The Witch Who Builds Her Own Ladder

The secret link between perfectionism and your paycheck.

Hey witches, 

I hope you all are having a magical week so far. So this one we’re going to be doing some systemic alchemy where we mix our skills to help increase our chances of wealth.

I want to discuss the ways that perfectionism can hinder not just your life in more ways than one. I was guilty of this as well, I will say that one of my weaknesses is perfectionism. I’ve always been a procrastinator on the idea that I’m just brainstorming about things further, and that putting them on paper had some sort of finality that I couldn’t undo, even though that’s silly.

This thought process has held me back in more ways than one, especially has helped stunt my creativity. I won’t say that it’s the only factor, people love talking shit to liberal arts majors about their life choices, but it’s definitely been a large factor. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. When I was younger, I remember writing a story for a friend and enjoying the act of those creative writing projects. As I got older, I wanted to foster my love of writing but still felt like I wasn’t good enough. I wanted to wait until I had an abstract level of skill that would somehow deem me worthy of sharing my voice. I had numerous random ideas for stories that lived in my head but not in the outside world for people to share.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown to value progress over perfection but for some reason, that never bled until my creative life until recently. I got some guidance that changed how I viewed my creative process. The guidance made me realize I was waiting to be perfect, but I can’t do that unless I actually practice. So here I am, writing this blog, talking to you great people. I’m obviously not making money but the internal demand to consistently maintain this blog has been instrumental in getting back into writing. It’s a step towards my larger goal of being a writer as a job.

It’s been a process to get here, but I’m glad I’m here and that I can share my thoughts with you. As someone who also enjoys the process and journey of things, I should have realized how much I would have enjoyed that. I’ve been kicking myself for not starting sooner but it’s better late than never. 

This is just a small example on how perfectionism can hinder you. It can make you believe false things about yourself and ultimately hold yourself back. It prevents you from even trying and seeing what happens, it stunts you from growing, which is against our coven’s principles of continuous growth. You don’t learn anything about yourself by being a perfectionist and holding yourself back, there’s something to be said about being able to make mistakes and learn from them.

You shouldn’t be scared of making mistakes or failing, once these things happen and you realize that it’s not the end of the world as imagined, then life becomes a little less scary to handle. Whether you accomplish your goal or not, you gain an arsenal of experience and new skills at your disposal. Something to prepare you for future goals.

Perfectionism can affect your finances. As we’ve discussed, it prevents you from putting yourself out there to even be in the running. Have you ever had an all or nothing approach to saving money and finances, where you make one mistake and decide to just go crazy, because you already did one thing?

As I discussed earlier, perfectionism can really hinder your dreams. That goes to applying for jobs or putting yourself out there for areas you’re maybe not fully ready for but want to challenge yourself. It’s harder to put yourself in those situations if you don’t feel like you have enough because of perfectionism. 

Okay, so I’ve proven my point, perfectionism is bad, and can affect your life both physically and mentally, but what can we do to fix this? One thing you can do to work on that self care we talked about. One step in the right direction is being more compassionate towards yourself and stop being harder on yourself than people actually are. That negative talk towards yourself goes a long way, find new mantras to tell yourself as you work yourself out of this perfectionism rut. 

Definitely be patient with yourself and work just towards making something, it doesn’t have other be perfect. You’re still making something that wasn’t there in the world and putting it out there for people to experience. That’s nothing to scoff at, you’re still bringing valuable thoughts and ideas to the world. Part of humanity is being messy and taking that uniqueness.

Work on making just something, it doesn’t have to be perfect but getting back into that creative habit is like starting an old car. It’s going to stutter and spit out smoke for the first few miles but you have to keep driving. Trust the process and focus on that over perfection. Don’t judge your new work against someone’s greatest work, they’ve been working for all of that time.

Perfectionism prevents you from showing up in your authentic way, it can prevent you from doing things that make you happy. Embrace your wild witch energy and create something without abandon, don’t have a goal in mind. Play with your kids or younger relatives if you can, find ways to tap into your younger sense of play and get one step closer to healing your inner self-child. 

Another thing I’m doing, which is a weird exercise, is trying to color with my left hand. I’ve always wanted to be ambidextrous, I want to be able to comfortably do things with both hands. Also as we get older, our dexterity and hand strength can wean, so it’s something that keeps my hands svelte and active. One thing to know is it’s hard to color in the lines with crayons and with your non-dominant hand, so it’s forcing me to accept any flaws I make as I go and see them as Bob Ross would say, “happy accidents.” It forces me to confront that sense of imperfection right on and it has helped me be more okay with my mistakes. It’s my coloring book, only I really see it. It’s not like someone is going to judge me on my terrible coloring. 

Have some more self-compassion with yourself. I’ve mentioned previously that we all have some magic within ourselves that we can tap into. Some things can hold that magic back, and one of those things is perfectionism because it prevents you from trying. Putting a positive mantra and putting yourself out there on something that you were previously waiting to be perfect on are good starts. It’s something I’m doing, so we can do it together as we grow our coven. We’ll get better in time, together; I’ll work on me and you work on you. 

Conquering your need for perfectionism is a game changer. Doing that will affect your life in more ways than one. It’ll allow you to grow in new ways and try things that you’ve otherwise not put yourself out there for. That allows new abundance opportunities in money, experience, in learning and is vital in seeing the relationship between.

Try to take the time to focus on things that you’ve been holding back before and track your progress as things go. You’re only competition is with yourself, track how well you’ve done something. Seeing that progress can help you keep going in times of doubt or when you need it, it helps you realize the importance of progress over perfection. Being less of a perfectionist will increase your self worth and probabilities for abundance.