I haven’t been writing much lately and my posts have been few and far between. Typically, writing is my therapy and I try to write for a minimum of 5 minutes a day, because 5 minutes is easy!. Honestly, I have been writing but in my journal versus on my blog. My journal is for my eyes only so there has been nothing to share.
I have also been listening to audio books and Brene Brown remains a current favorite. She writes about shame, emapthy and living a whole hearted life. If you don’t know her work, I suggest you watch her Netflix special or listen to her TED talk for an introduction.
In one of her books, she talks about perfectionism being a form of procrastination. Maybe this is common knowledge, however, I never thought about it like that before, but it makes sense. If you keep tinkering with your work in order to make it perfect, you never have to proclaim “it is done”. You stay stuck in “working on it”mode and never need to move on. You never need to present it to the world, you never have to receive feedback, you never have to be critisized. If you stay in the realm of trying to make your work perfect, you never have to actually get off of the couch.
I am, a good enough, kind of person. I am by no means a perfectionist. You see, being a perfectionsist is not my problem! Overall, I prefer the good enough attitude or the “wing it” approach to a lot of things.
One of the reasons I focused my business on gardening and yard work is that no one expects anything to be perfect. Too many factors go into making a garden look good. The knowledge of the person behind the design as well as those who do the upkeep. The amount of rain, sunshine, and temperature all play a part. With gardening, so many things are outside of your control. I don’t believe you can be a perfectionist and be a gardener. If you try, I think you would go crazy.
No, I don’t suffer from being a perfectionist, I on the other hand suffer from Imposter Sndrome. When it comes to gardening, my blog posts, my work as an occupational therapist, my work in the field of Human Services. Hell, I guess, I suffer from Imposter Syndrom with all of my professional activities. I feel like a fraud, that I don’t know what I am doing. Lukily, with gardning one person’s weed is literally another person’s flower so it is easy to disagree without being right or wrong!
I used to try and hide this feeling of being a fraud but as I have gotten older, I am more comfortable sharing my issues and with that comes some comfort and wisdom. I have shared plenty of my “issues here on My Little Blue Kayak. Let’s add “Imposter Syndrome” to the list! I think “Don’t Judge Me” is my favorite post on this topic!
How about you? Do you strive for perfectionism or feel like a fraud?
Lake Girl
