Deliberate Imperfection is an Act of Resistance

The Creative Goods, Issue No. 6

Today, I give you Issue No. 6 of The Creative Goods, a feminist and justice-based advice column for creators with conundrums, written by me, Jill Margo. In this issue, I respond to “The Torment Is Real” on the issue of perfectionism.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic too, so please feel free to comment. I’d also love to know if you answered the Reflection Prompts and what insights you gained about perfectionism in your own life and practice.

Oh, and before you get to the goods, there’s a short announcement about my autumn offerings. The intake is happening now!

Thanks for being here. Enjoy!

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AUTUMN FOLLOW-THROUGH SESSIONS
Do the work that matters most to you with the support of like-hearted peers

This autumn, starting on October 2nd, two groups (Mondays from 3:30pm to 5:30pm PT or 6:30pm to 8:30pm PT) of eight creators will meet via Zoom every couple of weeks for a whole season of accountability, encouragement, and in-it-togetherness. Participants will also get access to a private Facebook group for facilitated weekly check-ins; a custom Seasonal Planner; a one-hour, one-on-one coaching/consultation session; and access to me via weekly office hours. The intake began on Monday and goes until September 19th or until all spots are spoken for (half are already gone!). Learn more and/or apply here now.

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THE SEAONSAL CREATOR: AUTUMN
Attune your creative practice to the energies of the current season

This pay-what-you-wish workshop—one of four—to be held on Zoom on Tuesday, September 19th from 3:30pm to 5pm PT or 6:30pm to 8pm PT, will help you learn to work with the energy of the season in a way that honours your own fluctuating energy levels so that you can pace yourself throughout the year. Includes a PDF workbook of reflection prompts. To learn more and/or reserve your spot, please go here.

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Dear Jill,

A friend of mine said that you’re the person to talk to about perfectionism. I’d like to book a one-on-one session with you to talk about this, but in the meantime, do you have any words of wisdom to help me be evict perfectionism from my life? If I could do that, I think I might even be able to get my work out into the world. Or at least I’d be less tormented. If you could help me get my torment level down to even a 4/10 I’d be happy.

With thanks in advance.

Signed,

The Torment is Real (they/them)

Dear The Torment is Real,

I’m chuckling right now at that phrase “we teach what we most need to learn” since every month, when I sit down to write one of these letters, I have to give myself the perfectionism talk. Fortunately, I’m now at the stage where all I need to say to myself is, “Remember, Jill, perfectionism upholds oppression and we’re not going to let oppression win.”

Let me explain.

Perfectionism means having unrealistically high expectations and then feeling badly when those expectations aren’t met. Examples of how perfectionism manifests: spending an hour writing one short paragraph; believing minor mistakes mean you failed; and avoiding releasing your work if you think it’s less than “perfect”.

Now, let’s go deeper. (I’ve already written a bit about perfectionism on my website and Instagram so I’m going to repeat myself a bit here.)

Perfectionism has many harmful side effects. It costs us time (and money) trying to get things “just so”, which, consequently, shrinks our body of work because it takes longer to get what we create into the world. Or, maybe, we don’t even get our creative work into the world at all because perfectionism has put us into a freeze state. Perfectionism (read the following with one of those drug-warning voices in your head) can also cause over-thinking, bad moods, stress, anxiety, and even depression.

Here’s the rub: chances are that the more of a perfectionist a person is, the more they’ve likely been impacted by dominator culture, which wants them to believe that something is wrong with them, that they’re not enough. So, the root cause of perfectionism is the fear of being criticized, judged, blamed, or attacked by others—or even just the fear of causing disappointment. But that’s not a you problem or failing, it’s a collective issue.

Now, let’s get personal. Your letter didn’t give me much to go on (which is totally fine), but given that you use gender neutral pronouns, I think I can safely assume that you’re not someone who fits into the so-called norm. If you are a gender-diverse person, you’re part of a group of people who cisnormative society is often hostile toward and who experience discrimination and violence. For you, being a perfectionist could be an attempt to be safe and accepted. You’re so used to being undervalued (and worse) that you use perfectionism as a form of defense and as the price of admission.

Does that resonate at all?

I’ll use myself as an example now. When I was younger and still thought being fat was my fault, I used to agonize over what to wear and spent hours trying to get my hair and makeup perfect. I thought that if I was well turned-out and held my head high people might be less likely to judge me by my weight—or at least they’d know I wasn’t a lazy slob, that I was a good fat person. I was late for work countless times because of this and would end up missing my bus and having to pay for a taxi to get there on time.

That’s just one of many examples of how perfectionism has manifested in my own life. I’d need a lot more space than I have here to detail how it impacted my writing life alone and why—though I will tell you that getting hate mail talking about my body in response to some of my published work was part of it.

This is what happens when you live in a society that wants to remind you of all the ways you don’t fit in and continually causes you harm (in my case, living in a fatphobic society causes me far, far more harm than having a fat body). It’s no wonder we try to use perfectionism as a shield in all areas of our lives. But the real problem is that perfectionism then becomes a pillar that upholds oppression, so oppression is still winning!

Kelly Diels, who is a thinker, teacher, and coach for culture makers, is the person who really helped me see the connection between perfectionism and oppression. She has this exercise, that I use now (with her permission), to help folks destabilize unconscious conditioning and then recondition themselves. First, you identify a challenge (not getting your work into the world) and issue (perfectionism) and build your personal and political analysis around that, as above. Next, you flip your issue on its head, so perfectionism becomes “deliberate imperfection”, and you build a strategy around that. So, for example, one of Kelly’s strategies is to release blog posts/newsletters into the world when they’re “80% adequate”.

I don’t know what kind of creative work you do, but I wonder what deliberate imperfection could look like for you as a strategy?

You don’t have to be perfect to show up, be seen, do your work, and be successful. Using deliberate imperfection as a liberatory practice will still get you where you want to go. In fact, you’ll likely do even better work because you’ll be more at ease and more yourself without perfectionism. Plus, we need your voice and work in the world because representation matters, and it makes space for others like you to be seen and heard too.

So, the next time you grapple with perfectionism you may want to remember that deliberate imperfection is not only liberatory, but a form of resistance that gives the finger to oppression. In other words, let yourself value anti-oppression over perfectionism. It’s a bit of a shit-show out there and we need to do everything we can to oppose, change, and reform the systems. Resistance is part of culture-making.

And remember there’s a difference between healthy striving and perfectionism. Brene Brown says that while perfectionism hampers success, “healthy striving is celebrating the small victories along the way. You appreciate the effort and the process with self-compassion, whether or not the goal is met.” A saying that helps with this is “progress, not perfection.”

I think this response is about 80% adequate now, so I’ll sign off with the sincere hope that perfectionism starts losing its grip on you and you go way down on the torment scale. I’ll be thinking of you.

Good things,

Jill

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REFLECTION PROMPTS

Want to dig deeper into this issue’s topic in terms of your own creative practice? Make yourself a cuppa and grab a notebook and pen…

• What challenges does perfectionism present for you and your creative work?

• When do you notice flare-ups of perfectionism happening?

• What impact does perfectionism have on your personal life?

• In terms of your own intersecting identities, what forms of oppression does perfectionism uphold?

• What would strategies of deliberate imperfection look like in your own creative practice?

• How can you keep reminding yourself that deliberate imperfection is a liberatory practice and form of resistance?