Molly Gordon’s blog post yesterday, entitled “Wild Abandon, Perfectionism, and the Dance of Business,” brings up a very interesting distinction I’d never considered before.
In it, she quotes a colleague of hers named Alice Brock (who is apparently working on her web presence—Molly promises to pass along a link to her when it’s time). Alice says that many people “suffer from something that appears to be perfectionism. However, often it is not perfectionism, but ‘visionism’ that they suffer from.”
Perfectionism or visionism?
So what’s the difference between the two? I encourage you to click on the link above and read Molly’s entire post, but in a nutshell, she says that they are “different frames for the experience or fear of falling short.”
Perfectionism has a feeling of tightness and anxiety about it. You rush or procrastinate or otherwise agonize over getting a task or project 100% right because your very identity is at stake here! (Okay, slight exaggeration there. Maybe.)
Visionism, on the other hand, creates a sense of frustration because you’re not able to translate the faultless pictures in your head into the physical world without some sort of compromise.
Plans, meet reality. Sorry, but it’s never going to be as perfect as you imagined it.
Or if you’re a Star Trek fan, you could say it’s like having a faulty holodeck.
It can be a subtle distinction.
I used the fine arts as a metaphor in a recent blog post, so let’s extend that . . . only this time let’s use music. (Don’t you agree that music is one of the finest arts there is?)
Okay, let’s say you can envision . . . umm, enhearen? . . . a piece of music in your mind. There’s a clear melody line, and maybe some harmonies, and a strong rhythm holding it all together. It’s all there in your head—it’s perfect! All you know how to do, though, musically speaking, is plunk out “Chopsticks” on the piano.
But this music is so compelling that you feel driven to externalize and share it. So you take up an instrument and start practicing, and you assemble whatever group of musicians you need to play the other parts. But you can’t translate the fullness and precision of what you hear internally to the external world.
Maybe it’s because it’s just not humanly possible to play a guitar solo as fast as you imagine it. Maybe you’re trying to explain the mood of the piece to the other members of your string quartet, but they’re just not getting the feeling right. Maybe you just don’t know how to write out musical notation. Whatever it is, you’re frustrated.
Ask yourself who and what you’re blaming.
If your internal voice is directing anger and blame at yourself, it’s probably perfectionism doing the talking. “Who was I to think I could learn to write music? I’ll never be good enough to explain or play what I hear in my head!”
If your inner dialogue sounds more wistful, or angry about external things, it’s likely to be visionism’s voice. “No, that’s just not right somehow!” Or, “I need another whole octave on the keyboard!” Or, “If only I could just think into a machine and have it reproduce the sounds . . .”
Perfectionism and visionism can overlap. You can be feeling both simultaneously. But I think it’s still a useful distinction to make, because then you can pick apart the threads in any given situation and figure out what’s happening.
So what’s the takeaway?
This whole concept is about three hours old for me, so I’m only just starting to think about it. But it seems to me that in perfectionism, you judge and blame yourself. In visionism, you’re frustrated about what gets lost (or might get lost) in translation.
There are many ways of dealing with perfectionism, but for me they all come down to a certain kind of self-talk in which you remind yourself, “I’m only human.”
Visionism, it seems, requires the kind of self-talk in which you remind yourself the world is (*cough*) only human.
At least until they fix our holodecks.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this. I never really did believe that “perfectionist” was my label. I can accept imperfections in my abilities. What I can’t accept is the enormous gap between what I imagine and how short it falls in real life. I’m a visionist.
Yes. This: “If only I could just think into a machine and have it reproduce the sounds . . .”
I’ve often said that what I really wanted was software that could connect my brain to my computer and translate what I was thinking into the right words.
It’s so frustrating to be able to “see” something so clearly, and at the same time, not be able to communicate it. Even if my vision shows up in words, I can’t seem to access them when I sit down to type. It all flows smoothly in my head one minute…and in the 23 seconds it takes me to get to my computer…it all evaporates.
Even this comment is falling short of my vision.
Patty K recently posted..YOU would make a GREAT before picture!
Patty, no worries–it was a great comment.
And I know! The Thought Translation Machine! I’ve been dreaming of it ever since I was a kid and waiting for someone to invent it. I added that one as an example because it’s a real one for me. Oh, if I could only have reproduced all the gorgeous paintings and rock songs and organizational schemata that my brain has churned out, apparently only for its own entertainment and edification . . . (sigh)
I really do want a holodeck. Along with the ability to bring whatever I create out of it so others can experience it too.
Michelle Russell recently posted..Holodecks and String Quartets
Thank you for sharing Alice’s distinction, Michelle. I like your example of music. For years I studied voice. The more I learned, the more I improved as a singer, the more frustrated I became. My vision and appreciation of good singing grew even faster than my skills!
It occurs to me that this is where humility is essential. In order to grow and live life artfully, we must have large aspirations and the humility to continually fall short of them.
Molly Gordon recently posted..Wild abandon- perfectionism- and the dance of business
Hi, Molly! I really like your point about humility.
I think you may have hit the bull’s eye in defining the challenge of being a visionist, too. It’s about learning to live in the state of dynamic tension between the big vision and the imperfectly rendered reality. And living in a state of tension, dynamic or otherwise, is never easy.
And I guess it’s a good thing that our appreciation of a skill or craft grows faster than our abilities in it, or we’d have nothing to shoot for . . . but sometimes it seems like the universe has a very ironic sense of humor, doesn’t it?
Michelle Russell recently posted..Holodecks and String Quartets
I’ve read this post a couple times — and keep giggling over “enhearen”. The rest of the post has me gasping, that Aha kind of thing.
I’d been noticing something lately that I *knew* wasn’t straight-out old perfectionism, but it was something annoying. Somehow reading your post helped me make peace with it – maybe giving it a name?? Thanks so much for this.
Square-Peg Karen recently posted..Building a Self-care Love Thyself Toolbox
Hi, Square-Peg Karen! Yep, “enhearen” just popped out.
)
And you’re right–sometimes simply naming something clarifies and, in a way, legitimizes it. If we can build a conceptual framework around something, it eases our minds. At least that’s true for me–having a mental understanding of what’s going on usually gives me the perspective to deal with its ramifications, whatever they are.
Thanks for your comment!
Michelle Russell recently posted..Holodecks and String Quartets
Thank you my good friend for this clear distinction.Great post.Am staying in touch to learn and share more with you.Have a wonderful day.
Meanwhile plz do check my blog on freeing your mind read it,follow,be inspired and comment to improve my works too.Have a wonderful day.
EBENEZER
Thanks, Ebenezer! Glad you stopped by. And your blog looks inspiring–keep up the good work!
Michelle Russell recently posted..Holodecks and String Quartets
That tension between vision and reality is ever present, I suspect, in anything that is going to be brought to life by a human being. Although to some extent I question the idea of constant vision, because often creative work is done in the moment by bringing ourselves to the raw material and/or the tools and working in a flow state where we are not conscious of an explicit result or goal, we are simply present in the doing.
When we finish, or step back to take a look, there is inevitably a certain level of discernment when we view our result. And sometimes there is also a judgement of the quality or according to other criteria. That’s where we can really get ourselves into trouble, I think.
But when there is a preconceived desired result, one way to work with that tension is to work in “beta” or do it “like this just for now” or hit the 80% mark this time around — then refine in subsequent versions if you eventually feel moved to do so. (Sometimes it’s just not necessary to improve it later, it’s quite good enough!)
Another great way to subvert it is to have a hard deadline, as in: it’s as good as it’s gonna get because it’s ‘show time’ right this instant!
Oddly, when we look back at something we felt was lacking at the time, it often turns out to be, in retrospect, far better than we thought it to be.
For instance, I often find that with my published writing… the deadline came and off it went to the editor because time was up, and I knew it was okay but maybe also in my mind it was basically a piece of crap — hack writing or whatever but just not all that I wanted it to be. A few years later, in rereading it in the clips file, I think oooooh that’s not baaaad! And to think I wrote it?!!? Then I have to burst out laughing.
Why do we torment ourselves like that?
Barbara Martin recently posted..Creality Strikes
Hi, Barbara—fantastic observation about being in flow with the raw material. It’s a fine (and tough) line to walk, holding your overall vision while also allowing yourself to be in the moment when the creation is being channeled through you.
And I agree that you don’t always have to have a grand vision—that would be exhausting! Sometimes you just need to play.
For the stuff that’s meaningful enough that you really do want to go for the gold, I like your suggested methods—the “beta version” approach and the “hard deadline” tactic. The only problem for me with the latter is that I experience the resulting pressure as negative stress rather than positive encouragement. I’ve been so hard on myself for so many years, I’d rather err on the side of being kind to myself instead of deliberately placing myself in situations that increase my stress level. But I know it’s a method that works well for many people! (I remember back in college how many of us would wait until 10:00 p.m. on the night before the big report was due to start on it…)
Thanks for the really insightful comment!
Michelle Russell recently posted..Holodecks and String Quartets
There’s a distinction in my mind between creative work which often has no preconceived goal and simply works its own magic (there’s also a potential divide as to whether you believe it is channelled through you from an external source/power, or simply arises through your unconscious) and the product is more of a by-product of the process, vs. creative work that is performed to solve a specific problem and is thereby an applied skill. In the first instance, if you reach a state of flow you probably would not be conscious of the time passing. In the second case, you might or you might not be aware of it, depending on whether or not you hit that flow state.
haha let’s muddy the water, shall we?! Thanks for a really interesting discussion here Michelle.
Barbara Martin recently posted..Getting A True Picture of Your Time
Barbara, thank you—I’m enjoying this discussion, too.
I did think about whether or not to use the phrase “channeled through you” because I realized it might be taken as implying some sort of external intervention. I don’t necessarily mean it that way–I was using it loosely so that it could just as easily mean you can “channel” creativity from your own unconscious–but I went with it, partly to see if it would provoke comment–so thank you!
I do think you’re highlighting a really valid point, though. You’ve made me realize that since Molly’s original post came from an entrepreneurial business context, I responded with a very goal-oriented flavor. Even using something as subjective as music for my metaphor, I approached it from the intent of “externalizing what you imagine,” which is, um, definitely an externally oriented goal.
Could it be all those perfectionistic, goal-oriented tendencies (which inspired me to start this blog in the first place) making me view things this way by default? Naaaaahhh…
Seriously, though, you’re drawing an important distinction that I missed between creative work with a preconceived goal and creative work done for a particular reason.
In the former, the flow state itself is probably the main goal (see, there I go again!), with the end result being, as you said, a by-product. That by-product might have value in and of itself, to you and/or to others, but it’s incidental to the creative process.
In the latter, the creative process is subservient to the result you’re aiming for. It’s always nice when you can get into a flow state with it, but when you don’t, you basically keep slogging along, probably running into Steven Pressfield’s Resistance-with-a-Capital-R (see http://www.practicemakesimperfect.com/creativity/how-to-declare-art) along the way.
You’re making me think more deeply about this stuff. Very cool.
Michelle Russell recently posted..Holodecks and String Quartets