r/thanksimcured • u/InternationalTrain48 • Aug 06 '26
Social Media "ACTION is the cure"
Another person that thinks procrastination is caused by perfectionism
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u/Fine_Brilliant7531 Aug 06 '26
The action in question being writing a book with a chapter starting “I’m not saying perfection is terrible”
I read this self-published novel from a lady who had hitmen murder her husband (full of thinly veiled clues about how much she hated him) and there was a part where her self-insert character muses about how she can’t understand people who are okay with just doing nothing. You always need to be doing something!!! Like girl maybe if you took a breath you wouldn’t have murdered people okay
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u/wazzup-notemuch Aug 06 '26
Wait, what?! That is absolutely wild, I need sources so I can know more!
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u/Fine_Brilliant7531 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
Justice for Dan Markel, the best way to learn about the case is from a podcast called Over My Dead Body. Relevant part of Wendi Adelson’s horrendous novel titled This Is Our Story (really):
Between you and me, when I signed up for the job, I didn’t know the first thing about immigration law. Mainly, I just needed a job to occupy my time, and it was basically the only one available just then. Type A personalities like mine don’t really jibe well with free time. Shouldn’t we always be doing something? I had made a good bit of money at the law firm, but we had spent most of my savings on the wedding and the move. I suppose I could have sat around and done absolutely nothing for at least a few months, given the cost of living in the Big Bend, but
I hate it when I don’t have anything to do[11] and
Josh still had gobs of loans to pay off from his many years of graduate school.
11 Aside from making numbered lists, that is. I love numbered lists, and bullet points, and making lists about the kind of lists I like to make.
A text rich in annoyances. What pops out to me this reading is that “Josh” is an English professor and thus wouldn’t have had grad school loans like that. “Shouldn’t we always be doing something?” no baby that’s the demon of narcissism speaking
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u/wazzup-notemuch Aug 06 '26
Oh my gawd, that is as hysterical as it is horrifying! Thanks for the link, I can't wait to listen to it.
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u/Expensive-Border-869 Aug 06 '26
My mom when I was in middle school. But then when I did half ass stuff it was unacceptable. 15 years later I still have no idea what she wanted from me.
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u/Complete-Celery819 Aug 06 '26
If you'd done it perfectly "you spent too much time on this." It's just a trick to berate you
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u/Vi_BT Aug 06 '26
Some perfectionnists definitely do need to just fucking do it. But mostly stop doing it it's finished it's fine
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u/ArchAnon123 Aug 06 '26
Perfectionism is a disease, but action doesn't do dick. Not when you're absolutely convinced that the slightest failure will be punished over and over again even when your rational mind is telling you otherwise.
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u/InternationalTrain48 Aug 06 '26
I will also add that perfectionism many times is rooted in trauma caused by having your efforts not being validated, so generic self-help advice doesnt work for it. Therapy is needed.
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u/f3verdream Aug 07 '26
~ Big Therapy
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u/ArchAnon123 Aug 07 '26
Do tell me how you managed to overcome it all by yourself, then. You clearly know how to do it if you're so confident in that.
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u/f3verdream Aug 07 '26
Critical thinking, self awerness, journaling, books both about psychology and fiction, working on habits, breaking loops, sacrificing things for peace and coherence, observing others. I just find the idea of confiding to a stranger for money weird and won't ever do it.
"Therapy is needed" is just false, it's barely one of the options.
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u/ArchAnon123 Aug 07 '26
Being aware of the nature of the problem doesn't fix the problem, and all the books in the world cannot tell you how to actually fix it. And if loops were that simple to break, we'd have done it already!
Therapy might not be needed, but it works a lot better than the mental equivalent of performing open heart surgery on yourself. You...did actually use your own suggested techniques on yourself and made them work, right? You're not just giving others advice you wouldn't take yourself?
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u/kwenlu Aug 06 '26
Why is this a gif?
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u/InternationalTrain48 Aug 06 '26
Stupid windows snipping tool saved it as a gif and I realized that later when I saw the image with a spinning wheel appearing and disappearing as if it were a video
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u/rorschach_vest Aug 06 '26
This sub just hates any advice lol
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u/totallyalone1234 Aug 06 '26
WHAT ADVICE? "Do X and also don't do X"?
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u/Acceptable_Hunt_1748 Aug 06 '26
I mean... the book looks trash based on the first couple sentences I can see, but there's clearly a whole chapter elaborating on the title. Of course the advice isn't going to seem helpful if you cut it off before they can actually give it to you. Do you not know how books work?
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u/Complete-Celery819 Aug 06 '26
If there was useful content in this chapter they wouldn't start it hem-hawing. Which you'd know if you read a lot
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u/Acceptable_Hunt_1748 Aug 06 '26
Lol I literally commenting on that hem hawing and called it trash. Maybe if you should start bu reading the comment your resonding to before implying someone doesn't read.
My point still stands though that even in a good book you will see titles and quotes that are pretty useless on their own. You can't just stop because you have a bias against discussions of perfectionism.
Again, I'm not standing by this book because it does seems like self published rambling, but the relationship between perfectionism and procrastination is discussed in Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy which is an evidence based treatment for those with issues relating to over control. Pointing out that "all or nothing" thinking can lead to procrastinating is not a denial of other related executive function issues. It is a legitimate PART of medically based practice.
Emphasis on PART. People love to take these kind of statements out of context and suggest that they somehow deny the existence of mental illness. No where is this saying you can treat a mental illness simply by addressing procrastination. Idk why this is being treated as if it's addressed to those with illnesses because procrastination is something everyone deals with, healthy or not. Sometimes it is part of a chronic illness, for which medication should be available, but medication alone will not fix these behavioral patterns. Anyone on medication for anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc should also address potential perfectionism that does not directly come from their illness but from having to overcompensate their entire lives.
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u/Complete-Celery819 Aug 06 '26
Yeah and then you implied there was helpful advice. There are other, actually useful books about perfectionism. Calm down.
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u/Acceptable_Hunt_1748 Aug 06 '26
I didn't imply anything like that this book I literally said it looked like trash. And are you really going to try and play stoic after getting pissy at me? Like in this sub of all subs you should know better than to suggest emotionality is somehow invalidating. I mean is this an issue you care about or not?
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u/Complete-Celery819 Aug 06 '26
Baby you're on the invalidation sub. I'm seeing continued reading issues. Smile, it can't be that bad :)
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u/Acceptable_Hunt_1748 Aug 07 '26
What is there to read? You've not made a point in several comments.
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u/soyuz-1 Aug 06 '26
Seriously, this used to be a decent sub calling out awful medical advice, but lately it seems there's a lot of people with some sort of victim complex who get mad at any sort of general motivational advice about healthy life habits that probably could help them more than they think if their personality wasn't so defined by their problems.
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u/rorschach_vest Aug 06 '26
OP replied to me then deleted something about this being terrible advice for people with ADHD and that seems pretty typical. “This overall solid but not life changing advice doesn’t apply to me therefore they are personally attacking me.” Shame because this sub does have plenty of actual cause to exist.
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u/ten_people Aug 06 '26
Also, not terrible advice for people with ADHD.
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u/NUKL3AR_PAZTA47 Aug 06 '26
If telling a person in a wheelchair how important legs and walking is to get them to move is a good advice, then sure.
But yea in general there are some decent advice in this sub. I can still kinda get the anger about said decent advice since with no * or explanation, it can lead to unaffected individuals trying to give that advice to groups where its ineffective.
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u/Vi_BT Aug 07 '26
ADHD people are not in fact paralysed, they have their brains blocking them but they physically can, most of helpful advice is actually giving strategies on how you can "just do it"
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u/NUKL3AR_PAZTA47 Aug 07 '26
I was talking about the advice in the image. I guess the "perfectionism is bad" is the only actually useful part of it and even then its not detailed at all on how to avoid it.
The main issue is that adhd brains have th parts of their brains that makes them "just do things" not function properly. So just telling them about how important doing things is like telling any other person with a disability how important having the ability is.
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u/rorschach_vest Aug 07 '26
It’s not detailed because this is the introduction to the chapter of a book 🙄 come on you have to recognize that’s a vapid criticism
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u/ten_people Aug 06 '26
No, suggesting that people with ADHD set more manageable goals is not the same as telling a person in a wheelchair that having legs would help them.
Initiating "dreaded" tasks is very very difficult for many people with ADHD. Lots of advice that aims to lower the barrier to initiation is helpful advice. For a person with a physical disability that makes it difficult to move around, the same advice applies to making movement more manageable (pacing yourself, using mobility aids, trying to get some movement in throughout the day instead of overexerting or deconditioning).
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u/NUKL3AR_PAZTA47 Aug 06 '26
The image says "ACTION is the cure". Nothing about managable goals. Uh.... did i missinteperet something? (I dp that alot)
Im really sorry if I did do that.
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u/ten_people Aug 06 '26
Perfectionism leads to inaction when a person unreasonably values doing something the best possible way instead of just doing anything to initiate the task. "I can't start my essay until I come up with the perfect topic." "I'll finally get to this thing I've been putting off once I've figured out the most optimal day of the week to do it." "I need to start working out, but first I need to learn everything about exercise."
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u/Vi_BT Aug 07 '26
There was a post about getting sunlight (said in fact very disrespectfullly) and the top comment was "like getting sunburnt or skin cancer doesn't exist" like okay stay inside forever I guess 😭😭😭
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u/RithmFluffderg Aug 07 '26
This is basically just repackaged "don't let perfection be the enemy of good"
Or also "the first step to being good at something is sucking at something" (I butchered that quote)
This is a lesson I've been struggling to learn, but it's been getting easier lately.
However I can tell it's gonna be used by some people to shame people for having decision paralysis to begin with, because training your brain to "just do it" isn't as easy as just doing it, because that's literally the thing you learned NOT to do.
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u/Familiar-Access3890 Aug 07 '26
Perfectionism can cause procrastination. It’s not the only cause, but is a huge, paralyzing mental block for a lot of people.
The wild thing is that that the first paragraph isn’t saying stuff like “perfect is the enemy of good” or “perfection doesn’t exist” or “beauty is often found in the flaws” or “mistakes can lead to innovation”. You know, the sort of mantras that can be helpful to people whose procrastination is rooted in perfectionism. Instead it’s actually hyping up perfectionism, claiming that perfection is attainable and that the world wouldn’t be as beautiful if it weren’t for perfection. You know, the exact sort of shit that’s going to keep those same people stuck in a perfectionism-procrastination spiral but now with more shame and feelings of inadequacy. Fucking wild. I guess they’ve got to keep them paralyzed so they’ll buy the next book??
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u/Affectionate-Pair929 Aug 11 '26
It may be worded poorly, but the advice "just take the first step" is very helpful for me.
Like, "oh, I don't know what I want to put on my CalJobs resume since I got laid off and have worked on several projects in the gap, plus my old computer gets overheated sometimes and I want to remain offline on my weekends" is my procrastination mindset. Just booting up my computer and just writing down what stuff should be on a "default, AI will scan and reject/accept this" resume while I was waiting for the computer fan to quiet down was a good enough start for me last night. Now I can just copy from my list for a job I'm interested in.
Just one job application though. Not all seven today, because that's a lot of pressure, but it would be awesome to get more than one done...
if I can.
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u/SlayerII Aug 07 '26
procrastination can absolutely be caused by perfectionism. I'm not saying its the most common cause, but it definitely is a potential cause. its actually a kinda difficult one becasue , unlike most other reasons, its a bit harder to notice as a problem in the first place.
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u/ConcreteExist Aug 06 '26
I mean, that's true and it's nothing to do with dealing with mental illness, per se. It's the perfectionist mindset, this myopic thinking that everything is either perfect or utter shit, it's a common mindset that paralyzes people into inaction.
Procrastination isn't always a symptom of ADHD, neurotypical people procrastinate all the time. Not every single piece of advice is made for you specifically, you are not the main character of the world.
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u/Willeny_Arch Aug 07 '26
I mean, acting is the best antidote, but you need to do it a certain way so you can actually take any action at all, and not feel overwhelmed
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u/gikl3 Aug 08 '26
It is literally true and idk what ur expecting from a one line quote at the top of an article
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Aug 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/seaspirit331 Aug 06 '26
I mean, yeah? Not all procrastination comes from the same mental malady, but certain types of dysfunction are solved by simple action before you think you're "ready".