What is the Purpose of Procrastinating Perfectionism?

By Joey O'Connor

The twin evil stepsisters of making progress with your art are Procrastination and Perfectionism.

What is the purpose of these two nefarious Sirens?

Nothing.

Listening to the Siren Songs of Procrastination and Perfectionism reveals the lack of a clearly defined purpose and the specific results you want in your creative life. 

No judgey. It happens to all of us.

Both extremes (and the messy middle in-between) are the avoidance of pain.

Why?

Because making art is hard work.

Procrastination pushes the pain of your creative hard work into the future.

Perfectionism pushes that pain backward into the past.

Procrastination pushes your art into the future to let your Future Self deal with it (why would we do that?).

Perfectionism pushes your art into the past because if you had let that work fly one week, one month or one year ago, you'd be onto creating more art.

In the moment, procrastination and perfectionism feels good because we can numb ourselves with our false beliefs, lies or denial that we're doing something more important in this moment. (Our 3 Insidious Lies webinar just might help. Hit the link.)

Procrastination and Perfectionism, no matter what we tell ourselves, is all about displaced energy. We're pushing our power into the future or into the past.

Every morning you and I wake up, we get one cup of emotional reserves to use throughout the day. Depending on the previous day, past week or month, we wake with different levels of reserves. 

Procrastination and Perfectionism, no matter how full our cup is, drains our reserves.

One cup. That's it. That's all you get.

There are a lot of reasons we fall prey to Procrastination and Perfectionism...not all of them are your fault. But now that you know that, it's up to you to choose what to do.

Our Grove Team will be having a conversation this week about putting your creative power into high performance mode and how to get there. 

(Hint: We're going to dial into the importance of a clearly defined purpose.)

I'd like to invite you to join us. We always have lots of fun with artists in the room. 

Rise Above Procrastination & Perfectionism to Creative High Performance - Replay

If you struggle with procrastination and perfectionism in your creative life, you're not alone! Join Joey O'Connor and members of The Grove team in this free webinar playback. You will receive practical help and proven strategies for creative high performance. We will pack High Value into this 39 minute webinar. Watch now.

Don't procrastinate! Leave a comment below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.