life”) are tough , and we tend to lose productivity during them. As noted in Section 2.5, the transition from undergraduate to graduate school is often especially tough, in part because of the poor job many graduate programs do in preparing their new students for what’s to come.
As with all cases of perfectionism, your rationalizations for your situational perfectionism will probably be compelling. But you need to see through them and categorically reject all forms of perfectionism.
----
1 Margaret Weir, “Of Magic and Single Motherhood: Bestselling Author J.K. Rowling is Still Trying to Fathom the Instant Fame That Came with Her First Children’s Novel,” Salon, March 31, 1999 (www.salon.com/life/feature/1999/03/cov_31featureb.html).
2 Rowling, J.K., “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” (Harvard Commencement Address), June 5, 2008, (harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination).
The Solutions to Perfectionism and Procrastination
Section 2.10 Cultivate a Mindset of Compassionate Objectivity
T he major solutions to perfectionism and procrastination are:
Cultivate a Mindset of Compassionate Objectivity
Develop the Habit of Abundant Rewards and No Punishments
Arrive at a More Mature Understanding of Failure and Success
Use the Three Productivity Behaviors
Build Your Capacity for Fearless Writing via Timed Writing Exercises
Choose the Right Project
Learn to Balance the Creative and Non-Creative Aspects of Your Career
There are also some minor techniques.
Compassionate objectivity (CO) is the foundational technique. It’s a mindset where you combine:
Compassion , meaning you view yourself and your work with abundant empathy and understanding, with
Objectivity , meaning you see things accurately, with all their nuance and complexity. In place of perfectionism’s reductive, rigid, and punishing worldview, CO offers nuance, flexibility, empathy, and true love and respect. The compassionately objective (CO) person sees through perfectionism’s illusions and understands the realities about herself and her work. She knows to:
Set achievable goals and be compassionate about any failures or mistakes
Be realistic and grounded, as opposed to grandiose
Emphasize process almost entirely over product
Rely on internal rewards
Work within the realities of creativity and career-building, and
The CO person also eschews invidious comparisons, dichotomization, rigidity, unhelpful labels, hyperbole, negativity, shortsightedness, fetishes, unconsciousness, pathologizing, and blind spots.
Don’t confuse CO with “permissiveness,” “self-indulgence,” “being a Pollyanna,” “letting yourself off the hook,” or “giving yourself a pass.” It isn’t any of those things. CO calls it like it is—and with much more accuracy than perfectionism. CO people forgo unproductive blame and shame, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take responsibility.
Perfectionists tend to see CO as permissiveness because they see everything through a harsh, judgmental lens—and they dread permissiveness because they feel that constant harshness is the only thing keeping them from devolving into useless, unproductive monsters. It’s such a sad, difficult mindset, and so unnecessary: I promise you that if you use the techniques in this book you won’t devolve, but evolve.
In the end, CO is simply wisdom. The CO person knows how to be truly productive, and she also knows the costs of delusion. She knows, for example, that:
• Everyone operates under constraints of time, money, and skills. She judges a result against her own capacities and resources instead of an unrealistic ideal.
• She doesn’t have to fix all the problems with a piece of writing right now—she’ll have plenty of opportunity to fix them later. She also knows she shouldn’t expect to fix them “all” anyway, since that’s a perfectionist goal.
• Even if this writing project
As with all cases of perfectionism, your rationalizations for your situational perfectionism will probably be compelling. But you need to see through them and categorically reject all forms of perfectionism.
----
1 Margaret Weir, “Of Magic and Single Motherhood: Bestselling Author J.K. Rowling is Still Trying to Fathom the Instant Fame That Came with Her First Children’s Novel,” Salon, March 31, 1999 (www.salon.com/life/feature/1999/03/cov_31featureb.html).
2 Rowling, J.K., “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” (Harvard Commencement Address), June 5, 2008, (harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination).
The Solutions to Perfectionism and Procrastination
Section 2.10 Cultivate a Mindset of Compassionate Objectivity
T he major solutions to perfectionism and procrastination are:
Cultivate a Mindset of Compassionate Objectivity
Develop the Habit of Abundant Rewards and No Punishments
Arrive at a More Mature Understanding of Failure and Success
Use the Three Productivity Behaviors
Build Your Capacity for Fearless Writing via Timed Writing Exercises
Choose the Right Project
Learn to Balance the Creative and Non-Creative Aspects of Your Career
There are also some minor techniques.
Compassionate objectivity (CO) is the foundational technique. It’s a mindset where you combine:
Compassion , meaning you view yourself and your work with abundant empathy and understanding, with
Objectivity , meaning you see things accurately, with all their nuance and complexity. In place of perfectionism’s reductive, rigid, and punishing worldview, CO offers nuance, flexibility, empathy, and true love and respect. The compassionately objective (CO) person sees through perfectionism’s illusions and understands the realities about herself and her work. She knows to:
Set achievable goals and be compassionate about any failures or mistakes
Be realistic and grounded, as opposed to grandiose
Emphasize process almost entirely over product
Rely on internal rewards
Work within the realities of creativity and career-building, and
The CO person also eschews invidious comparisons, dichotomization, rigidity, unhelpful labels, hyperbole, negativity, shortsightedness, fetishes, unconsciousness, pathologizing, and blind spots.
Don’t confuse CO with “permissiveness,” “self-indulgence,” “being a Pollyanna,” “letting yourself off the hook,” or “giving yourself a pass.” It isn’t any of those things. CO calls it like it is—and with much more accuracy than perfectionism. CO people forgo unproductive blame and shame, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take responsibility.
Perfectionists tend to see CO as permissiveness because they see everything through a harsh, judgmental lens—and they dread permissiveness because they feel that constant harshness is the only thing keeping them from devolving into useless, unproductive monsters. It’s such a sad, difficult mindset, and so unnecessary: I promise you that if you use the techniques in this book you won’t devolve, but evolve.
In the end, CO is simply wisdom. The CO person knows how to be truly productive, and she also knows the costs of delusion. She knows, for example, that:
• Everyone operates under constraints of time, money, and skills. She judges a result against her own capacities and resources instead of an unrealistic ideal.
• She doesn’t have to fix all the problems with a piece of writing right now—she’ll have plenty of opportunity to fix them later. She also knows she shouldn’t expect to fix them “all” anyway, since that’s a perfectionist goal.
• Even if this writing project
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