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Perfectionism Does Not Create Perfection…
Performance Injuries
I remember years ago, helping a client with her book, we were both runners and we shared our favourite running books and tactics. We laughed about how, sometimes we push ourselves so much it’s like the writing equivalent of an over-training injury.
Hmm, a writing injury,
she mused,
I wonder what that would look like?
I recalled this conversation today as I read a piece about perfectionism and the risk of injury in athletes; and how, for every additional layer of mental challenge the athlete experienced, the risk of physical injury increased.
Surely Perfectionism Isn’t All Bad?
At some level, we know that our perfectionist tendencies are ‘bad’; that it feels icky to be constantly, chronically, poring over something, gnawing at it again and again, until the diminishing marginal returns become increasing negative returns.
Is It??
Yet there’s also a part of us that feels that, somehow, maybe, we are creating a better piece of work with our striving? That it isn’t ‘bad’ to want something to be the best that it can be, that our standards are showing us there is a path to improvement, a higher place to aim for?
