I just got off the phone with someone who most of us would envy. She’s beautiful, athletic, artistic and smart. Unfortunately, she is also a perfectionist. She’d tried out for a solo singing role and she didn’t get the part, which for her meant she was a failure, a lazy underachiever. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but her perfectionism, like a silent serpent, was constricting her potential to be all that she can be.
Perfectionism, along with over-responsibility and intolerance of uncertainty, make up the three facets of what I call the monkey mindset. For the perfectionist, everything we do is judged by one primordial criteria, the judgement of others. We must maintain our status in the tribe. Perfectionist thinking sounds something like this:
“If others are better than me at something it means I am not good enough.”
“If I make a mistake, it means I am a failure”
This mindset leads to behaviors such as procrastination—putting off what we are afraid we cannot do well enough—or over-working, which causes burnout. These behaviors not only reduce our chances of reaching our goals but they feed the perfectionistic assumptions of monkey mindset. Judging an experience a “failure” teaches us that we shouldn’t try for things unless we are certain we can do them well, and that we must work at tasks until we are perfect. Any success we achieve with these affirmations is bound to be joyless and temporary at best.
To cultivate a mindset of success that will sustain us despite the inevitable setbacks in store for us, we must not focus on external outcomes —for my friend, in this case, being rewarded a vocal solo. Instead the focus must be on the process— to be fully engaged, take risks, and tap into your creativity—in short, to be inspired. This expansive mindset sounds like this:
“It is more important to do my personal best, than to compare myself to others”
“If I make a mistake, it means I took a risk and I deserve a pat on the back for this, not a kick in the pants.”
This is the mindset that frees the perfectionist from the judgements of others and the shame of failure. Setbacks become opportunities to remind ourselves what success means to us. If our singer gave herself fully to her singing practice, then she was successful. If she opened herself completely to her coaching, then she was successful. If she expressed herself with passion and vulnerability, then she was successful. If she gave her all she was a success. This is the mindset that will sustain us as we work toward our goals. Unlike “perfect”, which depends on the judgment of others, real success is found within each of us, in ever abundant supply.
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