craft talk: does excellence require obsession?

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craft talk: does excellence require obsession?

I’ve come to believe that to become really good at anything, there has to be a near-obsessive amount of time and single-mindedness to that one thing. I think quite a bit about Malcolm Gladwell and his ten thousand hours theory to attain mastery (and then wrote a book about it!)

I gravitate toward balance (homeostasis for you body nerds!) Sure, I can get fixated on topics from the important to the very unimportant. I like routines and a schedules, but can also go with the flow.

It’s fine is one of my go-to life mantras. Go ahead and choose the restaurant, I really don’t care (mostly).

There are exceptions. I will obsessively pick out all of the raw onions in my salad, edit this newsletter enough times to drive me mad, and if I hurt your feelings, I will obsess until we are okay - and if it doesn’t feel okay…I will obsess.

Miriam Webster: obsessed; obsessing; obsesses

: to haunt or excessively preoccupy the mind of

Are great writers prone to obsessive personality traits? E.B. White’s lifelong preoccupation with words and animals produced some of our favorite children’s stories (and even E.B. White was overwhelmed by his inbox!)

I on the other hand had a terrible time picking a college major. Picking one thing was a little obsessive, wasn’t it? Couldn’t I be a heart surgeon, teacher, journalist, actress, and professional ballroom dancer all at the same time? (I mean, okay, I was never going to be a heart surgeon).

There are regrets.

Exhibit A: running. I run multiple times a week, have an extensive and delightfully bright Saucony shoe collection, track my mileage on Strava, and many of my daily texts are arranging where and what time to meet. I suppose it preoccupies my mind a great deal, but I wouldn’t say it’s obsessive. Therefore, I’m destined to be merely good, but not great. Deep down I believe that if I had cared more, obsessed more, especially in high school, I could have been more than good.

And I’ll confess that I secretly still visualize myself running in the Olympics and playing in the women’s world cup (which science and aging would happily and easily disprove, but whatever) yet I am totally unwilling to devote more time to achieving either endeavor.

Do you think we are sometimes afraid to be obsessive because we’re actually afraid to be great? That’s a little trippy.

From Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

I don’t know.

But I do know that my brain actively rebels against the obsessive.

Therefore, will I ever be truly excellent at anything?

I’m such a non-perfectionist that I’m honestly bewildered when someone laments how perfectionism has caused a lot of problems in their inner lives, how their work is never “good enough,” how they just can’t walk away from the dishwasher until it’s emptied. What? Let me show you.

I’m afraid my cheerful SHIP YOUR WORK and “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” might come across as very simplistic and unsympathetic.

On the other hand, I’m not the person you want to ask to put the finishing touches on your kitchen ceiling paint job. I’ll wipe off the paint, leaving a faint smudge and say, it’s fine.

It will not be excellent.

In a recent newsletter email, Cal Newport (Slow Productivity, A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism, and Deep Work) wrote about the “Slow Pursuit of Excellence.” He named three things that would help us get there:

do you like my nails? I had my first gel manicure. I might be obsessed :)

Do Fewer Things

Work at a Natural Pace

Obsess Over Quality

#3 supports the first two, because obsessing over quality (which requires time and deep focus) means we must do fewer things. Which frees us to work at a slower, more natural pace. This is incredibly appealing to my often-frenzied-juggling-too-many-things-and-endless-emails brain. Can you relate?

Professionally speaking, its words that get under my skin. Perhaps they do haunt me. I’ll often wake up with the solution to my novel’s plot point worked out by those creatures upstairs. The brain, apparently, knows how to subconsciously obsess.

So I’m mulling this over. Important: it’s not merely obsessing, but obsessing over quality.

Currently, these three little steps are taped at eye level at my writing desk. I’m trying.

Do you have regrets related to obsession? Too much or not enough?

Perhaps this is our great task: knowing when to fixate more, and knowing when to let it go.

Have you found that doing less, working more slowly, and obsessing over quality is a formula for excellence? I’d love to hear.

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