Are you a perfectionist? Many many people who come to do the Lightning Process are brilliant at perfectionism.
Sometimes, in some contexts, perfectionism is useful, isn’t it? If you’re a brain surgeon, for example……
In our daily lives, maybe not so much.
When we’re good at perfectionism we’re often hard on ourselves (and/or others) for not getting it ‘right’.
It becomes hard to enjoy ourselves because we think things aren’t ‘right’
We have very high expectations of ourselves, and when we don’t quite make it, we put ourselves down
So this month how about we do it differently….?
- Identify the areas where you practise perfectionism successfully, probably on a daily basis. Maybe you’re a parent and you got some things wrong. Maybe you’re a partner and you got some things wrong. Maybe you tried to write something and it didn’t work out as you hoped. In fact, anything where you hoped things would turn out a particular way and then they didn’t.
- Stand up, look in the mirror, open your arms wide and shout ‘I LOVE making mistakes’, like this. This allows some humour and flexibility
3. Speak kindly to yourself in the mirror; tell yourself you’re doing your best, and tell yourself what you’ve learned from this mistake (sometimes we need to apologise to someone when we make a mistake – or just to ourselves)
4. Re-evaluate – is this failure or feedback?
You can read more about this in Dr. Phil Parker’s new book ‘The Coach That’s Always There’
And I learned ‘I Love Making Mistakes’ from NCBI (National Coalition-Building Institute)