armchairlinguist
Peer Supporter
At my current job I've gotten some feedback on my communication style that has prompted some interesting self-examination, particularly in its connection to my perfectionism and wanting everything to be correct. Last night when thinking about this issue, it occurred to me that I view myself - not entirely consciously - as a kind of modern-day paladin. (The exact meaning of paladin varies by context, but here I'm using it in the "a good and pure knight" kind of way, probably most influenced by the Elizabeth Moon book The Deed of Paksenarrion.) Basically, I see myself as someone who always tries to do the right thing, technically correct or perfectly conformant to expectations. I have high standards, and I'm proud of having high standards. I tend to be pretty proactive with feedback to others that I think could improve or who aren't doing the correct (prescribed or ideal) thing. And while I tend to be fairly attentive to other people's good ideas or perspectives, I can also easily get pretty stuck on what I think is right in a given situation.
I'm actually much more like this at work than I am anywhere else, probably influenced by the general primacy and value of correctness professionally vs personally. Possibly obviously, this doesn't always go over well with other people, especially if I'm not careful about how I convey my opinion!
The thing that's interesting to me about the metaphor is that part of me can see how this isn't ideal - either for others, or even for me, because I end up trapped in this very small box where I have to do things perfectly or else I'm really no good at all (perfectionism). Despite that awareness I find that I'm still very attached to a lot of aspects of that behavior and image. Having high standards seems like a good thing to me, especially in hiring input where a mishire is extremely costly. Yet, being biased to say no means that saying no sounds to other people like a default setting, like it's less meaningful. And while it's good to make sure that issues get addressed and people know what they should know and do what they should do, sometimes it's all right to look at a situation and say "I don't need to provide my input here, it's actually going along acceptably well without me."
So I find that I'm really struggling to understand how to keep what's good about being a paladin type, while letting go to some degree of some of the more troublesome aspects, the excess perfectionism and meddling...obviously, that stuff causes conflict and stress, both overt and unconscious, and thus influences my TMS experience/symptoms.
I'm actually much more like this at work than I am anywhere else, probably influenced by the general primacy and value of correctness professionally vs personally. Possibly obviously, this doesn't always go over well with other people, especially if I'm not careful about how I convey my opinion!
The thing that's interesting to me about the metaphor is that part of me can see how this isn't ideal - either for others, or even for me, because I end up trapped in this very small box where I have to do things perfectly or else I'm really no good at all (perfectionism). Despite that awareness I find that I'm still very attached to a lot of aspects of that behavior and image. Having high standards seems like a good thing to me, especially in hiring input where a mishire is extremely costly. Yet, being biased to say no means that saying no sounds to other people like a default setting, like it's less meaningful. And while it's good to make sure that issues get addressed and people know what they should know and do what they should do, sometimes it's all right to look at a situation and say "I don't need to provide my input here, it's actually going along acceptably well without me."
So I find that I'm really struggling to understand how to keep what's good about being a paladin type, while letting go to some degree of some of the more troublesome aspects, the excess perfectionism and meddling...obviously, that stuff causes conflict and stress, both overt and unconscious, and thus influences my TMS experience/symptoms.
