INFJ personality types tend to struggle with perfectionism, especially INFJ writers. When we struggle with perfectionism, we want to do everything perfectly, not only to satisfy our own inner critic but also to prevent others from judging us negatively.
The fear of negative judgment from others can affect our entire life. Why is this such a problem for some of us? Because it’s not just a worry, it’s an addiction to approval. This affects our writing, our creativity, and our entire lives.
Perfectionism is one of the biggest problems that writers struggle with on a regular basis. And most writers tend to blame themselves for this problem. We often see perfectionism as a character flaw, or a bad habit that we need to conquer. But what most writers don’t know is that perfectionism is neither of these things.
When you suffer from perfectionism at a deep level, what you’re really struggling with is anxiety, and much of the time, that anxiety is out of your control. It is not something to be conquered or battled.
One of the biggest problems I see writers struggle with is that we often feel like we’re going nowhere with our writing. We may feel like we’re not making any actual progress, or we’ve been working on a project for a really long time, and still, we’re not seeing measurable results. When we’re in this painful place with our writing, we often feel alone and like we lack support, and like we also lack the structure we need to keep going with our writing.
Being a writer is hard work, any writer can tell you that. But what many writers won’t tell you is exactly how deep their writing problems go. There are countless writers out there who deal with constant guilt and shame around the writing process. Either because they’re not writing very much, or they’re not writing at all.
Sometimes these writers can admit they have a bad case of writer’s block, and sometimes they just think they’re bad writers and writing is something they should give up on. Usually, when a writer has gotten to this point, they’ve tried everything. They’ve used different writing plans and schedules, made outlines and lists and writing maps, and they think about writing all the time and how they can conquer their writing problems.
But still, when it comes time to sit down and write, the writer procrastinates. Or, they make themselves sit down but are filled with anxiety and dread. They freeze, get overwhelmed, and then become paralyzed, and another day goes by without any writing being done at all.