I find it quite weird that we create New Years resolutions, five year plans, 10 year plans, save for retirement (which is a whole rant in itself) ~30 years up the road. Not because you shouldn’t have a plan or shouldn’t have goals for your life, but because we plan all of these things with a little bit of hope and certainty that later is actually available to us. That tomorrow is going to come. That when you go to sleep, you know you’ll wake up at the sound of your alarm and you’ll be able to do all of those great things you constantly put off.
We seem to have an entitlement to life and purpose that makes us push things along — when we get just one more degree, just one more referral, just one more year of savings, just one more investor, just one more meeting — and then, we’ll have enough to actually start living because, perfectionism.
As a mindful person who believes in the ability to envision and manifest things…I always find myself falling to perfectionism. It’s embedded in our society, in our institutions, in our communities and in the design of most things. Perfectionism makes you constantly want to achieve the highest level of anything. To evolve. To level up. To produce your very best work and present your very best self. Self-improvement x 1,000. No exceptions. It also leads many of us to believe that we can start fresh and give 100% effort “tomorrow”. This is what a podcast host and confidence coach, Kara Lowentheil, calls Tomorrow Thinking. It’s the notion that tomorrow will give you the blank slate you need. For those of us who are perfectionists, we also know that’s not completely true.
Deeply, we know that our desire to be perfect and not move a finger until we can guarantee the situation is safe and comfortable is our greatest form of procrastination. It’s less “I can do better tomorrow” and more “Idk if I will do better yet so let me kick the can down the road so I can get ready to do better”.
We’re spending time buying time. As if we can afford it.
