Perfectionism and Procrastination
Recently I was tasked with giving a presentation on perfectionism—specifically, how perfectionism impacts gifted and high-achieving children. As a perfectionist myself, I was excited to share my personal thoughts and professional experience. I thought about all the conversations I’ve had with parents and teachers in my career. I outlined the ways in which we support children as they navigate the intertwined world of perfectionism and fear of failure. I wanted to bring in some additional resources and began researching more about the signs of perfectionism and how it can be unhealthy. Here is what I found:
There isn’t nearly as much research and information about perfectionism readily available as I anticipated, considering how many people struggle with it.
It looks very similar in children and adults.
It resembles many other disorders and struggles such as Executive Functioning and ADD, making it difficult to “diagnose.”
Perhaps the most eye-opening information I learned was the connection between procrastination, completing tasks, and perfectionism.
“Perfectionism is the mother of Procrastination.” Michael Hyatt
After I read that quote, I needed about 30 minutes to process it. I’ve struggled with procrastination and completing tasks my whole life. It is the thing I do, then beat myself up for doing. Even as a child, I would do something productive (clean my room) to avoid doing something else (homework.) The narrative I’d been following was that if you struggled to start OR finish something, you were lazy, lacked focus, or lacked resiliency. I learned to berate myself with negative self-talk when I left something to the last moment or struggled to see something through.
Then I read this article: 7 Reasons Why Laziness is a Myth. Mind blown. Laziness is a, well, lazy way of describing a more complex issue. In the U.S., we’ve been socialized to believe that the world consists of hardworking people and lazy people, and it’s easy to guess which side of that spectrum you should be on. We’re presented with this dichotomy when developing our identity as family members, students, and employees.
It is easy to look at my failures and blame laziness, procrastination, lack of focus, or lack of resiliency as the culprit. But, what about my successes? I began to ask myself, “if I’m lazy, how could I have accomplished so much?” What if this isn’t laziness? I also knew deep down I was a perfectionist but struggled to reconcile how I could be both lazy and a perfectionist.
Now, looking back, the vast majority of the time, I avoided work because my perfectionism was so overwhelming, it teetered on anxiety. I knew those feelings were coming, so I pushed them aside by avoiding tasks. I knew the amount of energy required to complete large, complex tasks would only be made worse once I neared the end, and the result was not perfect. I even created more work within a task to avoid completion as a way of not having to face the imperfect result.
So what now? How does this change what I do moving forward? I once had a professor tell me, “consciousness is a one-way street.” Once you learn something, you can’t unlearn it, and therefore, your brain will consider this new information as you move into the future.
When I feel that procrastination creeping in, or I haven’t completed the task I started:
I call myself out. Just identify those emotions and feelings for what they are.
It is essential NOT to beat yourself up. Negative self-talk and rumination provide no value. They only hold you back.
Then, I ask myself, why am I procrastinating? Am I trying to make it perfect? Am I perseverating on the outcomes? Or am I confused about what to do next (not perfectionism.)
Then take the next right step based on your answer. If it’s perfectionism, what does “good enough” look like? How can I take steps towards progress, not perfection? If it is not perfectionism, I might need more information or instructions to get started or keep going and should seek that out.
Turning around 40 years of conditioning and habits is not easy. It’s about taking it one task, one day, one decision at a time. Celebrate your small victories over procrastination and perfectionism, and keep moving forward.
