This is Optimal Living Daily, episode 245. How to Escape the Trap of Perfectionism by Mary Yuckshavgoodlifezen.com. Get ready to maximize your potential with Optimal Living Daily, the podcast that brings you the best in personal development and productivity every day of the week. Your Optimal life awaits.
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How to escape the trap of perfectionism by Mary Yuckshapgoodlifezen.com. Do you suffer from perfectionism? I'm talking about the all pervasive attitude that whatever you attempt in life must be done, letter perfect with no mistakes or sub-ups. It's a mental attitude that can make even the best life a misery.
As a recovering perfectionist, I want to share some thoughts on how to free yourself from this stop pattern. Are you a perfectionist to find out, answer these five questions or take an online test? Number one, if you get better and better at something, do you hope to finally be perfect? Number two, is it important to you to produce something that is flawless?
Number three, if you could be perfect at something, would you feel worth more? Number four, do you think that it's best not to start something if it won't end up perfect? Number five, if you end up second best, do you see the effort as a waste of time? Did you answer all or most of the questions with yes?
If so, join the club. The mindset of a perfectionist is developed early on in childhood. I remember when I rushed home from school, bursting with pride because I'd won a second prize at the 100 meter sprints. Only how my mother say, oh, what went wrong?
Why didn't you get the first prize? Have you had similar experiences? If you listen carefully to your internal chatter, you'll find a stock phrase that relates to your perfectionism. It may be something like, you're just not good enough or something similar.
The way out of perfectionism is to notice your habitual inner message and to let it go each time when you become aware of it. Here's what happened to me. My pet message was, you should have done better, but one day everything changed. I was sitting on a hillside, lazing in the evening sun.
I closed my eyes for a moment and went into a daydream. Then I saw myself standing in a cemetery in front of me was a gravestone. To my surprise, I saw that it was my own grave. It said, here lies Mary Yacht.
Then I saw a liner underneath it in small lettering. I bent down to read it. It said, she should have done better. Well, I roared with laughter.
That was a turning point for me. Since then I've learned to make mistakes with confidence. I still enjoy excelling at the things I do, but my feeling of self-worth isn't tied up in the quality of my results. Zen practice has helped me to let go of the pressure of my own expectations, little by little.
Perfectionism is an unskillful thought pattern. Here's what you need to develop in order to shift this mind habit. Number one, give yourself permission to be human. Number two, learn to forgive yourself for mistakes.
Number three, get back on the horse immediately after falling off. Number four, remember that an ideal is only a goal to be worked toward, not to be achieved 100%. Number five, be flexible and set realistic timeframes for the achievement of a goal. Number six, develop a sense of patience.
And remember that the world won't stop if you don't get everything done today. Number seven, be kind to yourself, at least as kind as you are to those you love. Number eight, back sliding happens to everyone. Get back on track without a backward glance.
Number nine, learn to accept yourself the way you are, let go of ideas of how you quote unquote should be. Number 10, celebrate achievement with a healthy pride and let go of self-deprecation or false humility. Number 11, let go of harsh judgments of your performance and develop a kind, compassionate understanding for the hard times and obstacles. Number 12, talk to sensible friends to get a new perspective on something you're anxious about.
Number 13, notice and let go of your habitual negative thoughts. Number 14, laugh gently at yourself. Don't take yourself too seriously. A great way to deal with perfectionist thoughts is to imagine a little gremlin sitting on your left shoulder whispering negative messages into your ear.
Right now, imagine what that funny gremlin might look like. Whenever you notice a perfectionist thought, gently swipe your right hand over your left shoulder as a brushing off a bit of lint. At the same time, say the gremlin firmly, no thanks, not now. Sounds bizarre, but it works, honest.
You just listened to the post titled, How to Escape the Trap of Perfectionism by Maryy Yacht of GoodlifeZen.com. That last tip at the end with the gremlin reminded me of a post I read of hers long, long time ago, which was on confidence in public speaking, I think. And she offered an NLP trick to help with that, an LP being neuro-linguistic programming. And that's something I'm experimenting now, actually, with anxiety.
The process I learned was to catch yourself in the state that you're trying to avoid, which for me is anxiety, and snap yourself out of it with a command like, hey, then use a body trigger that you've previously associated with good feelings, which for me is making a fist and thinking, yes, to myself, and then praising yourself for doing those steps. So far, it seems to work a little bit for me, I'm gonna keep doing it, and I'll definitely let you know if it helps a lot more. So again, the first thing is to associate that body trigger. So you should think of a time that you felt your best or most confident and make that hand motion or whatever, like the fist for me while thinking about that.
And anytime in the future when you feel your best, so something great happens to me, I clench my fist and say yes to myself. And I can also do it with past experiences and memories and do it to myself anytime I want. So then as I'm going about my day when I feel anxious, I go through the steps, I say, hey, just stop myself out of it, kind of get up and shake it out, and then I clench my fist and say yes, and then praise myself at the end. Sounds weird and maybe even stupid, but association is how our body works with a lot of things, and this totally makes sense to me scientifically.
And even doing it for the very short period of time that I have seems to be helping. Anyway, one last time, it'd be entered into tiny special travels to win books and have your question played and answered on optimal health daily, come by oldpodcast.com and submit your health and fitness or diet and nutrition question. We love to answer it on the show. It's Friday, so I'll let you go, have a great start to your weekend and I'll be back tomorrow, same time, same place where your optimal life awaits.
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