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If you ask most people about the root of perfectionism, they’ll usually link it to the inner critic in some way.
Some people say it’s a result of having a very harsh inner critic.
Others will say that it comes from growing up with parents who were overly critical.
These things definitely play their part, for sure.
But I think there’s more to it than that.
I think a lot of perfectionism is linked to the fear of humiliation.
The fear of humiliation is the same thing as the fear of being a fool.
In our society today, being seen as a fool is viewed as one of the worst fates that could befall a person.
Mainly because we live in a culture that is so heavily dominated by left-brain thinking.
On the left-brain side of life, it’s seen as super important to:
Always have ironclad evidence to back up your claims.
Have strong skills in arguing and confrontation.
Dominate others in discussions—whether through the force of your ideas, or the force of your delivery.
Be “right” all the time, or as much as possible.
Leave no questions unanswered.
Also, on the left-brain side of life, people are mocked, ridiculed, and dismissed if:
They believe in things the majority of people don’t.
They see the materialistic-scientific view of things as just one of many different views.
They don’t buy into anxiety about absolutely every possible negative future event that might come our way.
They decide not to go with tried-and-true methods, and instead set out to do something totally new.
In our society, if you don’t satisfy the requirements on the first list above, and you instead tend to lean more toward the items on the second list, you will often experience the contempt of others.
In other words, a lot of people might think you are a fool and/or let you know that’s what they think of you in myriad different ways.
This contempt and dismissal from other people undermine our sense of self, and our belief in our own work.
Whenever we think about creating or building something that could possibly help other people, or something that just sounds really interesting to us, we frequently find these phantom voices showing up in our psyche, telling us not to be a fool in one form or another.
This is the inner critic. It says things like:
It will never work.
You better be absolutely sure it will work before you even try it.
How do you know this is going to work?
Why would you even think this is going to work?
There’s just no way you can make this work.
The voice of the inner critic gaslights us, and it always, always returns to the fear of humiliation as one of its main weapons of choice.
Because we’ve been taught in our society that there’s nothing worse than being seen as a fool.
The solution to this is not to convince the inner critic that there is nothing to fear, and it’s not to build some superhuman level of confidence that helps you to believe that you’re a genius and no one else’s opinion is capable of touching you.
That kind of strategy simply doesn’t work.
The real solution is to face the fear of humiliation, accept the possibility of being the fool, and then lean into it.
Because what left-brain society doesn’t understand (and never will) is that the Fool is actually a figure of great power,
and when we connect to the Fool, we connect to a level of freedom that most other people just don’t have access to when creating things.
This is one of the topics I’m going to be talking about in my new workshop happening this Sunday, January 18, called “The Prison of Perfectionism (and How to Get Free).”
You can find the details and register here:
THE PRISON OF PERFECTIONISM (AND HOW TO GET FREE)
This workshop will be recorded, and all registrants will receive a link to the recording 24 to 48 hours after the event.
Any other questions, reply to this email.
Lauren
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