Waiting for the perfect circumstances
Letting go of perfectionism.
***This post is my first Substack post from March 2024. I have edited it slightly. It received 1 like and that was mine!!***
Do you wait for the perfect moment to get something done? I do! I had this experience when I tried to start my blog several months ago (and several time since). Perfectionism can seem to help us at first, but it can eventually paralyze us. As a woman transitioning into menopause, whom has ADHD and perfectionistic tendencies, life can seem overwhelming at times. When we see everything at once we end up spinning our wheels and get nowhere. Sometimes perfectionism can lead to procrastination, and we use that as a coping mechanism. It’s mentally balancing these things that can cause us to get stuck.
Where is that idyllic morning?
It was a cold, rainy Saturday morning, not the idyllic morning to work on my blogs outside like I planned. I’d have to write in the living room with the dogs by my side instead.
First, I would need to let them out, dry their muddy paws and feed them. I reminded myself that it was only 6 a.m. and there would be plenty of time to write after I tended to them. I poured myself a cup of coffee and felt accomplished as I watched my dogs eat their breakfast.
Searching for coffee in that rabbit hole...
A half hour later my coffee was cold. I then had 2 cups, one on the counter and one I left in the microwave, (or was that actually last night’s tea?). I poured myself a 2nd (or 3rd) cup of coffee and sat down with my laptop determined to write. My phone buzzed and I checked a message from last night, plus a new one from this morning. Facebook notifications caught my eye, and then I noticed the reels. Ugh! I fell into the rabbit hole again!
OK, focus. I told myself. I was going to working on the content to post on my business pages. I needed to choose a photo for that but… which of the 2,461 photos should I use? Before I knew it an hour and a half went by and not one word written, unless I counted the thumbs up on Facebook and the GIF I sent a friend on messenger. I stopped short. I needed to reel myself back in. It was after 8 a.m. and I didn’t want to write at all. It was almost time to get ready for work and eat breakfast. I looked around. Did I make oatmeal? Then, I realized it looked like a hockey puck next to my coffee.
I thought about my writing as I sliced through my cold oatmeal. There was so much the content I had written down on paper, so many ideas that were swimming in my head and so many plans that had never been completed. When I actually do write my ideas flow. I needed to share my writing with others and myself. The problem was my procrastination and perfectionism were sabotaging my process once again.
We can’t move ahead if we wait for “perfect” circumstances.
I’m waiting for the perfect circumstances to move ahead and write. Distractions and perfectionism are getting in my way once again. A quote my mother had on her mirror comes to mind. It said, “If you wait for the perfect circumstances things will never get done.” I’m not sure who wrote this, but that quote changed my life. I need to continually remind myself of those words.
Things do not have to be perfect to move ahead, in fact they never will be. If you wait for certain circumstances things will never get done. The imperfection can make our experiences imperfectly perfect.
Mindless phone scrolling and languishing
The last few years I had been languishing and feeling stuck. The free time I had, I spent scrolling mindlessly on my phone while time evaporated. I could fake it and make it look like I was moving ahead, but the truth is, I’ve been trying to do the status quo. I have to wonder if this is the quiet quitting I have been hearing so much about. In the last year, I had been grieving the past, people and pets, I grieved life before 2020, I grieved the way my business had changed, I grieved my health, and I grieved the younger version of myself.
No one tells you when to run…
Life has changed forever in certain ways for me, and also in our world. Both will never be the same. It’s hard to move forward sometimes when you get stuck in old ways. It’s OK to grieve the way things were, but there is a time when you need to move ahead because that’s how change happens. I think that comes with acceptance of yourself and your reality. You can’t go back, ever, but you can learn from the past. “No one tells you when to run.” As a song by Pink Floyd says. You are the only one that can tell yourself it’s time to run, walk or write. It won’t be perfect, but it is yours. It may be the first step you need to move ahead.
By Jane Deegan: March 2024
Question:
Have you ever used procrastination to avoid fear of failure?
Definitely. Completely. Without a reasonable doubt. Me. Myself and coffee in the microwave.