I have a confession to make.
My confession is that I have been controlled by debilitating perfectionism (which manifests as “analysis paralysis”) throughout much of my life. This terrorizing monster has stopped me from doing a lot of cool things that I’ve wanted to do with my life; it has not only prevented me from reaching some of my biggest goals, but scared me away from even starting to work toward some of them at all.
Sound familiar to some of you? I thought it might.
Specifically, every day for the past 18 months, I have been so terrified of posting a piece of writing on my own damn website (for all the world to see - gulp!) that I haven’t done so…
Until now.
For real, it’s time to slay the monster. Let’s do this.
You might be wondering, what exactly am I afraid of? I recently discovered the answer, thanks to the combination of serious introspection and support from my amazing coach (yes, I have two coaches of my own). I found out that I have a debilitating fear of accidentally committing plagiarism. Yes, you read that correctly.
It took some time during a recent session with my coach to tease out that this specific fear was holding me back. However, once I spoke that fear out loud to someone else, I could tell that I had discovered something absolutely pivotal: I felt with every fibre of my being that THIS was the story I had been telling myself over and over that resulted in being too paralyzed with fear to publish anything.
That is, until now.
You see, as of today, I am officially… *drumroll* a Recovering Perfectionist!
The life-altering risk of attributing significant meaning to random thoughts
Ugh… but why had I become so afraid of accidentally plagiarizing someone else’s work? Finding the answer to this required a bit more digging.
Eventually I came to the realization that this (intrusive) thought had randomly popped into my head one day, perhaps when I was spacing out while riding the bus or something. Yes, the thought had casually floated into my consciousness, as most of our thoughts do. Once I noticed the thought, I could have responded with:
Huh… well, there’s a random thought that likely has no meaning whatsoever. We all have those sometimes. I’ll just watch it float out of my brain and into oblivion now.
Instead, I did the opposite.
I reacted to this thought by attributing specific meaning to it. I grasped onto that meaning tightly, so the thought couldn’t float away. The meaning I attributed to the thought was an assumption that having the thought at all must indicate that I am more likely than other people to accidentally plagiarize. Ultimately, I didn’t interpret this random thought as just a thought, but a deeper message from The Self.
Because I interpreted this thought as an important message, which would mean that I’m responsible for integrating it into my self-concept, I kept dwelling on it. Eventually, it became an obsession, and I ruminated on it every day.
All the while, I wasn’t consciously aware that this whole thought process was even happening.
Brains can be utterly weird and baffling sometimes.
Upon closer examination, I could see that I had concluded that having the thought in the first place probably ALSO meant that I had already committed plagiarism in the past, and had somehow forgotten about it! After all, I have challenges with working memory due to having ADHD. So, that must mean that I could have forgotten which words were my own and which originated from someone else’s work that I had read at some point a while back... right?!
And what if having that thought meant that I had even intentionally stolen someone else’s words and passed them off as my own at some previous point, and had just chosen to willfully forget about it afterward?
Eeeeek!
My coach joked that I could consider giving a name to the gaslighting asshole who had evidently taken up residence in my brain. Upon reflection, I decided to try actually try that out. For now, I think we’ve settled on “Little OCD Annie.” Indeed, that name is fitting because I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and ADHD. (Speaking of which, watch this space for an upcoming piece about the link between ADHD and OCD.)
By assigning a ridiculous name to the tendency to attribute such negative meaning to random thoughts, I can clearly see that the tendency is not an innate part of who I actually am as a person. In other words: the tendency doesn’t stem from The Self, and I’m not responsible for integrating it into my own self-concept. Rather, the tendency stems from Little OCD Annie, and she’s the devil-child who has been riling me up and making me freeze for decades.
Guess what? Annie is grounded from attributing specific meaning to my thoughts. She’s no longer allowed to wield that kind of authority.
My coach pointed out to me that I have been holding myself to a standard that I do not hold anyone else regarding plagiarism; the outcome of that completely unrealistic standard is that I haven’t shared my thoughts, theories, and ideas here in writing, despite longing to do so… Until now. :)
Experimenting as the antidote to perfectionism
One of the things that comes up regularly with my clients is the value of approaching Stuff (carrying out tasks, building routines, or meeting with a new co-working buddy - you name it) with a mindset of experimentation. When you’ve absorbed insidious societal messages over years and decades that persuade you of your inadequacy, you might understandably cling onto the belief that — maybe one day! — it will all just click. If you can’t figure out how to be neurotypical, one day you’ll discover the secret “hack” that will mean you can avoid negative experiences entirely. Until then, the safest thing to do is to not take action that could expose us to risks or vulnerability.
Actually, NO. We can reduce the pressure on ourselves (and stop holding ourselves back) by recognizing that our remit is experimentation.
This blog is now officially an experiment
Experiments are about exploring. They are about venturing into the unknown, and introducing some novelty into our day-to-day experience. Experimenting is simply a process of discovering what works AND what doesn’t work. When you are conducting an experiment, part of your job is to expect that certain actions you carry out during an experiment won’t “work” as far as proving/disproving a particular hypothesis.
In the context of an experiment, what works and what doesn’t work is value-neutral information. The outcome of the experiment is data that is used to learn — to prove, disprove, or even formulate a hypothesis — rather than to feed the inner bully.
The only way to disprove the intrusive thought (hypothesis) that I will somehow accidentally plagiarize someone when I create and publish content is to… uh, start experimenting by publishing content.
So, without further ado: here I am, World! And I am so thrilled to be here… I think. *gulp*