We live in a society that constantly demands perfection. From a young age, our teachers and parents have instilled us to strive for A’s and to fear F’s – creating the bad habits that it’s acceptable to burn the candle at both ends to “earn” top marks and that our self-worth is defined by an otherwise meaningless letter or numerical grade. Outside of academia, it’s not unusual to find managers and bosses who believe it possible to keep their employees running at 110 percent at all times – a toxic phenomenon that is all too common in the advertising and marketing industry. Even if you were the Babe Ruth of writing and could hit consecutive home run after home run, burn out is inevitable. What do you do at that point? Do you apologise for failing to live up to expectations and promise to do better next time? Do you quit out of shame? The answer may surprise you! Join Wordsmith to find out why writing badly isn’t as bad as it may sound!
Dr. Olivia Remes argues that self-care is a more viable solution to dealing with performance anxiety and fears than relying on psychotherapy and medication.
It’s okay to not be okay
One of the biggest problems with high expectations is the psychological weight. Just like with cargo ships, the larger the ship’s cargo capacity, the larger the anchor. Given the importance of success in modern culture, how do we stop ourselves from collapsing under all the weight and pressure? Are we doomed to bite the bullet and drag these anchors along with us everywhere we go?
Olivia Remes of Cambridge University, a specialist in anxiety studies, believes otherwise. In a Tedx Talk on coping with anxiety, she highlights a controversial coping mechanic when dealing with performance anxiety – and that’s simply to do something “badly”. “How preposterous,” you must be thinking. “We’re professionals! How could she possibly suggest we intentionally sabotage our own work?” Yes, even we thought the same at first, but hear her out.
“There’s a quote by writer and poet GK Chesterton that says, ‘anything worth doing is worth doing badly the first time,’” she explains. “The reason why this works so well is that it speeds up your decision-making and catapults you straight into action, otherwise, you can spend hours deciding how you should go about doing something or what you should do. This can be paralysing and can make you afraid to even begin.”
When Remes talks about doing something “badly”, she doesn’t mean to abandon all effort and to make a sloppy mess – instead, she means that we should lower our expectations of perfection. If a professional baseball player obsessed over having the perfect weather conditions, the right amount of sleep, the right amount of salsa in his tacos and the right amount of wood polish on his bat, he’d have a very bad time anytime anything was out of sync. The same rationale can be applied to writers. We like to believe that we’re the most optimal at a certain point of the day, after having the perfect blend of coffee and without any external distractions… not to sound negative, but how often do we ever get what we want? The greatest hallmark of a competent writer is being able to adapt. Lowering our self-imposed expectations not only gives us better motivation to get started, but also helps to make the process “more fun” quotes one of Remes’ friends. “It took the anxiety out of everything and replaced it with excitement.”
Furthermore, let’s also consider what perfection means. For anything to be perfect, it means that it cannot be improved upon. In the case of writing, perfect copy represents material that is worthy of being preserved in the copywriting hall of fame to be admired and gawked at for decades to come. In the past, we’ve covered the insignificance of any first draft – copy only begins to shine after the first and second rounds of revision. To expect to be able to pull off a third draft level of quality in one go would be absurd! Instead, aim to finish your first draft and expect it to be full of holes. It can only get better from this point onwards, right?
To forgive and give
“People with anxiety think a lot about what they’re doing wrong, their worries, and how bad they’re feeling. Imagine if you had a friend who constantly pointed out everything you’re doing wrong, and everything that was wrong with your life. You’d probably want to get rid of this person right away, wouldn’t you?” says Remes. “It’s time to start supporting ourselves, and a way to do this is to forgive yourself for any mistakes you think you might have made a few moments ago to mistakes made in the past.”
Mistakes happen. As professional copywriters and marketers, we do our best to avoid them, but sometimes things just slip through the cracks. No matter the reason, beating yourself up over something that’s already happened is counter-productive. It’s hard to forgive ourselves when we mess up, and there may be consequences to face, but as one door closes, another opens. It might not lead exactly where we planned to go, but forward progress is always better than stagnation… or even worse: giving up and sliding backwards.
This leads to Remes’ last point for coping with anxiety – to establish a clear purpose and meaning in life. Although this delves more into philosophy than writing per se, we all have a reason to work. In the case of parents, they work hard because they want to support their and children. In the case of struggling interns, they may work hard because they want to show their self-worth, establish their careers and/or care for ageing parents. “We cannot be fully happy until we know that someone else needs us, that someone else depends on our accomplishments, or on the love that we have to share,” Remes points out. “It’s not that we need other people’s good words to keep going in life, but if we don’t do something with someone else in mind, then we’re at much higher risk for poor mental health.” Yes, we all need a job to pay for rent and food, but having a grander reason for existence provides much more purpose behind our work, does it not?
Be it your significant other, your family or even just a pet, knowing that someone is counting on you is the most powerful motivator. Perhaps it’s time we give ourselves a break away from unrealistic writing expectations – think of the writing process as how you would pave a road, you wouldn’t just throw asphalt over a dirt path and call it paved, so how realistically could anyone expect you to write perfection in one go? Good copy takes meticulous cultivation and a lot of “bad” starts to hammer out!