Battling situational perfectionism to write something worth reading
How refilling your creative well can quiet your inner editor.
Welcome to Monday Mastery, a series designed to shift your perspective, teach you new techniques, and help you become a more effective writer, one tip at a time.
In my line of work, I often bump up against what I call situational perfectionism.
Situational perfectionism is when an otherwise non-perfectionist exhibits perfectionist tendencies in certain circumstances.
Where I see it most often is when people are doing their own writing.
For example:
Founders writing to investors.
Leaders writing articles.
Owner-operators writing marketing emails for their company.
Professionals writing books.
It’s interesting to me that when other people are doing their writing — even in ghostwriting scenarios, where their name is going to go on the finished piece — their perfectionism remains quiet. But when they put their own words on the page, their inner editors scream like banshees.
I gave a workshop last week on the topic of working with your perfectionism when you’re writing a book, and as I was putting together the deck, I had an epiphany about situational perfectionism:
It happens less when you regularly fill your creative well.
Author Julia Cameron, in her seminal book The Artist’s Way, first introduced the notion of “refilling the well” for practicing creatives. She believed that as we use up our creative energy, we need to replenish it, or our art will suffer.
I think it’s the same for people who write for audiences — particularly leaders, who are using their energy in so many ways throughout a typical workday.
You can’t pour out from an empty cup.
When you try, it feels like you’re violently shaking that cup, screaming at the last drop to fall out onto the page. And if that last drop does fall, it doesn’t feel like enough to share. So you begin nit-picking it, trying to force it into a beautiful form.
What I recommended in my workshop, and what I’m going to advise you to do now, is simply this:
Make a regular effort to restore yourself.
Refill your creative well.
This isn’t about self-care. I’m not asking you to relax. The word “restore” means to bring back or reinstate.
Pour into yourself so you can pour out again on the page.
Yes, I’m suggesting you input for better output.
That could be reading for fun or learning. Walking through a museum. Attending a lecture. Having coffee with a group of talkative and interesting friends. Whatever restores your creative energy, make time for it.
When you hit the page, you’ll find you have a lot more to work with. And your inner editor — the situational perfectionist within — will have a lot less to complain about.