I went to Eastern Africa for two weeks on Safari in Tanzania with two dear friends of mine. It was a mind-blowing experience for me, and I learned a lot!
On one of our drives, we wanted to hang out with a herd of elephants. While watching them, I noticed they would pull up grass and shake their trunks vigorously. I asked our brilliant guide about this, and he told me they were shaking off the dirt and rocks. Elephants eat over 300 pounds of vegetation daily. For this, they need to be able to chew their food. Dirt and rocks wear down their teeth, and once their teeth wear down, they will die. They are shaking off the dirt to get the necessary nutrients and have a long and healthy life.
Watching the elephants feed was a metaphor for my trip. The terrain itself was visually stunning. I learned a tremendous amount about Tanzania, its history, economics, and different tribes through our guides and the staff at our lodges. I added 100 new birds to my bird list. I saw lions mating, the wildebeest crossing the Mara river, and a hyena stealing a leopard’s kill. It was an incredibly rich experience and fed me in many different ways.
I also had to shake off a lot of dirt, metaphorically and figuratively—much more than I do when I am in my familiar surroundings. We could not drink the water and had to be careful about what and where we ate. We went at the end of the dry season, so the roads in and out of the preserves were dusty. After one of our safari drives, I had dirt everywhere: my clothes, camera, hair, eyes, ears, and nose. Even with precautions, I ended up with traveler’s diarrhea off and on for most of the trip.
The grandeur and newness of Africa were so absorbing; it created effortless mindfulness; I was very much in the present moment, more when I am at home.
Now that I am home, I am incredibly grateful, feeding on the green grass of my life, the clean air and water, familiarity with my daily routines, being near the ones I love, and returning to seeing my clients.
I am also back to the familiar dirt and small rocks of my daily patterns, particularly my perfectionism. Trying to get too much done and my tendency to base my self-worth on how much I accomplish. Instead of grinding down my metaphoric teeth, I am shaking these well-worn habits and patterns off with the tools I use and teach others to use, for example, setting timers when I start a task and taking short breaks in between. Reminding myself that it is the process of how I do things, as opposed to the goal of getting things done.
Like the elephants, I am taking in the nutrients of my life while shaking off the dirt and stones of the things that wear me down. I too want to live a long, healthy —and happy—life.
Last week, reading the entertainment section of the newspaper, I noticed a grass roots band that looked interesting was playing this weekend at the Green Center. Since the pandemic, my husband Doug and I haven’t been to a live music venue and we were overdue, so I asked him to get tickets. It felt like a risky thing to do. Doug can be over-frugal, and I didn’t want to end up in the cheap seats, using my binoculars to see the musicians. But I framed it as an exposure, welcoming the uncertainty of what he’d decide.
As it happened, he surprised me by getting premium seats. He’d stretched himself and let go of a few more bucks than felt comfortable to him. Alas, in life, you don’t always get what you pay for. The view from the seats Doug picked out on the seating chart was partially blocked by the seats in front of us. Both our monkey minds howled in unison. A mistake! We made a mistake!
It took a minute to remember that this was actually a golden opportunity. Here are three ways mistakes are good for us.
When we make a mistake, it is an opportunity to practiceself-compassion, a chance to choose forgiveness rather than blame. The more compassion we have for our own failings, the more we’ll have for others.
With every mistake we have an opportunity to practice accepting loss. While losing can be painful and disappointing, since it’s part of being human, we need to be willing to feel what it brings. That’s the only way we recover from loss.
Mistakes are how we learn and grow. When we try something new, or not good at, we’re not going to get it right the first time. We can measure how much we’re growing by the mistakes we make.
Once Doug and I forgave ourselves for our mistake (1) and accepted that we didn’t get the view we hoped for (2), we thoroughly enjoyed the concert. And when another concert comes along, we want to see, we will have learned a little more about picking good seats, as well as how to enjoy ourselves should they turn out to be not what we hoped for (3).
The next time you make a mistake, whether tripping on the stairs, forgetting someone’s name, or something more serious, practice self-compassion and pat yourself on the back. Remind yourself that since we’re all inherently fallible, losses are acceptable. Of course, you could have stayed in bed, and avoided the mistake, but what would you have learned from that? Plan to make some more mistakes tomorrow. You just can’t make enough of them!
Since the pandemic, my gym requires us to reserve a lane in the outdoor pool for ½ hour blocks. This morning I went to get in my reserved lane at 7 AM, and there was a woman in my lane. I waited patiently for her to swim to the edge and told her that I had reserved this lane. She said she was sure that she had reserved this lane.
Now, I knew I was correct; this was the lane and timeslot I always reserve. When she offered to double-check her reservation, I let her do it. This meant she had to get out of the pool dripping wet in the chilly morning air. Meanwhile, I hopped in the pool and started doing my laps. I was surprised when, a few minutes later, she showed up at the edge of the lane and showed me her reservation for this lane at this time!
“Wow, there must have been a glitch in the reservation system,” I said. Fortunately, I was able to share a wider lane with another swimmer. Then, after about five laps, I suddenly remembered that I had changed my normal routine and reserved the lane for 7:30, not 7:00! My monkey mind sounded the alarm, chattering, You were wrong! You made a mistake! You were rude! You are bad! You should be punished! Shock waves of shame pulsed through my body. How could I have been so sure of myself and been so wrong?!
Fortunately, I was able to recognize my perfectionistic monkey mindset at work, thinking that my mistake made me a bad person. What I needed was unconditional acceptance. So, I practiced the three steps I outline in my books.
Expansive Mindset: I changed my mindset, from “mistakes make me bad” to “mistakes make me human!”
Welcoming Breath: I welcomed rather than resisted the feelings I was having. For the rest of my swim, I breathed in my shame and breathed out forgiveness.
Changed Behavior: Instead of hiding or avoiding the young woman, I went up to her in the locker room and told her I had made a mistake and that I was very sorry that I had allowed her to get out of the pool to check her reservation, instead of checking mine. She smiled and said, “We all make mistakes.”
It is a widespread misconception that unconditional self-acceptance means we won’t improve ourselves. The opposite is true. When we acknowledge that mistakes make us human, not bad, we can take responsibility for our actions instead of cringing in shame. When we forgive ourselves rather than punish ourselves, we are cultivating kindness and self-compassion, qualities we are then more likely to extend to others.
Forgiveness Meditation:
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One of my personal traits that I’m not particularly proud of is impatience. Yesterday when I went online to the DMV website to find out why I hadn’t received my car registration renewal in the mail, the web form wouldn’t take the information I entered, and I couldn’t find a number to call or make an appointment. This shouldn’t be so difficult. ARGGGGH!
I can become impatient with people I love too. When I sent my husband to the store to get some coconut milk and he brought back coconut cream, I got really annoyed at him. He happily turned around and went back to the store, but I didn’t like waiting. Can’t I trust him to manage a simple task? GRRRRRRRR!
And I can be just as impatient with myself as I can be with the world. When I’m working on a task, I often don’t think I am getting enough done. Even as I am writing this newsletter, I catch myself measuring my progress against an imaginary timeline. I’ve been working on this for an hour, shouldn’t I be done by now? GROAN!
My impatience, like everyone’s impatience, is characterized by the assumption that things SHOULD be going better, smoother, more efficiently, than they are. It’s a standard of performance we expect that is not being met. Judging everything with this perfectionistic mindset, we contract, causing ourselves and others to suffer. We really shouldn’t be so impatient, should we? Sometimes I get so impatient with my impatience!
The antidote to impatience is hardly more judgments and criticism. What we need is compassion, understanding and acceptance. This meditation is specifically designed to help us stay present with our feelings of impatience. When we welcome, rather than resist this painful emotion, transformation happens.
A 30-day cognitive workout to help you cultivate self-acceptance, resilience, and the “mental muscle” needed to thrive in an imperfect world!
Do you hold yourself—and others—to unrealistically high standards? Are you afraid of making mistakes? Do you live for to-do lists and deadlines, and yearn for flawlessness? You aren’t alone. In our competitive, high-pressure world, it’s natural to strive for excellence. But over time, these perfectionistic tendencies can feed the internal anxious “chatter” known as your “monkey mind.” So, how can you quiet the monkey and stop feeling like you need to be perfect all the time?
In this illustrated guide, psychologist and anxiety expert Jennifer Shannon will show you how to break free from the monkey mindset that drives your perfectionism and set realistic goals; unleash creativity, joy, and productivity; and foster self-compassion and compassion for others. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to give yourself permission to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, leading to a fuller and more meaningful life.
Our monkey minds are hardwired for survival. They depend on the approval of others and the need to fit in and be accepted by the “tribe.” But monkey minds can also get in the way of reaching our full potential. If you’re ready to welcome imperfection and start taking risks, give this workout a try!
“I’m a procrastinator,” Andi said. “I put off exercise, house cleaning, paying bills, everything! I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m just lazy, I guess.”
I’d seen a lot of procrastinators in my practice, and I’d yet to see one who was genuinely lazy. I had a different guess about Andi.
Going Deep, Uncovering Perfectionism
I began our session by asking Andi to imagine opening her mailbox and seeing a credit card bill. What feeling came up for her? She said it made her feel anxious. I then asked her what thoughts went with this anxiety. She identified thoughts like, I’ve been spending way too much money, and This bill’s probably overdue and I’ll have late charges.
Thoughts like these would seem to act as motivation for Andi to pay the bill before things got worse. But she wasn’t doing that. There had to be some deeper cognition that was stopping her from paying her bills, which were piling up. I asked her, “If it’s true that you’ve accrued late charges and you’ve been spending too much, what would that mean about you?”
She didn’t hesitate to answer. “It would mean I’m STUPID!”
Feeling stupid, less than others, or not up to a task is painfully crippling. If every time Andi sat down to pay bills, she ran the risk of feeling that way, it’s no wonder she put it off.
“I don’t think you’re lazy,” I told her. “I think you’re a perfectionist.”
Andi looked at me like I was crazy. “No way,” she said, “Perfect people get things done!”
Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Pain
Andi’s misconception about perfectionism is a common one. As I’ve learned from my practice and my professional life, the central tenet of perfectionism is to stick with what you’re great at and avoid altogether the tasks that make you anxious. It’s a great short-term strategy. So long as Andi was distracted by social media, cooking, or doing anything that was fun or easy for her, she was not worrying about her bills. But in the long run, Andi’s procrastination was making her feel worse about herself and interfering with solving her budgeting problem. It was clearly a failed strategy.
As a cognitive behavioral therapist, I approach problems like procrastination as more than a behavior problem; it’s a thoughts and feelings problem too. Once my clients connect the dots, they are ready to imagine a new picture for themselves.
Three Strategic Steps
The first strategic change I asked Andi to make was in her thinking. Her present perfectionistic assumption—that overspending and paying bills late meant she was stupid—needed an upgrade to something more realistic. After all, lots of people have difficulty in this area. A non-perfectionistic mindset—or what I call an expansive mindset—is, If I spend too much and have late charges, it means I am human. When we view or shortcomings as part of our fallible human nature, we decrease our sense of shame and are better able to take effective action to address a problem.
The second change of strategy was regarding Andi’s behavior. Every time she tried to sit down to pay her bills, she felt overwhelmed. Rather than expecting herself to settle all her overdue bills in one big session, I suggested she break them down into manageable pieces. When we limit ourselves to a short time frame, after which we will stop even if we haven’t finished, we are way more likely to begin the task. To practice, I had Andi set the timer for ten minutes and start to pay her bills, right in session.
Thinking and behaving in any new way is bound to cause feelings of discomfort, and facing up to her unpaid bills, without getting rid of them was painful for Andi; she felt ashamed. In response, I asked Andi to employ a third strategic change: to pat herself on her back and repeat her expansive mindset out loud. She felt silly, but I reminded her that what is really silly is berating ourselves. When we do something that is hard, we need to be encouraged. With self-compassion, we can get so much more done!
Less Than Perfect, More Productive
Andi wasn’t a lazy person, and she wasn’t stupid either. But like so many other perfectionists, she had fallen into the trap of seeing herself that way. These harsh self-judgments won’t die easily, but with practice, anyone, including you, can beat procrastination with these three strategic steps:
1. Change Your Mindset from perfectionist to expansive
2. Break Tasks Downinto manageable pieces
3. Give Yourself Praise instead of punishment
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This article first appeared on the Blog @ NewHarbinger.com
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