I found myself watching the Winter Olympics on some of these grey wet mornings, afternoons and evenings. I used to go to the ice rink as a teenager, but that is my only involvement with any winter sports, so a lot of what I am seeing is new to me – and also confusing when it comes to rules, point-scoring and how you actually win.
What has really caught my attention is the amount of mistakes the athletes – Olympic athletes! – make. When I was watching some men doing figure skating, they all made at least one mistake, some of them even fell over. The sliding sports – the luge, the skeleton and so on – the commentators pointed out mistake after mistake after mistake, I think when they bumped rather than slid. The skiing I’ve seen – again, littered with mistakes.
So I’m led to understand, from my watching, that Olympic athletes make a lot of mistakes. And that this doesn’t preclude them from doing their sport, and sometimes even winning Olympic medals in their sport. The idea of perfection is just that, an idea, it’s not a real thing, it’s hardly ever going to happen.
And I thought about all the people I know who hate making mistakes, who would rather not try than risk making a mistake, and who feel really bad about themselves when they do make a mistake. It seems like we humans typically believe that we either must not or should not make any mistakes. Which is just hopelessly unrealistic. Humans make mistakes all the time, why are we torturing ourselves?
If making mistakes is good enough for Olympic athletes, surely it is good enough for the rest of us.
If you’re interested in reading more about mistakes and perfectionism, here is some wisdom:
Something I noticed from reading around mistakes is that most of the advice is ‘learn to embrace your mistakes’. But for a lot of us, making mistakes feels absolutely awful: at the time, if anyone has noticed the mistake, we might feel awkward, maybe even go into an adrenaline response if not being perfect really feels dangerous to us. Then after the mistake, we might feel even worse as we go over and over it in our minds – torturing ourselves with how awful we are. The idea of embracing this pain feels at best counter-intuitive. I suppose one way to think about this might be that either we continue feeling terrible pain forever whenever we make mistakes, or that we feel some terrible pain for a short time, while we learn how to embrace the mistakes.
A tool that will help you along the way is as much self compassion as you can manage:
Joining an art class for the first time this year, I was looking forward to learning some new techniques. I was also hoping for connections with others and to sharing the enjoyment of drawing and painting. And I did, I got the chance to practise using some different materials, I got some great guidance from the teacher, and at the end of the semester I had a little collection of artwork I had made. Being in the group was also a lovely experience: we were all there with the same purpose in mind, and the teacher created a warm atmosphere where we thoughtfully complimented each others’ work. The feeling I got near the end of each class when we would all bring our pictures together was joy – look at what we have all done, how fabulous we all are!
What I also got was an insight into a whole host of other stuff: vulnerability, perfectionism and comparison for starters. It turned out that an art class was a great place to learn more about myself, as I had the time and space to be able to really notice my feelings.
The things that came up for me are areas that many of us struggle with, and I wonder whether you might have places in your life where you could explore your understanding of yourself – just as I did in my art class.
Vulnerability
I guess that we all know that we are supposed to be vulnerable – if we embrace and share our vulnerability, then our relationships (and everything!), will benefit. If we need reminding of this, check out Brene Brown:
But actually being vulnerable is hard for most of us, however much we want it. It feels scary to be vulnerable – to let others see ourselves as we are, which might even include to let others see us failing.
At art class, one week I arrived late, and had to sit inside the main circle of easels, where everyone could see what I was doing. I had a couple of hours to fully experience the vulnerability of making mistakes, there was no hiding. Perhaps you can imagine yourself in a similar setting, somewhere safe, where you do feel quite free from judgment: what’s it like? I wonder what your first urge is? Do you try and find a way out? Do you try and hide yourself somehow? And if, or when, you give in to feeling vulnerable, and you accept that others are going to see you, what exactly is vulnerability for you? Maybe after a while, you might notice yourself soften and perhaps it might be ok for others to see what you are actually doing, and to share with them that it feels uncomfortable to do this.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism can be a really painful condition – when everything you do feels like it needs to be perfect, and if it isn’t, it’s not worth anything – and neither are you. It comes with an awful lot of pressure – to get things not just right, but perfect. Starting something new can feel impossible, because what if you get it wrong? What if you can’t do it perfectly?
One way to break out of perfectionism is to practice not achieving perfection, while giving ourselves absolutely loads of self compassion. If we can reassure ourselves that we are still worthy, regardless of the quality of our output, maybe we can let go of the anxiety around what we produce, and enjoy the process instead.
At art class, each week I had to tolerate the fact that no matter how hard I worked, my picture was not really going to look like the thing I was drawing or painting. My picture might have other qualities, but it was always going to be a long way from perfect. Could you imagine yourself spending time doing something you enjoy, but you aren’t very good at (yet)? How would it feel? What would you need to say to yourself to allow yourself to relax? What kind words would you need inside to help you stay in the moment of enjoyment?
Comparison
Comparing ourselves with others rarely feels good. Are we judging them, or ourselves? Are we comparing to make ourselves feel better or worse? Why does our ranking amongst others mean more than our own ranking of ourselves?
At art class, each week, when we brought our pictures together, the first thing I noticed myself checking for was whether mine was the worst. I wanted to make myself feel better by finding someone ‘worse’ than me – even though I couldn’t tell you what that meant. Have you been in a situation like this, and have you been able to reassure yourself? What kind words do you need to say to yourself in order to feel proud of your output, regardless of what anyone else has produced?
Next steps
Sometimes we become aware that these themes are really impacting our lives. If we daren’t be vulnerable, we risk not being able to connect with others or ask for help. If everything we do has to be perfect, we are setting ourselves up for anxiety and failure. If we are always looking at others to see how we are doing, we might not have our own self confidence.
Understanding the impact of these themes on us is a great starting point, and from there we might work on what we would rather do instead. We might also feel that we need to understand the root of these feelings in ourselves – why is it so risky to show our real selves? who told us we are only worthy if we are perfect? how come we don’t have our own confidence in ourselves?
Starting working with a counsellor means that you can explore both the causes and the effects, and also practice a way out. A counsellor will be able to help you talk about these feelings and together you can work out what’s going on, and with understanding often comes change.
