Wrap episode: Perfectionism, discomfort and showing up - a podcast by Madeleine Dore

Throughout this season I’ve reflected with my guests on various topics relating to our creatives lives, including process, productivity-shame, mistakes, money, vulnerability, self-compassion, uncertainty, self-sabotage, self-growth, joy, setbacks, privilege, letting go, solitude, resilience, busyness, heartbreak, patience, mental health, limitations, and learning.

To wrap this first season, I wanted to share some lessons on the thing that almost prevented it from ever getting started – perfectionism. 

Perfectionism tells us that in order to make progress, to put what we have created into the world, it must be perfect. 

My intention was to wrap this first season by sharing the lessons I had accumulated specifically about the creative process and perfectionism. But as I wrote and as the days unfolded, I realised these lessons pertain to much more than our creative lives – they pertain to our entire lives.  

In the same way perfectionism stalls progress in our creative lives, it can stall progress in our societies. 

This non-exhaustive list of parallel lessons might apply to your ongoing engagement with being anti-racist or an activist, or they might apply to your creative process, or your career, or your life, your relationships, or your environmental efforts, your scrutiny of yourself, your need for rest, your showing up in the world. Most of all, I hope they are helpful in highlighting that anything we want to do or change, begins with sidestepping perfectionism, fear, denial and shame. It begins with us taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions.

Mentioned links

• How To Be Anti-Racist by Ibram X Kendi
• Akilah Hughes piano metaphor and What A Day podcast
• Artist Sir John 
• Instagram story by author, podcaster, and CEO of Hello Seven Rachel Rodgers 
• Me and White Supremacy book by Layla F Saad
• Anti-racism work is supposed to be hard by Scott Woods
• Ibram X Kendi on Unlocking Us with Brene Brown 
• Interview with Dom Roberts on Mood with Lauren Elizabeth
• “The internal work, the integrating and rearranging and and re-educating our psyches and hearts, that’s the hard work, that’s the work nobody will hold you accountable for. Do that too. Do that the most…” – Kendra Austin
• Interview with Luke Currie Richardson on Routines & Ruts 

Additional links:

• A Small Needful Fact poem by Ross Gay 
• How do you measure a life? School of Visual Arts 2016 commencement address by Carrie Mae Weems
• White Debt essay by by Eula Biss
• Remember, no one is coming to save us essay by Roxanne Gay
• ‘There cannot be 432 victims and no perpetrators…’ essay by Amy McQuire 
• Always was, Always Will be with Marlee Silva podcast
• Include Aboriginal culture as a subject in schools change.org petition

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Thank you for listening to the first season of Routines & Ruts, to stay tuned for season two, please subscribe or follow the podcast on your preferred listening platform.

You can also stay in the loop by signing up to the free Extraordinary Routines newsletter, or follow along at @extraordinary_routines on Instagram.

This podcast is produced and edited by Madeleine Dore using Hindenburg. Special thanks to Nelson Dore for the theme music and Ellen Porteus for the cover art.

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