Tag Archives: imperfect

“Perfectionism is the father of procrastination”

Imperfect QuoteOne of my clients sent me this quote: “Perfectionism is the father of procrastination”.  He suggested I use it for a blog post.  I thought that was good idea.  So, in order to make the blog of greatest interest, I asked him about how that particular anonymous quote inspired him in producing his art.  He said, “I saw if I don’t keep fussing with my paintings, I’ll get more done.”

Bingo!  I think we all, to some degree or another, are procrastinators and perfectionists.  If we weren’t both procrastinators and perfectionists, we wouldn’t be performing at the top level of our various professions.  Let me explain.  People who use a coach are people who want to achieve far more than they can on their own.  In that sense, they are perfectionists in their field.  They cannot accept doing half baked work.  They expect a certain excellence of performance from themselves.

I think we all do some procrastinating before we get to work.  Most likely, I am thinking, because to reach our goal of performing work that has a high degree of accuracy or excellence requires our full attention and intentionality.  And that takes focus and energy.  So it is no surprise to me that clients, particularly artistic and creative professionals procrastinate before they begin a project.  It is always their intention that their work is excellent, or why bother to do it?

Where the mischief lies is in the distinction between the quest for excellence and perfectionism.  Perfectionism is driven by fear.  Fear of what?  Of criticism, of ridicule, of failure.  You could say that excellence is a path, a place to come from; whereas perfection is a place to get to, an imaginary point in the future that is impossible to ever attain.

This leads me to what my client said when I asked him about the quote, he said: “…if I don’t keep fussing with my paintings, I’ll get more done.”  He had suddenly unlocked a door to increased production in his art work.  He saw that he can trust that his creations will reach his measure of excellence just because he is the one who makes the art.  His being afraid of failure just stopped the fluidity of the precess.  Perfectionism slows down, or stops, the production.

Try this idea on for your self.  In the comments below let me know what you think.  I am looking forward to hearing from you.