The Effects of Perfectionism and Anxiety on Creative Efforts

The creative block called anxiety
There are times that I get an overwhelming sense of anxiety when I think about sitting down at my computer to write, or when I think about trying to produce any sort of piece of creative work. This sense of anxiety, I am not kidding, has been known to stop me from getting out of bed for the day. If you can't get out of bed to pick up a script, it's really hard to memorize your part in a play. If you can't get out of bed to look at a script, it's really hard to plan blocking when you are directing the play.

(Boy, this blog is not the easiest thing for me to write. I have anxiety about writing, particularly "for publication," in the first place, and I certainly have anxiety about confessing past misdeeds....)

Right there is a perfect example of a contributor to creative anxiety. Notice my use of the word "misdeeds." Isn't that word rather perjorative? Possibly many of you can sympathize with my harsh judgement of my creative efforts, or rather my contemplation of attempting something creative. It would have been easier to get out of bed if I hadn't convinced myself that my life would end in shame if I didn't do well on that one particular performance, or if I hadn't convinced myself that I'd never direct anything else if that one play wasn't perfect. Note that today I call myself a writer, not an actress or a director. It is through writing that I have realized that the first effort toward a creative endeavor doesn't have to be perfect.

Writing is re-writing
"Writing is re-writing." I've heard the saying for decades. I've only recently been able to absorb what it meant. As a child, when writing my school papers, I never re-wrote. No, they had to be perfect when they came out of the tip of my pen. Which is actually why I have extremely legible handwriting--that was part of the need for perfection. Hum. I wonder what triggered this need for things to be so perfect? I can speculate, but I'll probably never be able to pin it down. Was it because I had a teacher who wanted everything to be written in pen, not pencil, but then took off points if you had things scratched out and written over and around? That particular teacher wanted a neat line drawn through things that you needed to "erase." No wavy lines, no scribbled circles. That's not a good way to teach that re-writing is part of the process.

My Dad was a perfectionist. Which is a good thing, since he was an airline pilot. Trust me, you don't want sloppy when you are a passenger on an airplane. But I think that he let that perfectionist streak get out of hand. I remember that when I was a child, my family took a "ski vacation." My dad absolutely refused to get on skis, while my sister and I, and even my mom, happily took the beginner ski classes and spent the day on the bunny-slope. When I asked my mom why Daddy wasn't skiing, my mom said that he didn't like to do things that he wasn't good at. Well, obviously, when someone won't do something they aren't good at, they aren't allowing themselves to be a beginner. If you can't be a beginner, then you don't know what you might become good at.

Perfectionism
But speculations on why I became a perfectionist to such a degree that it was paralyzing aren't solving the problem, and that's what I (and possibly you), really need to do, right?--solve the problem. I did have to go through the process of figuring out that perfectionism is a block to creative efforts. Now, how do I get around this particular block? I suggest baby steps. SARK, the writer of Succulent Wild Woman: Dancing with Your Wonderful Self and Make Your Creative Dreams Real: A Plan for Procrastinators, Perfectionists, Busy People and People Who Would Really Rather Sleep All Day (no, I don't know her, she wasn't writing about me! Although she does seem to have described me rather well....), SARK suggests "micro-steps," smaller than baby steps. Having problems getting a query letter written? Micro-step #1 might be to turn on the computer. That's all you have to do. You have achieved something worth celebrating! So celebrate it. Trust me, this process does eventually work. I've been known to decide that all I need to do is turn on the computer. Eventually I got to the point that I'd sit in front of it.

(I haven't actually read the book that seems to be all about me. I'm on her e-mail list. She was writing about this topic in her newsletter several years ago. I'm glad an entire book on the topic is finally out. I'll probably buy it soon, but I didn't really know it was out--hence the reason it wasn't on my list of favorite books on creativity. I'm sure I'll add it soon.)

Good luck on dealing with your own creative anxiety. I'll write more about the topic soon.