Fear, Perfectionism and Procrastination
Why we don't do things
You know that thing that you’ve been meaning to do, but you’ve been putting it off because it just wasn’t the right time? Doing your taxes? Calling your grandmother? Sending that email?
I’m a master at playing the “Ah, I’ll do it later” game. Of course, I can always rationalise my decision to postpone with a good argument - I’ll have more time later, I won’t be as stressed, etc.
In reality though, not much actually gets better or easier by not doing it. The hotel you haven’t booked for your trip next month won’t be getting cheaper, the dentist appointment that you should have had months ago won’t be getting easier, and the bill you haven't paid won't pay itself.
On top of that, when we finally work ourselves up to dealing with the task, we might find out that it wasn’t that big of a deal to begin with.
So why do we keep kicking the can (or army of cans) down the road?
Fear
One reason I'm all too familiar with is that the task makes us anxious. We get nervous thinking about having to deal with it. We want to push that negative emotion away, and so we just try to ignore the task.
Yah, like ignoring your feelings away has ever worked for anyone in the history of ever.
But most things we procrastinate over, aren't even that scary. So why do we build them up in our heads, to the point where we get nervous just thinking about tackling them?
Perfectionism-ish
In short, we get nervous because we don't want to screw it up.
We don't want to hear from the dentist that we didn't take care of our teeth well enough. We don't want to do our tax declaration, because we're afraid we'll do it (or already did it) wrong and get a letter asking us to backpay huge sums of money. We don't call grandma, because we want it to be a great conversation.
I don't want to mess up this newsletter I'm writing to 16 people (so far and I love you), so I went to water the plants. True story.
I'm not what you would consider a stereotypical perfectionist. My drawings, for example, are quick and dirty. I don't spend hours working on every minute detail.
And yet, I want the result to be good. And the thought of messing something up, or finding out I did it wrong, can make me nervous to the point where I'll rather not deal with it right now. But hey, maybe I'll feel less nervous about the same thing tomorrow, and then it'll be easier to accomplish, right? NOPE.
Do it now
If I was asked to summarise what it means to become a grown-up I would say it's learning to do things you don't want to do. And to do them right away.
I'm not quite there yet, but I've gotten better over the years. I try to remind myself of catchy slogans like “it's not going to get any better”, and “done is better than perfect”.
What is true for tax returns is true for our art. We don't want to sit down and draw or paint, because we're afraid that we'll mess it up and that the result won't be good.
Well, screw all of that. First of all, what does good even mean when it comes to art? It surely isn't about realism. Have you seen Pollock? No realism, all emotion!
And second, who cares? Unless you're a professional artist or illustrator and it's your literal job, your art should not be about the result. It should be about the process of creating, the feeling. It's about having fun, exploring the world, and expressing ourselves.
So stay tuned for this week's prompt, where we'll try and shut up our inner perfectionist, and invite our free-spirited imperfect artist to come out and play.