I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Not quite the type of ‘perfectionist’ who answers “I have this tendency to want to do everything a bit too well” when asked for his biggest weakness, but rather the one who thinks: “I want to write a blog post in which I mention that I’m a perfectionist. So I definitely have to buy a book about perfectionism first (better make it two to be on the safe side and get different perspectives, let’s find out what are considered the most comprehensive books on the topic) and read at least a handful of scientific papers (better make sure I really read all the classics on the subject, I need to figure out who the most recognised experts on the subject are and what studies they consider to be classic readings and maybe that’ll also give me some more ideas for books I could buy) just to make sure I don’t write anything wrong or stupid. Oh, and it’s my first blog post so it has to be extra-perfect1 because if it is not, no one will ever read anything I write again.” This way of tackling a problem might be kind of helpful when you have lots of spare time and no deadlines. It can be a bit of a problem when you just want to get things done though. Therefore, more often than I’d like, I don’t even manage to get started2 – which I’ve been told is actually a rather important prerequisite to getting things done.
Once I do get started – and I’m slowly getting better at this – I’m usually ok for a while. Until something doesn’t work quite the way I would like it to3 . At which point I have the tendency to want to reconsider all the choices I’ve made since the beginning. When a couple minutes into writing this blog post the first footnote-plugin I installed4 didn’t do exactly what I expected it to do I immediately asked myself: “Should I use another theme? Or maybe not even use WordPress at all? And now that I think of it, is it even a good idea to write a blog or should I rather do something totally different because I’ll never get this to be the way I would want it to be and some of my sentences are awfully clumsy anyway?” Fortunately, before falling into an existential crisis, I realised that’s just my insecurity trying to find ways of postponing the moment at which I’d have to click the “Publish”-button and thereby make myself vulnerable. Because I’m pretty sure it’s not really about wanting to deliver the perfect product – which does not exist anyway. It’s more about not wanting to be criticised for something I know I was at one point pretty good at (writing) and which I’m sure I’m not as good at any more – because I have not practised it nearly enough during the last 20 years, especially not writing in English (my first language is German)5 .
So what is the point I’m trying to make here? It’s sometimes hard to get started. It’s even harder to get started with something you think you are (or should be, or used to be) good at6 and to which therefore a lot of self-worth is tied. But most of the time we’re by far our hardest judges. We vastly overestimate how harsh a critic other people will be – and how much they actually care about what others are doing. Besides, everyone knows how difficult it can be to be a beginner. If anything, most will say something along the line of “oh wow, I’m happy for you that you got started with something new and exciting.” They might even be a bit envious because they are too afraid to get started themselves. But in a world where it’s so easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others7 it’s at times difficult to ignore the little voice in the back of your head telling you that you’re not good enough and never will be.
There’s no way around the fact that there are always going to be lots of people better than you at pretty much anything. But – and just like me you probably read and hear this all the time – why should that have any influence on what you do? To give an example: I love running. So why should I enjoy going for a run less just because there’s thousands or even millions of others way faster (and looking better doing it) than me? I can’t think of any (logical) reason. Yet, these thoughts still creep into my mind from time to time. In these moments, it really helps me to know why I’m running and what it is that makes me enjoy it. If my ‘why’ doesn’t involve anyone else than myself, then why should I care about what others might or might not think?
And yet again, even while writing this I’m thinking to myself “because that’s how we humans are.” Being aware of why the sometimes rather irrational voices in our heads are saying something particular doesn’t mean we can just stop them from doing it. It does make it easier though to find ways of living with them and even from time to time ignore them. And that’s why and how I finally got started with this blog.
PS. This might come as a huge surprise to you but I did buy a couple books on writing well (and one on blogging) about a year ago which I intended to read before starting to write anything on this blog. I still do plan on reading them sometime because I love reading and learning from others and I think that’s important. To a certain extent and up to a certain point. At which point you just have to start doing or you’ll be forever stuck thinking about better ways of doing things you’ll never actually do.
- Which is of course completely backwards in thinking.
- Although I do learn quite a bit about a lot of different topics with all the ‘preparatory reading’ I’m doing.
- By the way, this is the third footnote-plugin I’m testing and I’m still not 100% happy with it and it’s really hard to suppress the urge to test some more plugins – or even better just use HTML code for footnotes because that’s more customisable and it wouldn’t take me that long to work out how to best do that and I’m sure there’s not much I have to change in the CSS and no one would note a difference but I would know it’s not only 95% perfect but rather 99%…
- Yes, I know, totally important that your first blog post has lots of footnotes, makes it a lot easier to read.
- Re-reading this sentence I do wonder whether I wrote it because I want to hear “nah, you’re doing great” or because I’m really convinced that I did get worse. Tending towards the latter, so I’m not deleting it.
- For me, anyway. You might be totally different.
- Which sometimes can be highly motivating but most often is just holding us – well me, anyway – back.