Purfectionism
I started this blog as an outlet for me, a way of constructing my thoughts into some sort of free-flowing narrative. Typical of me, when I start something I really get into it and at the first hurdle or sign that shows me that I’m not “good”, I give up and say it’s not for me (yep, sorry gym membership) and this is exactly what happened here over the last 6 months.
What happened this time…?
At the beginning of the year I wrote down a list of things I wanted to accomplish and one of the things was to blog regularly. So I started this blog and my first blog post was about OCD and everyone I showed it to found it insightful, quirky and humorous at the same time. This gave me validation and a reason to believe that maybe I’m good at something and maybe actually I’m just bloody amazing…
I followed that blog up with another one 3 months later during Ramadan and I felt that the blog post wasn’t great. In response to this, I refused to share it with people, get their feedback and I fully convinced myself that not only do I suck at blogging but also that I can never get “good” at it (good = posting regularly).
The last 6 months since then have been horrible. At the beginning, I would try and sit down and give it another go but I would want the blog to be absolutely amazing this time. For example, I wanted to write a blog about mental health in South Asia and how it’s not spoken about enough and then I ended up doing dissertation-level research about the impact of the British Raj on the perceptions of mental health in the Indian subcontinent (really interesting topic if you get a chance to look into). However, the scope of the research grew so big and so overwhelming that I just gave up on not only writing that blog, but blogging all together.
I just felt like I had to know every bloody thing before I formed an opinion on it for fear of other people spotting that I’m wrong about something…SOMETHING THAT I AM IN NO WAY AN EXPERT IN SO WHY SHOULD I EXPECT MYSELF TO BE WELL-VERSED AND INFALLIBLE IN SOMETHING THAT I HAD ONLY LOOKED INTO FOR A COUPLE OF WEEKS?
The answer is perfectionism. Perfectionism is what made me ultimately tell myself that “I’m not good enough”, “there’s no point thinking about other topics”, “find something else to be good at…if you can” and “you absolutely suck at this”.
I just wished someone had witnessed what I was telling myself and doing to myself and just say…
What I failed to realize
Among the obvious things such as the fact that this blog is not a thing that defines my life, I failed to realize so many things:
- I don’t have to be an expert in writing about something that I just do as a hobby.
- There is no such thing as a “right” way to blog, I can write whatever the hell I really like (within reason, this isn’t 4chan).
Here’s the one that hurt the most…
3. The very fact that I was telling myself I’m no good, stopped me from getting any better at it (‘better’ being defined here as feeling confident enough to post more regularly on here).
What I now know
There are a few lessons I’ve learnt from this whole thing that I want to practise regularly:
- I need to be easier on myself and practice self-compassion. Not only that, I will also be more compassionate towards others making mistakes or showing ‘imperfections’.
- Validation from myself should hold equal weighting with validation from others so I need to acknowledge what I’ve done well sometimes and be proud of it for myself even if no one else notices.
- I am a work in progress and I will embrace myself as that. I will manage my expectations better.
- Practice is the only way to get better at things so I will practise often, fail often but eventually I will succeed.
So this is it. You might think it’s bad (if you do, let me know how I can improve) or you might think it’s good (it’s nice to say nice things so let me know that also) but all I can say is that you will absolutely see me again and I am going to share this everywhere I possibly can.
Nabeel
P.S. this blog about perfectionism is really good so check it out.
