Perfectionism and the stealthy art of Avoiding-What-Comes-Next

So... I've got all my artist quality paints ready.... I've bought brushes that don't shed like mangy dogs... I've got a design all worked out it my "design diary"... I'm pretty much ready to paint these matryoshkas. Gulp! There's probably one more thing (two more things?) I can legitimately do before I reach the point of ok-now-I'm-avoiding-what-comes-next. (That's test the paints and finalise my colourways, btw).

Ok-now-I'm-avoiding-what-comes-next. It's so unpleasant to acknowledge Avoiding-What-Comes-Next that we've created a special word for it - Procrastinating. A sort of placeholder word that makes act of Avoiding-What-Comes-Next seem legitimate. And benign. And sort of understandable.

Avoiding-What-Comes-Next is strange place to be in... because part of the way that it works is that you can't really acknowledge that you're there. And to do that successfully, there has to be a really good and defensible reason for not doing what you need to do next.

Like:

"I can't do it while my 2.5 year old daughter is around and wants to mess with my painting shit".

Or...

"There's no one else about at the moment but I'm still sleepy cos I just woke up so I'd better not start now".

Or...

"The table where I need to set up and do my work is too messy right now" (cos clearly cleaning is out of the question!).

Any of those "reasons" are potentially great distractions from what's really happening when I'm Avoiding-What-Comes-Next.

Sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're legitimate reasons. I know they're legit when I feel like I've got an itch that I can't scratch (frustrated). But I know they're probably suspect when I realise that sitting just behind them is a cold-hearted dread. Of doing-what-comes-next.

In these scenarios, what comes "next" is usually something hard. For me, Hard is a special place where my perfectionism feels free to come out and play.

My perfectionism seems to love anything that resembles a finishing process. Because things that are finished are things that are ready to be judged. (Even as I write that I realise that it sounds creepy).

My perfectionism also loves to visit when I'm doing something that can't be done over. It could be a conversation, or a physical process that can't be repeated. (ahem, yes, like painting a pristine wooden matryoshka doll.) Even if the act itself is relatively easy, actually getting to the point of doing the act is hard. Because perfectionism is already whispering in my ear that it's safer not to do it at all. Can't fuck it up if you don't do it, right?

I've been spending a bit of time over at FluentSelf.com, a place which is both intriguing and inspiring. And I'm pretty sure that based on Havi Brooks' approach, I'd say something like this to my perfectionism:

"Hi Perfectionism! I'm going to do something that's probably going to make you very anxious and nervous soon. You're welcome to stay and watch if you can be supportive (or at least quiet). If you can't, I completely understand... but in that case you'd better head off somewhere else for a while and come back when I'm done. I know you want to keep me safe, but I need to do this. And if it isn't perfect, that's ok - it's the doing that's most important."