People pay me to help them stop beating themselves up.
At some point they recognize that bullying themselves hasn’t worked. In fact, it’s been hindering their progress.
So why do we do it? I believe it is because of a survival based and habitual problem focus. In other words, we’re conditioned to catch ourselves doing something wrong.
Being on the lookout to catch yourself doing something wrong is how I define perfectionism.
The path to progress, on the other hand, is catching yourself doing something right. Boom. I could end this blog right there.
But I’ll elaborate a bit.
Once you decide on a goal or destination, applaud every tiny step to getting there.
If you find yourself distracted, bored, discouraged or otherwise unable to function or focus, instead of blaming yourself ask: what will make this easier?
For example, go slower and smaller. Find an ally to share with and gain some perspective. By taking those steps to ease up on yourself, you discover that you haven’t broken a project or task down sufficiently and because of that, you’ve committed to finishing it too soon.
By looking for an easier way, you can learn something.
When instead you judge yourself for getting stuck, you can’t access a solution. Needing to adjust is not an indictment!
It helps if you think of the symbol of success as the infinity sign: the side-ways figure eight signifying back and forth, neverending change through iteration, trial, error, adjustment, trial, error, arrival, stagnation, reinvention, trial, error, adjustment, etc ad infinitum.
The key to embracing progress over perfection is to give up on some imagined state of arrival.
You’re there already.
