Striving to be a perfectionist helps you move forward in many professions because it makes you more detail-oriented, reliable, and efficient, but it does the exact opposite in creative practices. The very nature of perfectionism works against writers by catching them in a web of details, making them miss or ignore deadlines, and creating an unsatisfying and inefficient writing habit.

Many writers struggle with perfectionism. It’s important to recognize where it fits in your writing practice, and how you manage it. Here are some of the ways it will show up in your experience:

• Your writing never feels good enough to you, so you are never satisfied with it.

• You are unable to stop editing it and just move on because you feel it’s never good enough.

• You are feel anxiety, fear and stress at the thought of your writing going public (because it’s never good enough).

• You feel a feeling of failure regarding your work (because it’s never… you get the idea).

• When you write, it’s not fun or enjoyable (because ...)

Here’s the thing: part of the reason perfectionism in writing is so deadly is because it’s a vague standard. What the heck is “perfect” in writing? Is there such a thing? Seriously? There are no “perfect” books or authors; even Shakespeare has readers who loathe him, as does every other author in the universe including your personal favorites.

“Perfectionism” in writing is deadly because it doesn’t actually mean anything. All it does is poison the well.

So where does that leave you? There’s no “off-button” for the drive of perfectionism, but there is hope. We'll start practicing different methods for dealing with this throughout the semester.

#1 - The first, probably most important counter to perfectionism is recognizing it and understanding it is not a helpful characteristic to practice, and that a better, more healthy motivating point of view is striving for excellence.