Procrastination and The Stairway to Heaven
If your fidelity to my posting schedule is better than mine, thank you for checking my blog last week. Thursday is the day I aim for and I’m sorry that nothing new was posted. Is it ironic that a series of posts on procrastination is NOT keeping to the planned schedule? Yes, you see eye roll here.
While sparing you my excuses, I will say that having struggled with procrastination all my life, my inner critic is ruthless.
And that brings me to today’s staircase. Did you guess it by the picture? This is the Staircase to Heaven and it’s a metaphor for perfectionism.
This is the staircase I avoided writing about.
Perhaps the reasons will become clearer as you read on. So far we’ve looked at The Up/Down Staircase of second guessing and hesitation, as well as The Infinity Staircase of avoiding the mundane repetitive tasks of daily living.
These metaphors for task avoidance and procrastination are somewhat more straight forward than today’s topic.
So How does The Staircase to Heaven relate to procrastination?
This illusion depicts a staircase extending heavenward, high into the clouds. While the bottom step is on the ground, there is nothing supporting the rise of the staircase into the clouds and beyond.
The unsubstantiated belief in the ideal that characterizes the perfectionist attitude makes The Staircase to Heaven an apt metaphor.
Perfectionism isn’t the same as having high expectations or pursuing excellence.
Andrew Hill writes, “Perfectionism isn’t a behavior. It’s a way of thinking about yourself”.
It’s a mindset. A mindset based on ideals rather than reality. Impossible ideals. Ideals that are so high, they’re in the clouds. Unattainable. And the distance between reality and the ideal weighs heavy. And there’s a critical inner voice that never shuts up.
Do you have things that you wish you’d known when you were twenty?
I do. And understanding the harm a perfectionist mindset can cause is one of them.
As I wrote in the previous post, when I set out to research this topic, my understanding of it was rudimentary and experiential. It seemed a relatively light topic and has been a frequent rationale for my procrastination. But I had no idea how much of my life was impacted by perfectionism. The penny dropped and it dropped hard.
We all have beliefs about ourselves and our strengths and weaknesses.
We try to make sense of it and we seek to improve as we gain knowledge and understanding.
However, when we’re operating with faulty assumptions, we don’t make the progress that we hope for. And that’s frustrating.
I’m going to share my learning with you. But if you think that a perfectionist attitude may be something you’re struggling with, please research it. I had no idea how systemic and harmful this mindset can be. Or how much research and writing there is on the topic. I’ll list the resources that got me started and if you have resources you think would be helpful, please list them in the comments.
What are the markers that indicate you’re on The Staircase to Heaven?
Perfectionist attitudes are on the rise in our society and are responsible for a whole list of maladaptive behaviours. These range from mild to severe in their impact on individuals. Some examples are:
- Feelings of failure
- Guilt
- Indecisiveness
- Procrastination
- Shame
- All or nothing thinking
- Anxiety
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Depression
- Suicide
Research has found a 33% increase since 1989 of young adults who struggle with the perfectionist mindset.
Given this prevalence, it’s important that we’re all aware of the difference between pursuits of excellence and what Thomas Curran of the University of Bath, fears is a “hidden epidemic of perfectionism”.
According to Hewitt and Flett, Canadian researchers, there are 3 dimensions of perfectionism and each dimension is a component of an overall perfectionist mindset.
- Self-oriented – trying to achieve perfection in everything in order to avoid failure
- Other-oriented – unrealistic expectations for significant others.
- Socially prescribed – the perception that significant others put exceedingly high expectations on them which they cannot/do not meet.
While the behavior patterns tend to be similar in each, the object of the behavior (ie. self vs other) or to whom the behavior is attributed (ie. socially prescribed) is different.
This series is about procrastination so the rest of this post will deal primarily with that aspect of perfectionism.
If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything. David Foster Wallace
We were young. My husband is a linear thinker and loves order. Organized in thoughts and actions. I’m not. Our oldest daughter was about a year old. Mobile and into everything. The house was a disaster. A sinkful of dirty dishes. Tupperware that she had pulled from the cupboard strewn about the kitchen floor. Several loads of diapers and baby clothes waiting to be folded on the couch. I chose that moment to announce that I thought I might be a perfectionist.
You can imagine the look that crossed my husband face.
Astonishment. Disbelief. Denial.
Typically we think of the perfectionist as someone with the perfectly ordered life, nothing out of place.
And an insatiable drive to keep it that way.
The above scenario is more descriptive of those we wouldn’t describe as perfectionists.
But it’s important to note that a perfectionist mindset can hide behind disorder.
I’m well aware that besides preferring to spend my time playing with my baby, the Infinity Staircase was probably the factor in the chaos of our house that day so long ago. But I tell the story to illustrate that a perfectly ordered life is not a prerequisite for having a perfectionist mindset.
There’s so many decisions to make and choices to select that it quickly becomes overwhelming. There’s no room for error and the old adage “If it’s worth doing, do it right” is both a mantra and a curse. Because if doing it right is too hard or time consuming, not doing it seems a better option.
So why do some perfectionist avoid getting things done?
The following list is a compilation from several of the resources I read. It’s not comprehensive but hits on the more common reasons.
- Decision paralysis
- Ruminating over tiny mistakes, weaknesses, and failures
- Spending too much time correcting small errors
- Spending too much time on marginally productive activities instead of the most important ones because they’re low-risk.
- Fear of letting others down/not being good enough
- Avoiding challenges to avoid the possibility of failure
- Looking endlessly for the golden key
I don’t know how accurate this perfectionist test posted by Psychology Today is, but if you’re curious to see how you fare, click on the link. I took it and it pretty much verified what I already knew about myself.
So what can you do if you find yourself on The Staircase to Heaven?
The suggestions listed below are mostly taken from the book, Overcoming Perfectionism: Solutions for Perfectionists, by Liisa Kyle.
- Learn from successes rather than mistakes.
- Develop rules of thumb for faster decision making.
- Set realistic goals and steps for improving by 1%.
- Learn strategies to disrupt ruminations
- Stop yourself from proving and just be
So let’s look at each of these
Learn from successes rather than mistakes.
This isn’t an antidote for failure. But talk of mistakes and failure tends to send the perfectionist into a downward spiral. The perfectionist already replays mistakes over and over again.
To tell them to embrace failure is counter-productive. Analyzing what worked and why is a pro-active way of building confidence and success. In every mistake and failure there are things that worked.
This last week I read somewhere (I can’t find it now but will add it in if/when I do) a quote that hit at the heart of this and certainly made me think with an element of hope.
They said that it isn’t failure that leads to success, it’s the act of reflection that leads to success. This writer said that reflecting on what works is often a huge missed opportunity.
Rather than dwelling on what went wrong, ask yourself what worked and why? Then do more of that.
Develop rules of thumb for faster decision making.
Create a criteria and if something meets say 80% of the criteria then it’s an acceptable decision.
Decision paralysis is huge so having a way to short circuit it is important. Whether it’s what color to paint the walls or what car to buy, take action by developing a criteria you can follow.
Set realistic goals and steps for improving by 1%.
Perfectionists engage in all or nothing thinking. You’re either a success or a failure. Therefore you plummet emotionally when the results are less than anticipated because your whole identity is tied to those results. If progress is set incrementally then despair isn’t as likely to paralyze you.
Learn strategies to disrupt ruminations
(I’ve found Mel Robbins 5-4-3-2-1 strategy hugely helpful for this. When I start perseverating about something I said, or wrote, or messed up on, or the anxiety starts, this strategy disrupts the negative thinking).
Stop yourself from proving and just be.
This last one doesn’t have so much to do with procrastination as it does resetting your thinking.
It is perhaps the thread that runs through it all.
Because performance is so tied to the identify of the perfectionist, anything that challenges that identity is taken personally.
This might look like having to win an argument at any cost because if you don’t it means you’ve messed up. Or one-up-man-ship because of the all or nothing mentality.
Catch yourself in those moments and tell yourself to ‘just be’.
It’s tremendously freeing.
Give up the ideal for the real.
The good news is that the brain is malleable and new neural pathways can be forged over time.
If you’re a perfectionist, learn to recognize when it’s holding you back. Preventing you from taking the steps you need to take to make progress.
Adjust the messages you send yourself. Don’t leave room for the self-defeating all or nothing thoughts.
Remember to cut yourself slack.
Embrace who you are with all your imperfections.
Practice self-compassion. Self-compassion builds resiliency and confidence.
Just be.
P.S. If you have resources you think would be helpful for others, please reference them in the comments. Any thoughts, ideas, corrections (yikes that’s a hard one for me to say), please. I’d love to hear from you.
P.S.S. You can sign up for my newsletter below.
~Priscilla
Resources
“The Dangerous Downsides of Perfectionism” by Amanda Ruggeri
“Perfectionism in the Self and Social Contexts: Conceptualization, Assessment, and Association with Psychopathology” by Paul L. Hewitt and Gordon L. Flett
“My Brain feels like it’s been punched: the intolerable rise of perfectionism” by Paula Cocozza
Overcoming Perfectionism: Solutions for Perfectionists by Liisa Kyle
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