How to Differentiate Between Perfectionism and Excellence.

As a recovering perfectionist, there is a simple tell that helps me recognize when I am being perfectionistic and when I’m trying to be excellent. It’s this. Perfectionism stops us from trying while excellence makes us try one more time.

Many years ago, there was a time when I was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t start writing my book, something I had dreamt of doing for years. While I had deep creative wounds that had festered, part of the paralysis was also because I wanted to do this perfectly.

Not only did I want to write an amazing book, I wanted to dazzle myself while writing it! Wanting to get it right the first time round was what was making me freeze like a deer caught in the glaring headlights of  a car.

I couldn’t, just couldn’t bear to look at the patchy, good-in-some-places and not-so-good-in-others pages I had written. I couldn’t bear to keep plodding through them. I couldn’t bear to lose that seductive self-image I had of myself doing this writing thing effortlessly, without any pain, without any friction, almost magically, almost miraculously.

But then, after years of hanging at the precipice of doing and not doing, I felt this gaping, yawning gap between who I was and who I was being. I felt deep regret at not having become who I was inside, an artiste.

It was then that I decided that I was going to write my book any which way.

Whether it ended up being good, bad or ugly, I was going to stay with it. I was going to treat my writing like work. I was  going to treat it like a craft. 

I would let myself practice the scales. I would let myself practice being a channel for words to pour through. I would bear feeling mediocre in the moment so I could teach myself how to write better. I would take up the task of doing draft after draft and let my words form and re-form.

So, that’s exactly what I did.

When I started writing The Empath’s Journey, I let myself practice. I let myself write even on the days when nothing was happening, nothing was moving. I let myself work at my writing instead of thinking hazily about it.

In the process, I learned many things.

I learned that one of the reasons I had only talked about writing a book until then and not done it was because writing a book is hard work.

It’s not something you cruise with. It’s often something you mine for, going deep into the caves of your psyche, especially if you are writing from a personal space, especially if you are writing a memoir, like I was.

I also learned another important thing. 

I learned that a writer writing is very much like a potter throwing clay in order to make a pot. Unless you have gathered your clay, you cannot even begin to make your pot.

The first draft is your clay.

Until I had a first draft, I didn’t even have enough raw material that I could shape and refashion. So completing my mediocre, resistant, tremulous first draft was very important! 

Completing it meant I had gathered the bulk of my raw material in place. Now, I could get to work on it.

It was then that the real work of writing began. It was then that I did draft after draft and started shaping my clay. In the process, I taught myself to write a book. In the process, I taught myself to have patience. 

In the process, I also taught myself to differentiate between perfectionism and excellence.

Excellence is an ally. It tells us to try again. 

Ok, so you are not happy with this. Understood. Let’s get to work. Let’s practice some more. 

It’s still not working? Well, then, let’s figure out what the problem is. Do you not know how to connect different chapters? Have you not done enough research? Do you need to read today instead of write?   

Well, then, do that. Or ask for help.

Try something new. Follow the path to see where it leads. 

This forward movement is what trying to be excellent is made of. 

But perfectionism is not like this. Perfectionism stops us from working.

If you don’t get it right the first time, perfectionism thinks you are an idiot. Perfectionism insists you have it all figured out right off the bat. With perfectionism, there is no space for learning. There is no space for trying. 

There is no space for the real, living, breathing you.

I can guarantee this. If you want to write and if you have some talent, you will get better if you practice. That’s just how things work. It’s so simple it’s kind of stupid.

But perfectionism takes away the opportunity to do this.

Stop. You are terrible. Just stop, it says.

You have to see it for the cunning enemy that it is and reply back to it: Let me practice. Let me stay with it. I will get better. I will learn. I love it enough to keep trying. I love myself enough to keep becoming who I am.

I am an artist.

Even if I am still yet an acorn, even I still haven’t sprouted yet, even if I am afraid I will stay in this little form forever, I am still an artist. 

That is who I am. That is my very nature.

And if I can just stay with my nature, if I can keep expressing it, keep striving for excellence, keep being okay with writing bad sentences and drawing amateurish figures, I will write those fluid, gurgling sentences and paint those majestic animals that are already living deep inside me.

Little by little, I will find gold in the river of my psyche. Little by little, I will tap into that deep place that is the essence of who I am. 

I am an artist.

And so are you.

The voice of perfectionism can cut us to the core. It can steal away our dreams. It can banish our very talents.

Let’s remember therefore to keep practicing. Let’s remember to write terrible sentences, unafraid because the good sentences are in there too. Let’s make mistakes because not trying, not attempting is the biggest mistake.

Let’s tell that imposter who pretends to be our friend, a clear No.

No, I won’t listen to you. No, I don’t want to be perfect. No, I am already perfect. What I am trying to be is more of who I am. What I am trying to do is be a clear prism through which light filters and splits into a rainbow that everyone can see. 

No, I don’t want to compete with anyone. I really don’t want that.

What I want is to be fully myself. What I want is to be like that tree that lives in front of my house which hummingbirds visit regularly. I want to hold that same sweetness within. 

I want to bloom with pink flowers because pink is my color. I don’t want to do the impossible task of trying to grow purple flowers like that other tree down the road. I want to be like this tree, like the hummingbird who visits it, like the sea turtle that floats in the creek a little way down.

I want to be the complete expression of who I am.  

That’s what I want.

Not perfection. But expression. Not perfection. But excellence. 

When you think about all that perfectionism has robbed from you, don’t you feel angry? All the books you could have written, all the paintings you could have painted, all the dances you could have danced.

Could have. Would have. Should have.  

Isn’t it time that you and I kept down the baton of perfectionism and instead started singing the sweet melody of excellence? Because even when we are a little plant, not yet become a tree or a tiny tree not yet become a mighty giant, the experience of life is in the becoming, the essence of your self is in the being.  

And that is worth fighting perfection for.

Ritu Kaushal is the author of the memoir The Empath’s Journey, which combines personal experiences from her own life as an emotional empath with insights from different psychological theories to give empaths more tools and resources to connect with themselves.