Did you know that perfectionism and procrastination are two sides of the same coin? As someone who has spent a solid two decades working to overcome her strong perfectionist impulses, I’ve spent a good chunk of time reading about this silent killer of writing sessions.
At its core, procrastination is all about evading discomfort. And as writers, we love stories, but we don’t always love labor or the risk that comes with jotting down our words. We may find that the scene that’s clear in our head is difficult to wrangle down onto the page, or there’s a chance that’ll we spend 3 hours writing a whole chapter only to have to cut it later. Or maybe the thought of sitting still and focusing on a blank page for an hour is juuuust painful enough that, perhaps, a quick scroll through social media may assuage the antsy mind.
With perfectionism, those risks compile subconsciously to the point that going full Steve Irwin on a shark seems less dangerous: What if you fail to write lush, evocative prose, even though this is your first draft? What if you haven’t outlined or researched enough and now you’re about to dig yourself into a massive hole of wasted work? What if you fail to meet your own lofty (unreasonable) word counts for the day? What if this book displeases your loved one or mom? What if it’s not even good enough to put in front of readers?
At this point, why wouldn’t you walk away? You could lose fingers doing this if you listened to your fretting subconscious! So instead, there are chores to do, screens to stare at, and pets to pester. You may even fill that time with other productive activities that are adjacent to actually writing: research, inspiration boards, outlining, organizing, journaling…
I know I certainly did this. I’d set ambitious writing goals only to find myself shutting down to avoid having to meet them. They were unreasonable goals suited for an idealized version of myself that did not exist. Once I admitted to myself that I’m the “slow and steady” type of writer, I began setting reasonable goals that no longer scared me into inaction. They were doable but also just slightly beyond my comfort range so as to encourage stretching myself.
However, that alone did not cure my strong perfectionistic habits. After reading Around the Writer’s Block by Rosanne Bane and a number of blog posts on the subject, I amalgamated and distilled all that wisdom down into a short daily exercise that I use at the start of every writing session.
I call it ARM. It stands for Aversion, Reward, Motivation. The exercise takes about 1-2 minutes.
To begin, find some scrap paper or open Notepad. ARM is not meant to be saved or collected. Its sole purpose is to meet you where you are at this minute. It cares not about your guilted self of yesterday or your idealized self of tomorrow. Saving today’s ARM will be useless for future exercises. Let it be ephemeral and idiosyncratic to this moment.
Aversion.
The first part of ARM asks you to take a hard look inward and be brutally honest about why writing may bring you discomfort today. In other words, what are you avoiding? Are you about to write an intimate, personal scene and you’re avoiding feeling vulnerable? Are you still nursing a sharp critique or a rejection? Deep down, will you be furious with yourself if you don’t meet your word count goals today? Or maybe the aversion is something simple: you’re sleepy and rather go back to bed.
Whatever it is, write it down without judgement. You will be tossing that paper / not saving this document, so be honest. Remember that your fear will exist whether or not you acknowledge it, but if you do bring it down onto the page, you will see how silly that fear was after all. This is, after all, looking under your bed for monsters.
Reward.
Read any book about forming habits, and you’ll find full-throated arguments for why you ought to reward yourself for good behaviors. External motivators take the sting out of discomfort and shift your mind from risk-aversion to reward-seeking. They tell your lizard brain: do this activity and get a prize, which rewires your neurological pathways to become more efficient at completing that activity in the future. In other words, external rewards make it easier to overcome perfectionism and procrastination the next time you show up to write.
As an aside, I originally reached for foods and beverages as my external rewards, but I found that because I consumed those same treats outside of my writing time, they weren’t particularly synonymous with the behavior change I sought to reinforce. Apparently, in my day-to-day life, I was quite good at finding excuses to eat my fancy cheeses and chocolates (“Oh, is it 2pm? It’s gruyere time!”). Due to this, I switched to scent-based rewards after discovering that an expensive perfume I received as a White Elephant gift worked as a far more potent and unique dopamine bump. Which is not surprising given that smells are the sense most hardwired to memory. For me, pairing a heady desert-moss scent with a kick-ass writing session has yielded far better results than claiming my fifth Lindt of the day.
Ultimately, it’s up to you to experiment and figure out what gives your brain the tingles.
Motivation.
The human psyche requires more than simple external rewards to restructure its malignant thought patterns for better ones. It needs internal motivators, too. The curious thing about internal motivators, though, is that they are far more fleeting and ephemeral than we’d like. One day, we may feel a noble calling to write about some great universal truth, and on another, we may feel an intense need to spite Gary. ‘Cause eff that guy.
Like the Aversion part of this exercise, it’s essential to write your current motivator down without judgement. Importantly, make note of what is actually turning your gears in this moment, not what you think your motivation ought to be. My own sundry of reasons have included “to feel like I’m making progress,” “to outdo that one asshat on X,” “to quell my existential horror vacui.” Really, anything. Meet the real you in this moment, no matter how petty or noble she might actually be.
Normally, I keep this ARM with me throughout the writing session then ditch it once I’m done. I’ve found this exercise helps me to leapfrog over perfectionist impulses and get going on writing. It acknowledges the discomforts that writing can bring without judgement and offers the subconscious two great reasons to do it anyway.
If you do decide to give it a whirl, please let me know in the comments. I’d love to know if it’s as effective for others as it has been for me.