Regular readers know that I battle with perfectionism. It chides me for what I’m not doing, and berates me for what I have done. Perfectionism is both a goad and a hindrance, in equal measure, and believe me, it’s bloody exhausting.
One of my recently acquired mantras is, “If you’re not changing something, then your essentially okay with it,” and since I’m definitely not okay with my perfectionism, I’ve been working to find ways to suppress it altogether, circumvent the hurdles it places in my way, or at least ameliorate its nastier effects.
Enter the Shakers.
I was watching an episode of A Craftsman’s Legacy, a show hosted by Eric Gorges, who visits with artisans and masters of craft and explores the techniques they use, techniques many of which have been part of humanity’s legacy for thousands of years. What he also explores is the mindset of a master craftsman, someone who has been so steeped in antique traditions that it affects the way they see the world.
And it was in the very first episode that his guest, a woodcrafter named John Wilson, said something that just blew the doors off my long-suffering attempts to rein in my perfectionist tendencies.
Among the many things Wilson makes are Shaker boxes: oval boxes made of bent wood and copper tacks. They are lovely, simple, elegant, functional, practical, and beautiful. They will last a lifetime and more, and they are one of the mainstays of Wilson’s classes in woodworking.
But it was what Wilson shared about the Shaker philosophy that struck me.
The Shakers were a small religious sect, the popularity of which peaked in the mid-1800s. In their communal villages, they strove for perfection in all things, but it was not the lofty perfection of ideals that poisons the sense of pride I might otherwise enjoy from my accomplishments. In Shaker society, you had an obligation to do your best, but in Wilson’s words, “they had a definition of perfection as being the best you can do today, so the perfection is progressive.”
“. . . the perfection is progressive.”
That struck me like a 2×4 to the forehead. I stopped listening to the show as it played on. I just ran that phrase over and over in my mind.
“The perfection is progressive.”
There are all sorts of metaphors I could use to describe what was going on in my brain—keys turning, hasps opening, steam venting, klaxons blaring, a command crew frozen in place as they stared at the new and wondrous thing before them—but they’re all going to fail because I felt both both freed and paralyzed by what I had heard. While it freed me from the tyranny of my perfectionism, it paralyzed me because, well, holy cats what do I do now?
Remarkably, the first thing that I did (and I am not kidding) was forgive myself for being such a hard-assed perfectionist all these decades. Why? Because even though I had tortured myself with my perfectionism, chided myself for every mistake, and slathered myself in guilt for not doing something I felt I should be doing, I suddenly realized that it was okay because I was doing the best I could at the time.
Perfection is progressive.
Don’t worry. I can still beat myself up for the times when I just “mail it in” or don’t give it my best, but what I can also do is look at something I’ve done, and see the errors from a different angle. If I was wholly engaged and made an error anyway, well, I was doing my best. And now that I can see the error, I can work to eliminate its cause. I will have learned, and next time, my level of perfection will have progressed.
Errors are lessons waiting to be learned.
Do your best, see the errors, and you will get better each time.
Practice does not make perfect; practice is perfect.
Because perfection is progressive.
Onward.
k
[…] had setbacks in this project, but I’ve been relying heavily on the old Shaker mantra—the perfection is progressive—to keep my frustrations in check. This won’t be the best hurdy-gurdy ever made, and by the […]
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I’ve been chewing on this, as I work on my manuscript. While I am not plagued by the same level of perfectionism as you, I appreciate the sentiment. It occurs to me that, in addition to doing your best, doing exactly what you wanted to do is a freeing idea. That is, rather than striving for perfection, I am striving to write exactly the book I wanted to write.
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Isn’t “exactly the book I wanted to write” just a different way of saying perfection, though?
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It could be, but I think of perfection as an abstract standard, whereas “the book I wanted to write” is a truth for me. Perfect is the universe’s yardstick.
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Ooh, I like that. Perfection is in accepting that wherever you are at the moment is perfect. For where you are. Mind. Blown. 🙂
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As long as you do your best, it’s perfect. Next time you might do better. Also perfect. Or (what blows MY mind) the next time your best might NOT be as good. Still perfect. Kinda freeing, eh?
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