#205: Break Free from the Perfectionism Trap (Breakthrough Series)

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Hey, Kingdom Writers, this is Shelley Hitz. Welcome to the Breakthrough series. So this is going to be a series of 12 episodes that we're going to dive in deep to the obstacles that you face as a Christian writer. We covered all of these topics in our online prayer meeting episode and now we're going to dive deep into some practical things and some scriptures that that can really help you. So I hope you enjoy this series. We did record it live on Facebook and so you may hear us say, you know, comment here or we're gonna have some Q and A at the end. But just know that you can always join us live over on our Facebook page, Christian Book Academy. And we also wanted to provide this on our podcast so that you can listen to these as many times as you want to help you receive Breakthrough. As a Kingdom Writer, have you ever felt like your first draft needed to be a perfect finished draft? Or have you ever struggled from analysis of paralysis? If so, today's episode is for you. In this episode of the Breakthrough series, myself Shelly Hitz, along with my husband cj.

Hey guys, glad to be with you.

For another week we're going to tackle this topic of perfectionism. And this is a biggie, right? And so if you ever struggled with this and you're here with us live or on the replay, just type me in the comments. And if you're here live or watching later, we always love to see your comments and have your feedback. So definitely interact with us. One of the things that makes this series different as a training for writers is that we come about it from a faith based method. And so we integrate the power of scripture and prayer together to help you with break through these obstacles. And I just got this picture of like this wall just coming tumbling down, like this wall that's just coming tumbling down right now. And it's just going to allow you to move forward in the direction that God has for you for your writing.

So we're going to actually start off with today's scripture, which comes from Ecclesiastes 11, verse 4. And here's what it says. It says, farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant like this wall. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.

Yeah.

So think about that. I mean, if you don't plant, then you don't get to reap anything during the harvest, and you don't get to enjoy all of that fruitful bounty, you know, that we all love various times of the year during the certain seasons when that fruit or vegetable comes out. Shelly and I love blueberries, and we're so thankful for those who actually plant blueberry bushes and tend to those bushes and put time and energy into those things. And so, you know, I think in a lot of ways, you know, it's just like us, you know, for waiting for those perfect conditions. None of our writing will ever get finished. And I'm just going to say right off the bat that I've been a person that struggled with perfectionism. And in many ways, it's probably caused me to sort of wallow in that analysis of paralysis because I love to have all of my T's crossed and my I's dotted and making sure that, you know, the writing is just right and, you know, oh, it's, you know, trying to twist it and perfect it and. And ultimately, I've had times in my life where nothing was actually produced, nothing was actually published. And it goes back to even in my younger years, I loved basketball growing up. And I remember I wouldn't leave the gym until I made, like, 10 free throws in a row, and I could get to nine in a row and miss that tenth. And guess what?

You had to start over.

I didn't leave. And sometimes I would even be late for class because I was going to make sure that I got that ten in a row before I left that gym. And I think many times we can get stuck.

In this whole perfection trap and it keeps. Keeps us from doing anything.

Yeah. And there's a difference between excellence and perfectionism. If you've heard me share on this topic before, you know, I've shared how perfectionism can actually. Part of the root of that could be shame that I'm not good enough. Nothing I write is ever good enough. And so it's not necessarily about excellence. It's more about shame and never feeling like your writing is good enough. And so we definitely want to strive for excellence. But I want to ask you something today. Are you holding yourself to an impossible standard? Because I know I've talked with C.J. and other writers, and.

They, you know, they just have this impossible standard. Right. I mean, we've talked about that before, and this impossible standard of what your writing should be or how many books should sell or something like that. And there's also something a lot of times nagging in the back of all of our minds, called our inner critic. How many have heard from their inner critic lately? That's not good enough. Why are you doing that? Don't post that. Who are you to do this? Da, da, da, da, da, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, and I want to tell you, today we were praying before we came on here live, and I just felt like God said that he was going to help you to shed this inner critic, to shed this root of perfectionism and to let go of these things that are holding you back so that you can move forward. Because the honest truth of it is your first draft is not your final draft. Your middle draft is not your final draft. Only your final draft is your final draft. And that's after it goes through self editing. It goes through professional editing. You have to let yourself go through the process. We have to allow ourselves to write the ugly, you know, bad, not, you know, the best writing, in order many times to get to the gold. Right. In order to really see. See that best come out.

Yeah. And, you know, the reality is that each of us are imperfect humans in an imperfect world, and yet we serve a perfect God who can more than make up the distance of where we fall short.

Amen.

So I think that's good to remember is that we're all works in progress, and he is perfecting us, so to speak. You know, and one day we're going to have the mind of Christ. We're going to know as we are known, so to speak.

Amen to that.

But we're not there yet. And even Paul said that, you know, I. I press on, you know, for the. The high calling before me.

Yeah. And so I just want to say, Pamela commented, my inner critic is on speed dial. Anyone else? I love that. And then Kimberly says at the time, I have to just do it before the inner critic talks me out of it. So I'm sure many of you can relate.

Yeah. And so, Shelley, you're going to say a couple things regarding just the adjustment.

So what I encourage you today is to adjust your focus off of perfection and onto progress. I'm sure you've heard this a million times, you know, progress over perfection. But it's so easy just to get caught up in this perfection trap. And then we just. We just start spinning our wheels or we get stuck and we're not actually making progress. And I want to tell you, there is grace for you today. There is grace for you every day, but especially on the days where maybe you get stuck or you don't meet your goal, or you've been listening to that inner critic too much, or you've just had a day where you've gotten into this analysis of paralysis and you can't seem to get out. There is grace for you if you are ready to receive that. Just type amen in the comments.

Amen. Well, I think we've about covered it now. We've already had church. No, you know, Paul, as you remembered, he was dealing with this thing that was like a thorn in the side. It was a physical ailment of some kind that he had prayed for. He said three times he labored and prayed and asked the Lord to remove it. Here's the Lord's response to him in 2nd Corinthians 12, 9. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made. What's that word?

Perfect.

Perfect in weakness.

How is weakness perfect?

Almost doesn't make sense.

Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. Now, again, Shelly had mentioned, you know, we're not talking about, you know, not striving for excellence.

Right.

Of course, we all want to be the best that we can be as somebody, and you hone hours and hours of practice to get there. But we're all fragile, weak humans. And if we're attempting to do things out of our own strength.

It'S going to be a debacle and it's going to be a mess. And yet when we allow the Lord to meet us where our weakness is, wow, things can happen and people can be impacted in ways that never could have happened previously. And so it really is a matter of saying, hey, I'm imperfect, but God makes up for that. And I love this quote by Brennan Manning. Some of you are familiar with Brennan Manning and his writings. He said, God loves you unconditionally, not as you are.

Or as you are, not as you should be. And we've got to get that right. God loves you unconditionally as you are and not as you should be, because none of us are as we should be. And I love that it was just a reinforcement to say none of us are there yet. We're all works in progress. But God loves us unconditionally and nothing can change that.

I think that quote should be, like, the theme of this series. I think we've mentioned it in several episodes now, but it's just so good. But I want to give you permission right now. So if you're able to, and you Want to do this either now or later. You might want to write yourself a permission slip. Remember permission slips from the school? A permission slip. And I want to give you permission to remove all the weight, the pressure and the guilt associated with all the layers involved with writing your story, writing your book and sharing it with the world. Yeah, I give you permission to just let go of that today. Any pressure, weight, or guilt. And I just want to share with you why, at seven years old, I vowed to be perfect. Now at this stage in my life, I would say that I'm not a perfectionist. I'm a like, let's. I'm done. Done is better than perfect. Any of you that have followed me know it's like that's been my. More of my theme. But I, I'm kind of coming back to more of a, of a, you know, different view as I get older and realizing like, you know, some slow is good. Slow is good. We don't always have to go fast. But when I was seven years old, I was in a baton twirling troop. Anyone else ever do baton? I did it for a few years when I was little and we practiced and practiced and my sister and I were both in this group called Sunbeams and it was a Christian baton trolling group. We lived in Fort Meade, Florida at the time. And we were so excited because we were gonna get to perform in the parade and. And so I had practiced, I knew all of my tosses and all my moves and everything I was supposed to do. And we get to the parade and I do everything perfect. Except one time I dropped my baton. But we got to the end and it was still like we were so excited. Like I'm seven years old, right? You're a little kid and you're just excited. It was a fun day until the paper came out and my little 7 year old heart was crushed by the picture that I saw in the paper. Anyone guess what picture they took of me in that parade and publicly broadcasted it to my entire world. My world. At that time, the one time I dropped my baton, it was broadcast. I still have the picture. I've posted it before. I've shared it in emails before. So some of you may have seen it, but I'm reaching down for that baton. So the one time I made a mistake is broadcasted to the world. And I vowed at seven years old to be perfect because I didn't want to fail again. I didn't want to go through failure again. But you know what? I've seen a quote it's not mine, but I love it says, failure is not a tattoo. It's a bruise. Right. We have opportunity to learn from our mistakes, to. To learn from our failures. But you, similar to me, may have had something happen to you when you were little or even last week that has left a wound or left a scar. Feeling like, I don't want to experience that again. I don't want to fail. I don't want to be judged. I don't want these things to happen. So I'm going to vow to be perfect. And by being perfect, then, you're almost like preventing your words from going out into the world because you're afraid of what's going to happen or what people are going to say or what's going to happen as a result. Has anyone ever felt this way before?

Yeah, I think we all have. And, you know, I think a root of perfectionism is really control. You know, it's about control. Wanting to control everything in our own little sphere just perfectly. And, you know, when we simply put ourselves in the hands of God, he can do more than we imagine. But how many would agree that being a control freak only leads to anxiety issues?

Yep.

Right.

I've been there.

You know, you try to control something, you have almost everything, except you didn't get that last free throw. And, oh, you know, I got to start over, because, you know, it's just not perfect. And we kind of live in this world where we want to control everything just right. And it reminded me of another verse in Galatians 3:3, and this is the new living translation, which a lot of our Scriptures are, but it says, and this is Paul speaking, how foolish can you be? He's speaking to the Galatians here. After starting your new lives in the spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect? There's that word again. By your own human effort. And so, you know, Paul and others had shared this glorious gospel of what we're given in Christ and how none of us can earn, that there's nothing we can do. Isaiah even says that our works are like filthy rags before God's sight, that it's only by his blood that we're cleansed. And yet Paul was basically confronting the Galatians because they were again trying to sort of earn their way through the law and the regulations and doing things the old way. And he had to confront them. And I think it speaks to us. You know, why are we trying to accomplish something in our own strength, trying to perfect something out of our own flesh when it's not possible.

And so, you know, this verse in Galatians gets to the core, I think, of our problem. Our efforts for perfection really come from our own flesh. If we're all just honest with ourselves. But how many know that people. And I think Shelley and I would agree on this. Don't we all crave authenticity? Right. We don't crave perfection if we're really honest. We actually crave authenticity from other people. We crave real. We want something that's real. It doesn't have to be perfect. We just want real.

Yeah.

And it's how we can relate, you know, to others. And so I was thinking, man, if we're perfect, then that basically assumes that we no longer have a need for growth. I mean, hey, I might as well proclaim myself God, right? I'm perfect. I don't need to grow anymore. I've already arrived. And yet that's not the case. So why don't we just admit that we're imperfect and allow God to meet us right there? Because he doesn't want pride. He doesn't want us to compete with Him. And if we're just allowing ourselves to say, okay, God, I admit it, I'm imperfect. I'm not there yet. I'm a work in progress. And God says, son, daughter, that's a place where I can meet you now. I can finally work in your life. And I think it's just a good thing to remember.

And it reminds me, there was a book, and I can't remember the book right now. If someone remembers, you can post it in the comments. But they talked about the fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. And I would say perfectionism is more of a fixed mindset. I have to have this standard. I have to be this way. My book has to perform like this, or it has to be a certain way. It's a fixed mindset. Whereas a growth mindset says, I am always growing and changing and learning, and my next book's going to be even better because I'm going to be a better writer.

I think the growth mindset is a little bit more along the lines of grace and realizing that we are a work in progress. And so I love that. That thought of thinking about it as growth.

Yeah. And, you know, when you look at the Bible, the Bible is actually full of mistakes. And what I mean by that is mistakes like Abraham, Moses, David, Rahab, Peter, Mary Magdalene, Paul. And the list could go on and on and on. It's full of mistakes, just like you and I.

Well, Deborah says she's often felt that our desire for authenticity from others is that it helps us feel better about not being perfect because they aren't either, you know, and the Bible is full of those examples as well.

And I'm so glad that the Bible is full of mistakes, you know, like those folks I mentioned, because you and I fall into the same category. In God's grace, He showed us that he used people in their weaknesses because they had faith, because they trusted him and said, okay, I believe you, Lord, I believe you, and I'm going to go with this. And they weren't perfect. They just said, I put my life in your hands. And as they did that, God used him in powerful ways. And God will use you and I, mistakes and all, in similar ways for the world that we live in today in 2019.

Amen. Yeah. You know, when I wrote my book Broken Crayons Still Color, it was like, you know, those regrets and mistakes from the past are things that we often want to hide and never talk about, but often those are the things that God uses the most, right? And sometimes we are still stuck in shame over them, and so God has to come in and heal us from that. And we were talking about healing in just, like, a deeper way in the Christian Book Academy group this week. I was sharing very vulnerably about why I went back to counseling in April. And just some stuff that I've been going through. And one of the people commented, she's like, I just feel like I'm just such on a process with this and the healing, and I just don't know if I'm ever going to get there. And I just really encouraged her. I said, you know what? You know, it's more about intimacy with God than even your healing. So, you know, we've been talking about healing on these. These podcasts in the Breakthrough series, and there is. God definitely has healing for you. He heals the brokenhearted and sets the captive free. Amen. Isaiah 61:1. That's my life verse. But it's really more even about intimacy with him then even, you know, trying to get the healing right, trying to be perfect and being healed right. Like we can even have a perfection mindset with that. And he wants you to be focusing on Him. And when you do, it's almost like that shame and all those things just fall off. Right?

The work is done from within us as we keep that gaze of the soul on Jesus.

Who said that?

Yeah, that was A.W. tozer.

WTOzer. Yeah, that's a great quote. And so I Just encourage you to just really keep your focus on him and growing closer with God and that he is going to lead you. And many times there may be instances where it's actually your mistakes or the regrets of the past that he's going to use in your testimony to show his power and. And to show his glory and so that he can be praised.

Amen.

Well, we're at that point now where we're going to essentially share that truth one more time, the truth scripture. And that comes from you. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And today's truth is Ecclesiastes 11:4. It says, Once again, farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest. And so may we be people that continue to plant regardless of the weather conditions around us, regardless of what's happening. May we just be about planting, even with all of our failure, with all of the mistakes that we bring to the table, and watch God.

Actually allow the growth to happen. You know, I remember it actually reminds me of another scripture, and I can't remember the reference. It's in Corinthians, but Paul essentially said, some plants, some water, but who's the one that allows it to grow?

God.

It's God. And so that's what we're doing. We're just going about our business day by day, trusting in this God who can actually make something of our lives. And so we're going to go ahead and close in prayer. And as I'm praying, just lift up your own burdens. Maybe this. This has been an issue for you, but just in your own words, as I'm praying, just lift that up to the Lord. Just share your heart. So, Lord, we just thank you so much that you meet us.

Where our weaknesses are.

Yeah.

And we thank you that you included.

All kinds of people in your word that we can relate to. People that aren't.

Perfect, but people that you use despite their imperfections. Lord, I just want to pray that if any of us has been stuck in the pit of paralysis, of analysis, we've been unable to move forward. I just pray that you would supernaturally naturally pull us out of that, that you give us motivation to move, to see momentum, even as we are striving without perfection. But may we just continue to keep our eyes upon you and watch as you do the work within us, through us, and you impact other people's lives in powerful ways. And I just pray that this would be the second half of this year. We're in that second half. Now, but I pray that the remainder of 2019 would be such a powerful testimony of people breaking through this whole area of perfectionism and having to have everything just right. May we just be comfortable in who we are in Christ and know that incredible work is being done through us despite ourselves. And we give ourselves to you, Lord, and we we thank you and we praise you in Jesus wonderful name. Amen.

We love each one of you and you know we are over halfway through this breakthrough series. 12 episodes covering the most common obstacles you face. If you're loving this series, I recommend that you get our free Download. It's a PDF called called 5 Practical Tips for Christian Writers to Break Through Writer's Block. But you'll also get our eBook 15 Prayers for Writers. We Christian writers, we just finished this ebook and so when you sign up you'll get both and you can get them@trainingauthors.com breakthrough and keep continuing and joining us every Wednesday and Friday at 3pm Eastern until this series is finished. We love you guys and we will see you next time.

God bless you guys.

Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.