Perfectionism
We’re All Done With Pandemic Shaming!
Happy to report that there’s been a swift and strong pushback on the whole “use your pandemic time productively” push. From the meme world… From the New York Times… …and from J.K. Rowling herself! No quote tweeting, but if you’re a ‘life coach’ who’s on here implying people are losers if they aren’t learning a…
Read MoreHow About We Not Be Perfectionist During a Pandemic?
Sorry I’ve been quiet: I’ve been finishing my latest book, Productivity is Power: 5 Liberating Practices for College Students. I’ll have more to share on that shortly. I’m compelled to write now, however, because there’s been a spate of posts by people who seem to think that shaming others for their supposed underproductivity during a…
Read MoreThe “Tiger Mom” Revisited
I’ve written before about Amy “Tiger Mom” Chua and her odious 2011 book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, the thesis of which is that you should punish, humiliate, and otherwise coerce your kids into being high achievers. As I wrote at the time it was published: A few weeks ago [Chua] had a…
Read MorePerfectionism is All Lies and Oversimplifications, Part One Million
This tweet has it all, from a perfectionist standpoint: It: Sets an impossibly high standard for success. (You should be as successful as Apple’s Steve Jobs, etc.) Is shaming. (“What’s your excuse?”) Makes specious comparisons. (Between you and these ultra-successful outliers, most of whom also achieved their success decades ago, in a very different society…
Read MoreRoll Over Beethoven!
At a recent performance of Johannes Brahms’s First Symphony, the conductor told how, when Brahms was just starting out, the elder composer Robert Schumann praised him to the high heavens. Here’s the story: Brahms was only twenty years old and as yet little known….Robert expressed his admiration first in a letter to Joachim, and then…
Read MoreNope, “Perfectionism in Moderation” Isn’t a Good Thing
Writer Lindsay Ellis recently tweeted about imposter syndrome (where you think you aren’t up to the task, have everyone fooled, and are destined to be revealed as a horrible fraud). Unfortunately, she gets it wrong. She writes: “Because the thought patterns that lead to imposter syndrome need not always be a net negative – on…
Read MoreNonperfectionism in a Single Sentence
Nothing is as humbling, to a writer, anyway, as when you’ve used a lot of words to say something, and then someone comes along and nails it in a single sentence. But also nothing is more of a gift, so I guess it evens out. 🙂 It happened to me with my book The Lifelong Activist.…
Read MoreThe Difference Between High Standards and Perfectionism
Where does “high standards” end and perfectionism begin? When it starts to cost you. A recent New York Times piece by Karen Crouse recounts the trials of figure skater Gracie Gold, an Olympic contender who suffered mental illness, including eating disorders, in large part from the pressures of competing. Gold’s perfectionism, according to the article,…
Read MoreThe Conversation You Have With Your Work
Creative / scholarly work is actually a conversation between yourself (your ideas, emotions, perceptions) and your materials and influences. Or, as glass artist Davide Penso recently put it in an interview in Glass Art Magazine: “I didn’t and don’t presume to work in glass, but to support it and assign it the task of molding…
Read MoreAn Extreme Exercise in Nonperfectionism!
A fun exercise for overcoming perfectionism is to send emails with intentional errors and silliness in them. You’re basically practicing toleratting your errers, and having others see those errers. (It also helps with time management because once you stop trying to perfect every email you save a lot of time. And yes, of course I…
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