I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and we were talking about our goals and how to get ourselves to take the next step to make our dreams a reality.  I told him about how I’d recently created my first YouTube videos by giving myself permission to do it badly and seeing what happened.  (If you didn’t see those posts, you can read them here). 

My friend is working on structuring a seminar on a topic that has really inspired him and helped him in his life.  He really knows what he’s talking about on this subject and has tons of information about it and his presentation keeps getting more and more detailed and informative.  Actually, I think this is a gentle, sort of secret way for him to actually write his book about this subject, without really calling it that at this point.  I think that’s his way of getting past the intimidating ideas we all tend to have about “writing a book.”  Anyway, it’s a great strategy and it’s working for him.  His creativity is flowing and he’s writing a lot. 

It Just Needs a Little More Work…

He really has come a long way toward achieving his dreams.  However, when it comes to the outline of the seminar he’s putting together, he keeps tweaking it and working it, rephrasing this and that to make it perfect.  I know I’ve done the same thing with my own projects; maybe you have, too.  Now, of course, some of this is absolutely necessary because it gives us time to work out exactly what we want to share and how.  However, I think it may also be that we are letting perfectionism delay us from finishing our projects, because once they are done, we will have to move on to the daunting task of actually sharing them with the world.  It’s interesting how we hold ourselves back from fully going for our dreams like this.  And it got me wondering about the deeper reasons why we would do that. 

What’s Holding Us Back?

There are so many little shadow issues that emerge when we get ourselves closer to a goal that we really want but that stretches us beyond our comfort zone.  If there wasn’t the stretch to it, we would have done it long ago.  But why do we feel this discomfort about something that really inspires us?  I think it’s because we invest so much of our future happiness in this goal.  In order to achieve it, we know it will require us to open up in new ways to the world and these thoughts activate intense fears about what would happen if we failed.  When it comes down to it, I think that the intense fear of failure is what’s really behind our perfectionism.  

In my next blog post, I’ll explore the relationship between procrastination and perfectionism.  I’ve got some interesting ideas about that and about how to overcome these issues that I’m looking forward to sharing with you in my next few posts.  So, see you then! 

Blessings, 

Laura 

Live Your Dream.  Your Inspiring Life