What is perfectionism?
Perfectionism is a trait characterized by an athlete’s concerns in striving for flawlessness & perfection. With this comes critical & negative self-evaluations & concerns of others evaluations. It is driven by internal pressures such as: trying to avoid failure or harsh judgement and manifests as criticism of self or even others.
The reason this topic can be perceived as problematic or beneficial, is because some athletes pride themselves on being a perfectionist while others see it as a major mental barrier or roadblock to their success. The truth is some of the greatest athletes in the world are perfectionists & almost all of them have traits of perfectionism.
So what are these traits?
- Perfectionists set big goals.
- Perfectionists are highly motivated & committed.
- Perfectionist are disciplined to achieving a high standard.
- Perfectionists work relentlessly hard.
These traits are not too different from anyone who has achieved success at a high level. The difference is in the way they use failure & adversity to drive them further.
There are two forms of perfectionism in athletes / people in general. Healthy perfectionism and unhealthy perfectionism. Well-known Former Coach and Executive of the National Football League – Vince Lombardi had a quote that reads “Perfection is not attainable, but if we can chase perfection, we might catch excellence”.
The late great Kobe Bryant spoke about his career saying “I was chasing perfection & excellence, even though I knew that I would probably never catch it. But just the fact that I was willing to chase it… I would defeat most of my opponents, because most of my opponents would never chase something that didn’t have any guarantees attached to it.”
On the other hand there is unhealthy perfectionism. Unhealthy perfectionism is an expectation of everything going perfect and performing flawlessly every time you step into the ring, onto the field, pitch or court. This trait creates for some of the highest of highs but most of the time – the lowest of lows. In fact the more competitors involved in competition at once, the less likely the outcome is going to work out perfect.
Why?
Because each competitor whether it is a teammate or opponent has a different idea of what the process looks like to get the desired result. This, in turn creates unexpected circumstances, surprises and adversity in competition, and that is how mistakes, turnovers, and imperfect actions take place. When reality doesn’t live up to expectation, majority of athletes go into a state of stress.
You may have heard this story before called the Tyrannical Trio of the ego – it directly relates to how unhealthy perfectionism works within. Let me introduce the trio – the Perfectionist, the Pusher, and the Punisher.
The Perfectionist sets this flawless expectation of self.
This triggers the pusher to go ahead and strives to meet this expectation.
Once the pusher fails to meet this perfect expectation, Our punisher who is our inner critic steps in and points out all the mistakes we make and leaves us feeling worthless.
When this trio of tyranny shows up in every practice and competition it can leave us feeling incredibly drained and questioning our value.
The big difference between healthy & unhealthy perfectionism is unhealthy perfectionism is accepting nothing less than reach an unattainable expectation of self, whereas healthy perfectionism is striving for excellence and understanding that you are working in an imperfect environment. i.e. mistakes are going to be made but it can’t affect effort & attitude.
The beauty of perfectionism is although we speak on it as a trait – a trait is a habit that has been practiced over and over again and becomes our autopilot. It can be changed with an awareness (that this isn’t helping me) and perspective shift. Once we put repetition in to this perspective / thought process – it builds momentum and eventually becomes new autopilot way of thinking.
The mind is just like a muscle, more you work it the stronger it gets. Simply by shifting perspective – your thoughts create better actions and you get better results.
4-time Tennis Grand Slam Singles Champion Naomi Osaka has open admitted her struggles with perfectionism and the impact it has had on her both mentally and emotionally. In an interview a few years ago she said “I tell people I’m a perfectionist. For me, a result that is less than perfection, even if it’s something great, is a disappointment” Osaka notably withdrew from the French Open in 2021 because of her challenges with depression & anxiety.
Unhealthy perfectionism creates a situation where you’re never satisfied. Even when you win, the mistakes or imperfect elements of performance are more prevalent and ware on you mentally and emotionally. This can cause a more depressive state of mind and outlook on life. Secondly it creates so much pressure and anxiety within because of the desire to meet the expectation of the perfect performance.
For most it creates a love/hate relationship with their sport and causes a lot of athletes to lose passion and motivation because of that feeling of “never being good enough” in correlation with the expectations they set.
Growing up and playing basketball from the age of 7 years old, I have had this perfectionist trait and in fact a lot of athletes that I work with these days come to me with a strong perfectionistic trait. I definitely fell into the unhealthy perfectionist category. There were times where losing or not playing well, had me in tears. Other parents were concerned because it looked like I didn’t want to be out on the court sometimes, my attitude was poor which impacted my focus and effort. I would even overexaggerate being hurt sometimes just to come out of the game because I was embarrassed and ashamed of the way I was playing. Like everyone else, I would go into competition with great intentions but it is was the inner perfectionist that created this battle within.
My Mum and Dad who were great athletes in their respective sports could not figure out why I had this mindset towards sport because it was completely different to the way they approached sport.
And this was a battle that I had that showed up most of my Junior career and into Senior’s. I remember labelling myself as a “confidence” player. If things went well I was great, if they didn’t, I could literally fall over my own feet. And what’s that quote by Buddha? “What you think you’ll become. What you feel you’ll attract. What you imagine you’ll create. So that’s exactly who I was at that point in time.
It wasn’t until the age of 28 that I realized with the goal of finishing my career at the professional level, that I needed help. Little did I know at this point, it was my mindset that needed the most work. I won’t go into too much detail because you can catch my journey into pro sports in the first episode of The Confident Athlete Podcast. Check it out if you haven’t listened to it yet. But this was the turning point for me. It showed me a different perspective, a different mindset which allowed me to turn my positive traits of perfectionism into a healthier, determined and much more emotionally balanced journey into that professional level.
All it took for me was a different perspective, a mindset shift, and I hope that I can do the same for you because there is nothing wrong with being a perfectionist. In fact, the insane work ethic, the passion, commitment, and discipline to put in the extra work to succeed, is something that I can’t make you do. That’s on you. Shifting your mental, Maximizing your potential and translating your work into consistent performance, I can 100% help you with.
There are 3 elements to shifting your mindset. Awareness. Acceptance & Action. And I hope if you’re listening to this, and maybe you relate to this, well then you have already mastered the awareness element. Secondly if you’ve got this far and you’re looking for a tool or strategy to help shifting into a positive perfectionist mentality well then you’ve also conquered the acceptance element.
So here’s the action or perspective that you can put into practice and create repetition for it to become engrained into the subconscious mind (habit mind). This is our autopilot mind. But like any habit it can only be instilled with repetition.
I’m going to give you a mantra that you can take into competition but also into your career journey in sport. This one comes from one of the greatest alpine skiers of all-time U.S. Olympian Mikyla Shiffrin. “Keep your expectations low but your standards high.”
What’s the difference between expectations and standards?
Expectations are usually outcome based. Winning a competition, statistical results, being picked for a certain team or opportunity. Standards are the process to achieving results. Because in the end performance is a behaviour not a result. Focusing on your behaviours and what you can control will influence the outcome or result in a positive way.
For Mikaela She would focus on pushing herself in training and competition, doing her best with her turns, having good tactics, and being aggressive but not placing an expectation on winning because anything can happen.
If you focus on the smaller actions you can perform at this moment it will usually influence your results in a positive way. Not all the time though, sometimes you can perform really well and lose or sometimes you may not play to your potential but still win – especially in team sports where others are influencing results.
Having expectations often creates future thinking – so first of all you’ve split your attention between what’s important now or the details of this present moment – and the “what if’s” of the future. This can lead to feeling a pressure to win and pressure to perform leaving you with a high level of anxiety or overwhelm. Every performance has a process to get to the end result that is why every score starts at 0-0.
So, perform the elements of competition you have control over to a high standard.
Have a standard of excellence for effort and let go of any expectation of what the outcome will be because in essence that’s the part you can’t control.
What elements of process do you focus on in your competition?
I’d love to know.