how perfectionism has ruined our will to try & fail at things

| my experiences with perfectionism and the fear of failure especially as a student and a content creator

I used to think that the trial & error methods in my high school chemistry class, for balancing out the equations, were such human way of doing things, how the ten atoms of carbon on the left side had to equate with the ten atoms of carbon on the right side of the equation, it all came together as a perfect equation after all the trial & errors. We think life works in a similar way too, we wait for our art to magically become perfect with just one more edit in that youtube video, just one more stroke of white in that painting, just one more edit in that substack draft, we wait and wait until our inspiration and the will to actually post our art dies.

Not just the artistic professions but even for us academic validation chasers, the ones who study late at night, wake up early to revise, try to memorise each and every important fact and statistic regarding the Global Economic Crises of 2008 and what not, the ones who study everyday and hate themselves when they doom-scroll as bed-time procrastination in pretense of rest, the ones who work hard for an A+ and punish themselves for not remembering an important history date. I had my second year finals this week and trust me these back to back exams with no breaks are life-leaching, still, I survived (applause 👏🏻👏🏻), however one thing I had to tackle the most with was perfectionism, now we all know the oxford definition for it is refusal to accept any standard short of perfection but isn’t it just a fancy term for the fear of failure?

This whole week I was struggling with the need to be perfect with my answers and their structure, afterall who doesn’t love an A+ and a 9.5cgpa but all that at what cost? The costs being my hours of sleep and rest, my mental peace and the will to study, I even lost my appetite studying for these exams, but main issue was the impossible standards that I had imposed on myself for the “perfect” amount of preparation for these exams. I realised that despite of studying consistently, I had been forcing myself to revise everything, every sub-topic in the most perfect way possible and not just the most important topics. Even the notes or the flowcharts that I make while revising felt so over-the-top and then I had to resort to letting the imperfections in my revision just steer me forward as I just wanted to get done with it all.

As some of you might know, I have a studygram called ‘theminimalstudies’ and as a creator as well it gets so hard to create stuff that the IG algorithm doesn’t totally disapprove of and actually shows it to people. So many of the ideas I get for reels and posts just go down the drain due to the perfectionist worm in me that just doesn’t let the whole ‘trial & error’ analogy ever play out, which is why I took a break from IG as I mentioned in my last article and it really made me feel much more in the zone with my studying and I also started writing articles here on substack so writing it all out genuinely did make my creative juices flow in a more authentic and less-perfectionist way.

In the near future I will try to brainstorm some reel, post, youtube video and substack post ideas to express myself even more authentically & grow a community of like-minded people and a whole lot less impacted by the algorithm that always makes me question whether its “good enough” or not. It is, it always is. Perfection is an illusion created by the capitalistic money-sucking industries that make us question our worth and in-turn promote their own products to make us fit into their so-called standard of perfection.

This is exactly why you need hobbies that are solely for your own happiness rather than a skill to improve at or monetize. I love Junk Journaling (I’ve attached a few spreads I made hehe) and its such a great way of just letting your mind relax while creating spreads full of the things you collected throughout the week like receipts, cards, packaging, stickers, literally anything that can be pasted onto paper lol. It really helps me relax my mind and as I write this, I recall that I haven’t done any junk journaling sesh since mid-february due to my exam prep, sigh, WILL DEFINITELY DO IT TODAY!

I really hope this helps in some way possible and makes you wanna let go of perfectionism just a lil bit. I will definietly be writing more on how to actually tackle perfectionism and allow yourself to make art, create and do things in a humanly raw way instead of the strategies and tactics of it all having to be perfect, hold you back.

Thank you so much for reading. Remember you’re always loved.

xoxo

Shreya