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sophiarantsI’ve had homework that I’ve been sitting on for about 4 weeks. Not from the book, originally. It was from my therapist - but reading Brene Brown & listening to the podcast made me realise I really, really had to do it. It was simple, really: To take a task I would usually do at my ridiculously high standards, and do it to 80%.
Easy, right?
I’m a horrendous perfectionist. It was one of the things where I identified the strongest with the hosts, and where I loved their discussion of Elizabeth Gilbert’s concept of half-assing the shit out of something. But enjoying the discussion is a whole other thing from doing the thing.
This week I’ve been sick. I mean, I’m constantly sick - I have a chronic illness - but for the first time in 4 months, I was so ill that I’ve only been able to go into work for half a day.
Today I worked from home, and did a task to about 40%... and got almost nothing done and had to finish work early and have gone back to bed...
Clearly the gods are mocking me for sitting on this homework for a month, and decided to make me half-ass something. I don’t know if I learned much, as a result... but I did it! I was also supposed to decide how it feels. But since it mostly felt like dying, I maybe can’t do that bit yet. :P
But there’s a serious lesson here. Perfectionism is really bad for me. It’s bad for anyone, but when you’re chronically ill, you can really quickly reach destroy-my-fragile-health levels of illness this way. I had to retire from teaching - the job I adored - in my early 30s because I had let the extreme hours culture run away with me, and it had contributed to the permanent ruining of my health. No fucking way am I going to let that happen again. No. Fucking. Way.
As to why I’m a perfectionist? l’ve started to reckon with that. Getting to ‘rumbling’ will probably take a bit longer (isn’t it great that you can do private entries here?). But it’s definitely something to do with believing that I’m just a waste of space, and that people will figure that out if I let them get a glimpse of the ‘reality’ of who and what I am - so I have to over-compensate to the worst degree. Daily. When I’m already disabled. This is... not a healthy cycle. I think I need to start there - much deeper in the darkness than just ‘doing something a bit less than perfect’.
But that doesn’t mean I can ignore the clarion call of being stuck in bed for a week, right now.
Easy, right?
I’m a horrendous perfectionist. It was one of the things where I identified the strongest with the hosts, and where I loved their discussion of Elizabeth Gilbert’s concept of half-assing the shit out of something. But enjoying the discussion is a whole other thing from doing the thing.
This week I’ve been sick. I mean, I’m constantly sick - I have a chronic illness - but for the first time in 4 months, I was so ill that I’ve only been able to go into work for half a day.
Today I worked from home, and did a task to about 40%... and got almost nothing done and had to finish work early and have gone back to bed...
Clearly the gods are mocking me for sitting on this homework for a month, and decided to make me half-ass something. I don’t know if I learned much, as a result... but I did it! I was also supposed to decide how it feels. But since it mostly felt like dying, I maybe can’t do that bit yet. :P
But there’s a serious lesson here. Perfectionism is really bad for me. It’s bad for anyone, but when you’re chronically ill, you can really quickly reach destroy-my-fragile-health levels of illness this way. I had to retire from teaching - the job I adored - in my early 30s because I had let the extreme hours culture run away with me, and it had contributed to the permanent ruining of my health. No fucking way am I going to let that happen again. No. Fucking. Way.
As to why I’m a perfectionist? l’ve started to reckon with that. Getting to ‘rumbling’ will probably take a bit longer (isn’t it great that you can do private entries here?). But it’s definitely something to do with believing that I’m just a waste of space, and that people will figure that out if I let them get a glimpse of the ‘reality’ of who and what I am - so I have to over-compensate to the worst degree. Daily. When I’m already disabled. This is... not a healthy cycle. I think I need to start there - much deeper in the darkness than just ‘doing something a bit less than perfect’.
But that doesn’t mean I can ignore the clarion call of being stuck in bed for a week, right now.
