Lazy Perfectionist

I have a problem.  I'm a lazy perfectionist.  Not sure if that's an actual thing, but it's the best description for me.  If I can't do something really well, I don't want to do it, but I'm often just too unmotivated to do it well. It's not that I don't have time.  It's that I just find myself vegetating rather than doing it.  I think that I don't really feel like sitting down and knocking out a whole chapter, so I won't bother working at all.

The weird part is that when I do get myself to do a little work, even if I think I don't have the time or energy to get a lot of writing done, I end up getting at least a little done and often do more than I think I will.  But even if I don't get lots done, I've moved forward. A step is better than no steps.

I also have this issue with setting goals and, when it becomes clear that I won't completely reach them, I decide it's easier just to give up rather than seeing how close I can come.  I'm that way with weight loss and with writing.  I was just on vacation and had this grand plan of writing and exercising every single day I was there.  I did a lot better on the exercising.  By the fourth day, I hadn't written a word, so I did what I usually do--I gave up.  I wrote two times and barely did that.  I probably didn't write 500 words.  They weren't bad words, but they weren't what I could have done if I had said to myself that I wasn't going to meet my goal, but I could still get good work done if I would just start from wherever I was.

That's my goal for the coming days.  I want to write every day, but if life gets in the way and I miss a day, my response will not be that I might as well give up.  Instead, I'll start new each day with the goal of writing THAT day.

Here are a few pictures from my family's trip to the Outer Banks:

Sunset over the beach

Ocracoke Ferry!

Hungry seagulls flying in formation

My niece and great nephew on the ferry.  He's a happy guy. :)

The family on the Rodanthe Pier.  It was nice, though they charged us just to go out on it.