How do you Deal with Failure?

I have a confession that is painfully evident to anyone who knows me: I'm a perfectionist. I like things to be a certain way, I get very hung up on the details, and I believe--deeply--that there is usually a "right" way to do things.

Maybe not in life (or in my house cleaning), but certainly in work. Whether you're building artisanal cheese boards or working as an accountant, do it well. Don't be sloppy. Check, then check again.

This even applies to my text messages and gchats. Usually I double check and copy-edit them...

...and when I hit send too fast and miss something, I follow up with a "sic" to whomever I'm corresponding with. Because I hate the idea that they think I'm sloppy THAT MUCH. (No, I'm not kidding about this.)

I think this is my factory setting, but I also think the drive towards perfectionism was reinforced by rewards. Growing up, I was bright, but if I was also anal-retentive, I could be the best. I could get a perfect score on every test and paper, get the right grades, get into the right college, and generally attain all the rubber-stamps of approval I could want because I was, in my dad's words, "disciplined." Obviously this character trait had serious downsides--like several years of "eating" diet coke for lunch--but by the time they started showing up, it was too late. I was stuck on this track, and why, really, would I want to get off of it?

So I must be a masochist.


Why else would I choose a career path where a.) there IS no such thing as perfection, and b.) no matter how well you think you've done, you're going to be hearing a HELL of a lot of "no thank yous" along the way?

And that's not even including the internet commenters, who, outside a few awesomely posi locales, are generally scum-people.

(Please, don't let that stop you commenting here, even if you want to tell me I suck at all things.)

So after years of be-anal-and-you-shall-achieve, I now live a life in which I have failed--sometimes in a small way, sometimes writ painfully large--more times than I can count. Literally; I didn't used to track every piece.

For me, there's always at least a small stomach-sinking, a sense of weight falling on my body that makes my joints hurt just a little. Oh no. Again.

Sometimes anxiety follows. Sometimes I just get pissed. Most times, after a relatively-short mourning period, I feel compelled to write more things. Dozens of essays, thousands of words of a novel, navel-gazing crap like this blog post. You name it, I'll do it. It cycles the feeling out of my system to have something new to hope for, even though that something new is probably going to hurt me, too.

In a cruel twist of fate, success feels almost exactly the same. It also causes heart-palpitating lung-crumpling anxiety, makes my hands shake, makes me incapable of focusing. But I think that's just anxiety disorders cropping up; all strong emotions throw me, at least for a little while. Feeling feelings is too much; I prefer to think about them later.

How do other people deal with failure? Is it easier if you're not a perfectionist? Is it more crippling or motivating?

I know my wiring is ALL messed up, so I have to assume there's a better way to handle it than "minor panic attack and then generalized, anxiety-induced productivity."

Though at least productivity made the cut...