How to Defeat Perfectionism in Your Creative Writing
We’ve all been there before. You have this grand idea about this amazing story you want to write about, but no matter how you put it on the page, it doesn’t work.
The characters aren’t interesting enough. The dialogue is too flat. And the plot? Don’t get me started.
Nothing about what you’ve written matches the vision inside your head.
So, what do you do? You scrap it.
Why? Because it’s not good enough, and neither are you.
The struggle of perfectionism is one all creatives face. We’re unable to move forward in our work and reach the success we want to achieve because we can’t get over the fact that our work isn’t perfect.
Some might argue that striving for perfection is a good thing. Isn’t excellence the goal?
It’s one thing to want your work to be better while allowing some flaws to come through. But to expect your work to be perfect and your writing process too is a fool’s game.
If you continue this way, you will never be satisfied with yourself or your work.
So, what next? How do you get out of this way of thinking?
You free yourself from the perfectionist trap by adopting a new mindset and implementing habits that allow you to create your best work.
If you stay on the perfectionist path, you’ll end up with many unfinished projects. You won’t learn the skills you need to know to create the stories that live in your head. There will always be a gap between where you are and where you want to be.
Perfectionism is as much about striving for perfection as the fear of being imperfect. Yes, we want to get it right on the first try, but we’re also terrified of getting it wrong.
In this post, I’m going to share ways you can start to free yourself from this endless cycle so that you can create the work you want to share with the world.
Let’s get started.
Adopt a Beginner’s Mindset
We all have to start somewhere. But if you’re a perfectionist, the thought of starting from scratch is scary. Why? Because you're forced to do something you’re not good at. This is hard for those of us who grew up being the “gifted child” in our family.
There's an expectation that everything we do should be flawless and executed with ease. However, what people fail to mention is how this treatment harms us in the long term.
As a perfectionist, you’re under constant pressure to succeed. There is no room for mistakes, and if you do fail, then it’s a direct result of your ability and competence. Perfectionists like to do things they’re already good at because it validates their self-worth and ego.
What it doesn’t do is push you toward growth. Instead, it holds you back from it.
Perfectionism is what we call a fixed mindset. It makes you believe that if you don’t naturally have the ability to do something, then you won’t have it at all. It proves that you’re not cut out for the work and should give up. But this way of thinking isn’t true, and author Carol Dweck has done the research to prove it.
When you embrace a growth mindset, where you believe you can acquire the skills or knowledge you need to succeed, you open yourself up to a world of possibilities.
It's unreasonable for us to think we can learn a new skill easily on the first try. However, if you follow the growth or beginner’s mindset, you’ll know that the first few attempts will be a struggle but will improve over time. When you think like a beginner, you know every opportunity to practice is an opportunity to grow. You don’t see your current state as the final one. You know that you are getting better each time you show up and try.
You can start to change your mindset by adopting a new self-belief. This can be “I’m capable of learning new skills” or “I can overcome hard obstacles and follow through.” Next, search your past for proof of this belief. You may be surprised at what you find.
Experiences will appear that confirm the new belief you want to set for yourself, and all that’s left is to remind yourself of this belief daily as you show up to work.
You won’t be able to adopt a new mindset overnight because it requires you to practice it deliberately. However, you’ll soon tap into it unconsciously with time, bringing you one step closer to beating your perfectionism.
Use Decision Dates
As a recovering perfectionist, I love a good deadline. It keeps me moving forward and forces me to keep momentum with my projects. This is the benefit of having a solid structure in place.
If you tend to flip back and forth between decisions or you’re always noodling on your work but not finishing it. Then, this step is for you.
At some point, you have to make peace with the fact that the step you’re on is done. You can’t keep making character profiles and filling out world-building sheets because this is another way to procrastinate.
While it gives the illusion of being productive, the truth is it’s just another distraction.
A Decision Date is a set time when you have to decide and move forward in your project, whether you’re ready or not. Trust me, Parkinson’s law is real. Your work will fill whatever amount of time you provide it.
So, if you give yourself six months to outline versus one month, you can bet you’ll use every day of those six months – even if you don’t need it.
Implementing a structure into your routine gets you into the habit of being consistent. Rather than never finishing your projects because there’s no deadline, you can start a new habit of finishing what you started.
This can be difficult as a perfectionist because it’ll make us think our work is unfinished. Again, that’s not true.
Your work doesn’t need to be perfect; it needs to be done. And sometimes, “done” is accepting when you’ve reached the limits of your schedule and skill and need to move forward.
In writing this blog post, I committed myself to posting every week, even if I felt like more work needed to be done. Was it hard to press Publish when I wanted to keep revising? Of course. Did I feel resistance to sharing imperfect work because it’s not flawless? Absolutely.
But guess what? I still posted it.
And because I did, you still benefitted from learning something new, and I kept my word to myself by finishing what I started. What comes from accomplishing this task are lessons I can apply to my next post and the confidence in knowing I can do this consistently. I showed up and did the work, and I’m better for it. You can be, too.
Get into the habit of setting deadlines for yourself and committing to them. A commitment means you will do it no matter what. Doing this will bring you away from the perfectionist trap and closer to the writer you’re destined to be.
Create a schedule, set your milestones, and commit to showing up to every writing session ready to put words on the page. Let your writing routine be the bridge between where you are now and where you want to be.
Which brings us to our next point...
Focus on the Progress, Not the Outcome
In Benjamin Hardy’s book, “The Gap and Gain,” he describes the result we want to achieve as the horizon line you see when sailing at sea. It will always be out of reach If you keep measuring where you are to that distance. Why? Because the horizon line is always changing. It’s not a set measurement you can reach.
Comparing where you are to the outcome leaves you in a place called The Gap. The Gap is where you’re constantly striving for more and never satisfied even when you reach that destination. You’re unsatisfied after you succeed because you’ve already set your sights on the next outcome. You’re always left wanting more.
It's the same in our creative work. As perfectionists, we’re never satisfied with where we’re at. We’re so attached to the outcome that nothing else measures up. Everything is always a disappointment because it falls short of our ideal.
The truth is our work will never be perfect, and that’s okay. The ideal is an illusion, anyway. Remember, it’s the horizon line.
There will always be something that is lost when you translate the idea in your head onto the page. The reader will never be able to see your story as clearly as you do, and you can never write it as clearly as you see it, either.
Perfectionists tend to tie their self-worth to the end result. This means that if we don’t achieve the goal we’re aiming for, we see ourselves as failures instead. We take it to mean that we are unworthy and incompetent. We stay in The Gap, where we’re never truly happy with ourselves or our work.
The only way to counter this dangerous way of thinking is by shifting your focus to The Gain. Don’t look at the outcome; look at the progress you made instead.
Where did you start, and how far have you come already? Measure backward, not forward.
When you do this, it puts you in a better position mentally and creatively. You see how you’ve improved and what you’ve gained from the experiences you’ve had in the past. When you take a moment to appreciate what you’ve done, it gives you more confidence as you progress forward.
Perfectionism likes to highlight what you lack by keeping you in The Gap, but when you put your attention on your progress, you see everything you’ve gained instead. The Gain is where true happiness and appreciation lie.
Enjoy where you are, and don’t try to force yourself to be somewhere else. With patience, effort, and practice, you’ll get to where you need to go in due time. Trust that your progress is driving you forward.
Embrace Your Mistakes
No one likes to be wrong, but that’s especially true for perfectionists. Not only do they not want to be wrong, but they must also be perfectly right.
For a perfectionist, making a mistake or failing becomes a reflection of their self-worth. If they fail or get it wrong, then that means they’re unworthy of this creative pursuit.
Each failure is taken personally and is a major hit to the ego. How can you call yourself a writer if you keep getting it wrong?
The problem with this thinking is that making mistakes and failing are crucial to the creative process. Without failure, there’s no possibility of success. You need to learn what doesn’t work before you can understand what does.
If you’re too afraid to put your work out there because you’re afraid of rejection or failing, then you’ll never achieve success. Your work needs to be shared – perfect or not – because it’s through the feedback you receive that you can get better.
All of us have blind spots, so mistakes are bound to happen. This doesn’t make them a bad thing. Instead, this makes them a great lesson for us all. The person most likely to achieve their goals is the one most willing to fail.
If you want to increase your chances of success, double your failure rate so success becomes inevitable. Rather than seeing your mistakes as confirmation of your incompetence, see it as an opportunity to grow and learn.
I like to see all my failures as lessons. They show me where I can improve for next time so that when I start my next project, I can start at a higher level than I did before.
Failure is a beautiful thing because it’s proof that you tried.
That’s the space you want to be in with your work – in a constant state of trying. Perfectionism will try to put a wall around you to keep you safe from rejection and pain, but this will only hurt you in the long run.
This isn’t how you stay safe. Rather, it’s how you stay stunted in your growth.
Your best work is on the other side of fear, failure, and rejection. You have to take the risk of getting it wrong so that you can finally get it right.
Embrace your mistakes and everything they have to teach you. You’ll be better for it in the end.
Show Yourself Compassion
You are deserving of grace, especially as a creative.
This job is not easy – whether you’re a writer, artist, musician, or whatever. Every time you show up to create something new, you give a part of yourself with it.
As writers, we put our hearts onto the page for it to be experienced by the world. Sometimes, people’s reactions are positive; sometimes, they’re not. But there’s no greater critic than the one in your head.
After we’ve released our work into the world, our inner critic might say that we’ve made a mistake. We should’ve spent more time on it or waited until it was ready. But we know that if it were up to our critic, it would never be ready and out of our hands. It would stay on our computer as another unfinished file because it wasn’t up to our idealistic standards.
When you share your work with the world, you shouldn’t regret the fact that you tried to do something unfamiliar or uncomfortable. By overcoming the resistance you felt from your perfectionist tendencies, you’ve moved one step closer to growth.
It’s just like our stories. There’s no character development without a formidable obstacle. You need conflict for the main character to change into the person they are destined to be.
As you continue your writing journey, you will face many challenges – some harder than others – but as you face each one, remember to show yourself compassion when you do.
Compassion is the intersection between love and understanding. You have to be kind to yourself. The journey won’t be easy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be worth it.
Many of the best things in life are hard. There’s always a period of uncomfortableness we must face that requires a large amount of courage to get through it. But the good news is you are capable of getting through it.
If you mine your past for proof, I’m sure you will find evidence of times when you’ve overcome hard obstacles before. This isn’t your first time facing a challenge, and it won’t be your last.
Perfectionism will try to convince you to turn away. It will tell you to go back to where you started and what you know because life is familiar there. That's where you’ll be safe, but that safety is only temporary. Soon, the desire for more will creep in again, and you’ll find yourself in The Gap we discussed.
You can’t stay stagnant. You have to step forward and face your challenges head-on, and when you do, do it with grace.
When you can show love and appreciation toward yourself while understanding that the road you’ve chosen isn’t easy, you’ll find peace in your journey. Acceptance is a key part of reaching your full potential. When you accept things as they are, you can choose how you want to move forward.
Do you want to stay in your comfort zone where it’s safe, or do you want to move forward toward the unknown, where your true potential lies?
You have to approach your writing with open-mindedness and no judgment.
This is especially true as you’re writing a first draft. Don’t criticize every word you put down as you write it; instead, let the words flow freely onto the page.
Once you have something written, you can switch to your editor’s brain to make it better. That’s the beautiful thing about writing. You can always improve it in your next draft.
If you're willing to show grace and compassion to yourself during those early stages, you can give yourself the space to explore and learn.
Then, when your deadline appears and after you’ve put the final touches on your draft, you can send it into the world and get started on the next story. Show yourself as much compassion as you would a dear friend, and don’t let your perfectionism continue to hold you back.
Final Thoughts
Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make progress.
The first step to overcoming perfectionism is being aware of your current way of thinking. Are you approaching your writing with a fixed or growth mindset? Do you believe you’re capable of getting better, and are you giving yourself a fair chance to improve?
If you’ve made it to the end of this article, then my guess is you’re already on that first step. You’ve identified that your perfectionism is a problem, and now it’s about implementing what we’ve discussed.
Perfectionism is a struggle many creatives face because we know what our work could be like if only we were perfect. Sadly, we’re not.
We’re only human. And to be human is to be imperfect, and that’s a wonderful thing.
It’s in our flaws that we can see the qualities that make us distinctly unique. It separates us from the next person, making our work our own.
Perfectionism will make you believe that your work isn’t good enough as is, but we know now that’s not true. Your work will get better if you let it. You just need to have an open mind, create a consistent routine, focus on your progress, embrace your mistakes, and practice self-compassion.
These five tips will help you overcome the obstacle of perfectionism and bring you closer to the writer you’re meant to be.
You won’t beat perfectionism overnight, but this struggle will get better with time. All you can do for now is to practice what we discussed and keep writing.
Write, rewrite, and once time is up, get your story out into the world as fast as you can. Your readers are waiting for it, and I am, too.
Community questions: What are your thoughts on perfectionism? How has it appeared in your life and what did you do to get past it? Share it in a comment below.
p.s. Did you like this post? If so, make sure to subscribe to my Substack where I share monthly updates on my writing progress, blog updates, and other writing-related news. I’ll even be sharing some stories, so you don’t want to miss that!