The Perfectionism Post I Almost Didn't Publish (Because It Wasn't Perfect Yet)

17 Feb

Let me set the scene.

It's a Tuesday evening. I have a cup of tea, a blank document and a very clear intention to write a helpful, insightful blog post about perfectionism. A topic I know inside out. A topic I work with every single week. A topic I could genuinely talk about in my sleep.

Forty-five minutes later, I have rewritten the opening paragraph six times, deleted it entirely twice, questioned whether I actually have anything original to say, briefly considered whether my whole area of expertise has already been covered by someone else who did it better and made a second cup of tea I didn't even want.

The irony wasn't lost on me. I promise.

The Voice in the Room

Here's what was actually happening in my head during those forty-five minutes, helpfully transcribed for your reading pleasure:

"This opening isn't punchy enough. Someone else has probably already written this better. What if people think it's too obvious? What if it's not obvious enough and goes over people's heads? Maybe I should do more research first. Actually I should probably restructure the whole thing. I'll just make some notes and come back to it when I'm in a better headspace. Tomorrow. I'll definitely do it tomorrow."

That right there, is perfectionism doing exactly what it always does. Showing up uninvited, making itself completely at home, and quietly convincing you that not starting is somehow safer than starting imperfectly. That waiting is sensible. That more preparation is responsible. That tomorrow will be better.

It won't be better. There will just be a different reason to wait.

And the truly wild part? I know all of this. I help people with this literally for a living. And still….still my own perfectionism pulled up a chair, ordered a drink and got comfortable.

Which tells you everything you need to know about how deep these patterns actually run.

Why Knowing Better Doesn't Mean Doing Better (At First)

This is the part that really trips people up. They'll read something about perfectionism or anxiety, or people-pleasing, whatever pattern they're working with understand it completely, and think: right, I get it now. So I should be able to just stop doing it.

And then they don't stop. And then they feel worse, because now they understand it and they're still doing it, which clearly means something is extra wrong with them.

It doesn't. Here's why.

Perfectionism isn't stored in the part of your brain that reads blog posts and absorbs information. It's stored much deeper; in your nervous system, in your subconscious patterns, in the part of you that learned a very long time ago that imperfection had consequences. Maybe getting something wrong meant criticism that stung for days. Maybe doing brilliantly was the only time you felt truly seen. Maybe you watched what happened to someone else when they failed, filed it quietly under things to avoid at all costs, and your brain has been running that programme ever since.

Whatever the origin, the lesson sank in deep. Be perfect, stay safe. And your clever, adaptive brain has been running that on autopilot ever since. No amount of intellectual understanding switches it off. You can't think your way out of a pattern that isn't stored in your thoughts.

Knowing your perfectionism is irrational doesn't make it stop. It just adds a layer of self-criticism to the pile. Which, frankly, is the last thing any of us needs.

The Many Disguises of Perfectionism

The reason perfectionism is so hard to catch is that it rarely announces itself. It doesn't show up saying hello, I am perfectionism and I am about to derail your afternoon. It's far sneakier than that.

It shows up as procrastination. Not laziness…..fear. If you don't start, you can't fail. The blank document stays pristine and so do you. (See: me, Tuesday evening.)

It shows up as overworking. Staying late, redoing things that were already completely fine, polishing something for the fifth time because it still doesn't quite feel done. It never quite feels done. That's the point.

It shows up as avoidance. Not applying for the job. Not sending the message. Not putting yourself forward because what if it doesn't go perfectly?

It shows up as overpreparing. Researching for so long that the actual doing never happens. Gathering information feels like progress. It mostly isn't.

And sometimes it shows up as people-pleasing. Because perfectionism isn't always about tasks and outputs. Sometimes it's about being the perfect friend, partner, colleague and never saying the wrong thing, never taking up too much space, never being a disappointment to anyone.

All different flavours. Same root. The belief that if you can just get this right, whatever this is, you'll finally be safe.

So What Did I Actually Do?

I noticed what was happening. That's step one. Not beating myself up about it, not oh for goodness sake Nicola you of all people ….just noticing. Oh, there it is. Hello, old friend.

Then I wrote something. Anything. Just to break the spell of the blank page. Not because it was good. Specifically because it wasn't perfect yet. Because the whole point was to prove to my own nervous system that starting imperfectly doesn't actually kill you.

And here's what happened, which is what always happens when you stop wrestling with perfectionism and just do the thing anyway. It got easier as I went. The second paragraph flowed better than the first. By the third section I'd forgotten to be self-conscious. By the end I was just writing, without the commentary track running in the background.

That's not magic. That's what happens when you stop letting the fear make the decisions.

Perfectionism loses most of its power the moment you start. The whole game is keeping you from starting.

The Part Where I Get Honest With You

I'm sharing all of this not because I've am now a serene, effortlessly productive person who floats through life unbothered. I am absolutely not that person. Ask anyone who knows me.

I'm sharing it because I think there's something genuinely important in knowing that healing isn't a destination you reach and then coast. It's more that the voice gets quieter over time. The gap between noticing the spiral and getting pulled all the way in gets wider. You start catching it earlier. You develop a sort of affectionate exasperation with it… oh, there you are again… instead of being completely flattened by it.

And crucially, you stop needing the thing to be perfect before you'll allow yourself to do it. You start doing it anyway. Messily, imperfectly, humanly. And you discover that the world doesn't end. That people still like you. That the thing you were so afraid of getting wrong was never quite as high-stakes as it felt.

What Actually Moves the Needle

Awareness helps. Naming the pattern, understanding where it came from, seeing it clearly is genuinely useful. But if you've been working with perfectionism for a while you've probably already discovered that awareness on its own has a ceiling.

Because perfectionism isn't a thinking problem. It's a nervous system problem, a subconscious belief problem, a felt-sense-in-the-body problem. It lives in the part of you that doesn't speak in words. It speaks in the tightness in your chest when you're about to submit something. In the sudden urgent need to reorganise your entire kitchen instead of making the phone call. In the replay of something you said six months ago that probably nobody else even remembers.

That's where IEMT and hypnotherapy come in. Not as a magic wand but as tools that work at the level where the pattern actually lives. Updating the old belief. Teaching your nervous system that imperfection isn't dangerous anymore.

That's the work. And it's some of the most worthwhile work a person can do.

And On That Note…. I'm Publishing This

Is this post perfect? Absolutely not. I changed the title three times. I'm still not entirely sure about the middle section. There's probably a better ending that I haven't thought of yet.

I'm publishing it anyway.

Because that, as it turns out, is the whole point.