not willing to invest in the amount of psychoanalysis it would probably require to answer those questions.
Maybe some potential tasks call up unconscious memories of being criticized and belittled by my mother. Maybe some stir the embers of some of my humiliating defeats. While others spark memories of past triumphs, still brimming with their own energy. Maybe some tasks bear a potential energy that churns within them, luring a perfectionist like me. An energy that can’t be ignored or avoided.
Maybe, but I don’t know.
Then there’s the third side of the coin. Perfectionism’s coin. That’s right. You can see it, can’t you?
Sometimes I walk that tightrope edge of the coin, that narrow road between propulsion and paralysis. I work, sputteringly, in that thin space between perfectionism’s energizing urge and its crushing weight. I make slow progress, but I make it. I procrastinate, avoid, sometimes vegetate. But I move haltingly forward. I eventually get the job done.
Lamott warns, “Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism.” She advises us to thaw. To relax and learn to work within the clutter and mess of our thoughts and our lives.
Yes, perfectionism can cause us to freeze. It can paralyze us. But when it propels us forward, when it pushes us to do our very best, it leads us to produce something worthy of pride.
Something close to or perhaps even actually, dare I say, perfect.
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Previously Published on Georgia Kreiger’s blog and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
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