Let Your Creativity Flow
“I’m a perfectionist.”
That’s how you might answer “What’s your greatest weakness?” in a job interview. You think you’re being sly, boasting a strength disguised as a weakness. You think being a perfectionist means having high standards and a great work ethic. But perfectionism is a weakness — a vice disguised as a virtue.
Perfectionism is pathological. It’s the compulsion to chase an illusion: perfect.
Perfectionism, at its core, is about wanting absolute control of the outcome and not permitting missteps along the way. But the more you try to control the creative process, the less freedom you give yourself to create. When you outlaw mistakes, you remove opportunities to learn.
Perfectionism is an obsessive preoccupation with yourself and the quality of your work. It sets unrealistic expectations of yourself. Those high standards squash the courage you’d otherwise use to push yourself and try something new. It’s a death by a thousand cuts — falling short of one impossibly high standard at a time.
Perfectionism is especially deadly in writing, because it prevents the opportunity for serendipity. Something serendipitous is, by definition, an accident. But perfectionists don’t permit accidents. So, they don’t benefit from the serendipity that comes from creative experimentation.
If your creativity is a river, perfectionism is a dam. Bring those standards down to earth so your creativity can keep flowing. When you stop aiming for perfection, you can start focusing on improvement.
