If It’s Not Perfect, It’s SH*T

Season 6 | Episode 8 This week I am diving in on a particularly nefarious form of self-sabotage: perfectionism. This is one of the most common problems I see in my transformation coa Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I am your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable, healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into this episode, I want to remind you that registration is open for the second annual Twin Cities Kettlebell Open on October 22, hosted by our friends at the athlete lab in the little candidate, Minnesota. Just like we did last year, we will include an option for video submissions for participants who are unable to make the trip in person, and they will be eligible for all of the same prizes as our in-person competitors. Just go to our website, Twin Cities Kettlebell Club.com to register. This week, I'm diving in on a particularly nefarious form of self-sabotage perfectionism. This is one of the most common problems I see in my transformation coaching, and I just had a great deep dive conversations with one of my clients about how perfectionism was holding them back, and some of the strategies we laid out to help overcome it. So I wanted to talk about it today, and I hope you find it useful. And I want to take a second to say I'm incredibly grateful that you listened to this podcast. The best way you could support me is to go register for the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open, and maybe tell a friend or two. And of course, if you haven't already, please be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your app of choice, and support my work by supporting our sponsors whose affiliate links you'll find in the episode notes. And if you want help reaching your goals without wasting time, please fill out the coaching interest form linked in the show notes. I help athletes of all levels reach their goals using my integrated coaching approach. Of course, you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club, or email me at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club at gmail.com. Now, let's get into perfectionism. All right, welcome into this week's episode of the platform podcast. Now, this topic is very close and personal to me. The title of this episode is if it's not perfect, it's shit, because I can tell you from personal experience, how much dealing with perfectionism can harm your ability to progress in your goals. And perfectionism is something that I have struggled with in my life. And I still struggle with from from time to time, but it's something that I've made a lot of progress on. I've gotten a lot better. And I find that it is incredibly common, especially in people that are high performing. And it's actually been found that people who are perfectionistic are significantly more likely to attempt suicide. This was found by a Yale study. So this is an important topic, too. This is not just a throw away. This is actually super, super important. And actually the reason that I decided to record this episode tonight was a in a couple of check ins that I had today with clients. And we dealt with aspects of perfectionism where because the macros weren't perfect on on a day, or because they didn't hit the target pace on a workout or whatever that if it wasn't perfect, it was shit. And it's very important that we remember that that is not the case. So that was the first reason for for wanting to record this. The second was I wanted to live my own advice here because it all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldn't record this podcast tonight. It's too late. I have a new microphone and a new sound board coming. So the quality, the sound quality on this isn't going to be up to the standard that I want it to be. I didn't prepare for this episode in the same way that I normally do. But I'm going to record it because it doesn't need to be perfect to be valuable. And that's especially on topic for this subject. So here I am recording on the mic that I've used for countless episodes before, which were of sufficiently high quality audio that I was fine with it and put out, you know, previous episodes using this exact microphone. It's not the first time that I haven't had the depth of research going into an episode or preparation that I would like for a particular topic. But I'm going to, I decided to record anyways because all of those things are not reasons to not to not put this out there. And that is important to me that I try and live what I am preaching, not preaching, but you know what I mean. So as I mentioned, perfectionism is something I have struggled with for a lot in my life, and I can, I can give you many anecdotes as to where that's manifested itself, but one in particular stands out clearly above the others. It was a senior in high school and in Illinois, there is a competition every year called solo and ensemble competitions and it's for musicians and you compete and you go perform in front of judges. You spend a significant portion of time preparing for for this solo ensemble competition and you're, you do solo piece obviously and then you can be part of groups and you and you go perform in front of judges and you're scored and you compete against other people and for my senior year, I decided I wanted to do bring him home from Les Mis as my solo and incredibly beautiful vocal piece. It's one of the signature songs from that musical and it was my favorite song. It was also in my wheelhouse vocally at the time and I worked incredibly hard on it and I was very prepared. I went to that room and sang for the judges and when I left, all I could think about was the mistakes that I made. Keenan, a quarter of a beat too early. I wasn't right on that pitch. I went flat in the fourth measure. I missed my breath or I took to shallow over breath and couldn't sustain the dynamic volume that I wanted in a particular phrase, etc. My head, I was going over all of the places that I messed up, all of the places where my performance was not perfect because that's what I expected of myself in that moment. I expected a perfect performance. I wanted to sing it perfectly. I wanted to hit every note. I wanted to sing it perfectly because this was the big moment I had been preparing for. This was this was the thing and I blew it. I blew it except I didn't I didn't blow it. I got the highest score of the day for my room. I was performance of the day. I got so not only did I get first place for my for my vocal part. I was the performance of the day. So I got an extra recognition. So I'd not only got a gold medal. I also got an extra special gold medal with a star. Basically, I don't know. So I was the performance of the day as well. And my my choir teacher told me that it was an incredible performance. And she told me that as soon as I finished, you know, while we were walking out of the room, she told me I did wonderful. And then it was great performance. But in my head, that was bullshit. And all I could think about was all of the all of the places that I that I had messed up. And that's just one of several examples. I'm sure you can if you're if you tend towards perfectionism, you can probably think of how it manifests itself. And you probably have stories of similar similar times for you where everyone else thought that you did great something. But in your head, all you could think about was the all of the places where you messed up or what was wrong. Right. You had an expectation. You had a picture in your head of how it should go. And all you can all you can focus on is the places where you messed up or where where it didn't go according to plan. So perfectionism is incredibly nefarious in that in that way. And I think part of the reason is it's rooted in our psychology. We are hardwired to identify negative patterns and negative experiences. We actually remember negative experiences more easily than we remember positive experience. Now there's theory that that's based in evolution right because negative experiences negative negative consequences. As you as we were evolving, remembering that the red berry that looks like this on a tree gave you food poisoning made you very sick. That's very, very important for your survival. Recognizing threats and remembering negative experiences is more evolutionarily rewarded by survival than remembering pleasurable experience. Right. Not that pleasurable experiences aren't remembered. They're just not reinforcing remembered at the same rate. They don't wire hardwired to memory in the same way that negative experiences do. So the problem with perfectionism. Is it is our own internal flagging of anything that's negative. It's our own perceived negative flags that we put on an experience. So it create it's our own brain creating our own negative feedback loop for us. Right. Where where you remember all of the things that went wrong or that didn't go the way that you planned. So perfectionism can be really, really difficult to deal with. And for a lot of people. What makes perfectionism so bad is that it prevents progress. It prevents action taking right it prevents you from starting something right stops you from starting something and you you feel like you can't start until you have all of the things that you need until until the situation is perfect. And you and you have the time, the energy, the money. Whatever, whatever the things are in your head that you need in order to start. It has to be perfect. The situation has to be perfect. We have to be perfectly prepared. And so you never actually start right when I started doing this podcast. I was not prepared to start, but I just started. I recorded episodes from my car. I recorded episodes on my phone. I didn't know particularly how to interview people other than interviewing people from my my time writing for a school newspaper. That was my only experience interviewing people before doing this podcast. But I learned and I learned because I started so perfectionism prevents progress because it prevents people from starting a lot of things right or it prevents progress because it stops them when they have started my my daughter does this often where she will draw a picture and she'll make one small mistake. And she will grab that piece of paper from her scratch pad, rip it out, ball it up and throw it in the trash. Have you ever done that where you take something that was working perfectly fine and you take it or it was or it was a good, you know, it was it was good. It was a good drawing or it was a good cake or whatever. And but because it wasn't perfect, you throw it away and start over. Well, that's wasted effort. That's wasted resource right and also when you destroy something that was imperfect and then you do it again, you lose an objective piece of data by which you could have gauge progress right but we perfectionism, we find ourselves wanting to purge ourselves of anything that's imperfect right so and that word purge also means a lot to me because if you come from disordered eating background right like, you know, I have a history of some disordered eating in my in my history, right. Binging and purging is rooted in perfectionism, asceticism, punishing yourself, flogging yourself, rooted in perfectionism and that's a characteristic of of anorexia deprivation trying to control and withhold so that you can maintain purity and be perfect right also tied to anorexic behavior. Disordered eating body dysmorphia tied to perfectionism there is an ideal standard that we have in our head and so if we take that too far, it can become very, very disordered right so perfectionism also can prevent progress from not starting from stopping things because it doesn't live up to a standard right and we create this standard typically or often I won't say typically because we're seeking external approval very rarely does it come from does it come from an internal source it's an internalization of external needs we perceive that there is a particular way that that we need to be that we need to present there is a standard that we need to hit in order to feel loved or be accepted or liked or popular or attractive right and those messages come at us from all sorts of places but they're almost always external right your parents my parents was a big one for me being the youngest of three kids right wanting to and caring very much what my parents thought of me particularly my father really wanting to make him proud and for to feel like I was achieving enough right and the only the only way to do that was to be as perfect as I could be and I put that standard on myself and I also got it reinforced by coaches who demanded a high standard you know football coaches that were like we're not leaving until we get this perfect we actually had a drill in junior tackle called the perfect drill we had to do five we had to execute five plays perfectly where everybody had to get their assignment everybody it had to go and we had to do five plays in a row and if it wasn't perfect by the coaches standard we went back to zero right and we would I mean we would do that for all and this is when we're talking we're six seventh eighth graders right junior tackle you know so perfectionism got reinforced and it came from external channels so we're seeking often seeking external approval or external validation that we are enough or that we are worthy and the only way to get that to be worthy is to be perfect to be pure right and so it then becomes a thought distortion a cognitive thought distortion where well that wasn't perfect so it's shit if it's not perfect it's shit it creates this a B thinking it's binary it's either perfect or it's trash it's worthless right and that is very very dangerous because the way that manifests way that manifests itself is okay I'm trying to do it I'm trying to lose weight and I have my macro target and I've been really good all day and then I but I went off I went off track on on dinner and I ate too many calories and I'm over for the day well fuck it I'm already over so I may as well have the cake as well and then the next day you're like well I already I already blew it yesterday so you know what I'm gonna have I'm going to McDonald's for breakfast on my way to work I already had McDonald's today so I may as well you know I'm I may as well have McDonald's again for lunch and then you get home and well I already had McDonald's for lunch and lunch and breakfast so I may as well just eat what I want for dinner and I feel dead bad about myself so now I'm going to open a bottle of wine too now I already had half the bottle of wine so I may as well finish it right so you can see obviously I'm I'm giving the worst cake you know the slippery slope you know scenario of how perfectionism we interrupt this episode to do a special thank you for our sponsors pro kettlebell home of made in the USA competition kettlebells kettlebell kings makers of all things kettlebell including competition and cast iron bells barefoot athletics optimizing the human to ground interface driven nutrition supplements revive supplements 27 degrees apparel bellivator belts by Dennis facilities and Cambrian customs plate loadable maces thank you for your support in 2021 and they look forward to an even better 2022 but this is how perfectionism leads to binging for a lot of people especially people that are prone to binging behavior right you get in this all or nothing mindset and and once you've violated the perfection protocol then what's the point it's worthless now so you may as well if it's already worthless it's already a lost cause it's already a lost day whatever it's already a lost week you may as well just go for it let it all let it all hang out right and that's where binging comes from right so it can be this very slippery slope because of that because of that very binary thought process and it can predispose you to getting off track and then what happens is it erodes your self esteem because now you feel like you've broken promises to yourself and then again cognitive thought distortion then you say well I always do this literally had to conversation just like an hour ago with somebody who is telling me like this is what I always do I I get off track I get off track for a little bit and then I can't get started again this is what I always do I like once I start once I start once I get off track then I start binging and this is what always happen and I had to stop and say is that really what always happens always you've never been successful there haven't you there haven't been periods of times where you've been successful does this happen in all areas of your life or just when we're talking about your diet and your nutrition your exercise what about it work do you say well I didn't I didn't get that perfect so there's no point I'm not going to do the next job I already didn't do that job so I'm not going to go in tomorrow while I didn't go in tomorrow so I'm not going in the rest of the week no you don't do that at work you don't do that with your kids right so we set ourselves up for these negative feedback loops that erode our self esteem erode our self esteem and erode our confidence which becomes a rein for a self reinforcing loop because then you feel like well in order to get back on track I just I need to I just need to tighten it up I need to tighten it up I just get's more restrictive and it gets tighter it gets more perfectionistic right well now now I need to I just need I need to track my macros I need to get my water I need to get three work I need to get five no five workouts and not not five seven I need I need to work out every day I need to do something every day I need to get eight hours of sleep and I need to and the list gets longer and longer and longer for all of the things that you need to do to get back on track because you messed up and it's snowballs and it's snowballs and it's snowballs right because the list for perfectionism is infinite and ultimately it all ties back to we are not enough or we are too much and the only way we can be enough is to be perfect or the only way we can be the right amount is to be perfect if if I can do this if I'm skinny then people will love me if I then my wife will appreciate me if I do my job perfectly my boss will appreciate me if I look the right way then the cool kids will think I'm cool et cetera et cetera et cetera and this this also ties to comparing ourselves to others I feel like it's gotten worse in the in the area of social media because we compare ourselves to these curated versions of other people's lives and that then sets the expectation of where we should be in our life I'm not that skinny or I'm not that happier I'm not that rich or I don't have that many friends I don't go do all these cool things I've never been to Greece you know whatever right we compare ourselves to other in the realm of kettlebell sport it's easy to be like crap that person's the same age gender and weight as me and they're doing way way better than me or they're younger than me they're older than me they're whatever right you see people like I see people that are in lighter weight classes than me that are older than me putting up more reps than me with the same weight and I'm like great they're different person right so maybe it really shouldn't be comparing myself to that person right they have different circumstances physically right same thing on social media when it comes to appearance right like all that person has six pack abs they're rip well maybe they have always been ripped you know they have different circumstances but we compare ourselves to others instead of comparing ourselves to our current state and saying can I make progress no we also have the other nefarious trend of comparing ourselves to our previous state you know of well I was back when I was 145 pounds I was happy I felt I looked good then were you really happy another conversation I've had with clients right were you really happy at that weight because I was working with you and you got to that weight and you still weren't happy with where you were at you weren't satisfied and then you couldn't stick with what you were doing that got you there and so then you fell off then you put way back on stop training you know et cetera et cetera wasn't perfect and then just stopped all together put way back on and now you're reflecting back on that previous state in time as though that was everything was good then was perfect then was happy then not necessarily true so we can we can compare to previous states and we romanticize the past when really if we reflect accurately on on how we felt at that time we probably weren't happy then either because the root of the problem is perfectionism or we can project ourselves into the future I'll be happy when whatever your insert definition of the perfect state in a particular sphere or arena right I'll be happy when I can hit master sport I'll be happy when I can fit into a size for I'll be happy when right but the goal post move you hit that goal and then you move the goal post because it's not perfect more often than not I don't know anybody that's gotten to a point where they were perfect I know people who have gotten who have made significant progress and let go of trying to be perfect and are now happy with where they're at that's the next part right so I've wrapped on perfectionism and why it's damaging and why it's setting you up for failure and why it's not going to be a perfect way. why it's unrealistic and some of the problems with it what do we do about it what do you do about it well tip number one reflect on your expectations in different areas of your life because for most of us we have areas of our lives where we hold ourselves to higher standard than in other areas of our life where we're more reasonable about our expectations with ourselves and I say that for example when it comes to parenting we tend to take any failures or shortcomings mistakes that we make and take those very very hard because we want to be perfect for us we want to be the best parent ever best parent we can be right everybody wants everybody wants the mom of the year dad of the year mug right we all want to be as perfect as we can be so we strive for perfection we try to be the perfect parent but in other areas of our lives we're probably a little bit easier on ourselves if you miss a deadline on a volunteer project by a day we'll say you're probably not too hard on yourself about that maybe you are but again this is where reflect on expectations in the different areas of your life are you perfectionistic everywhere or is there only particular areas of your life are you do you just expect yourself to do well at work but not be perfect but when it comes to your fitness your weight loss your nutrition you expect perfection there right reflect on your reflect on your expectations in the different areas of your life and then tip number two ask why you expect those self those things of yourself are those are those expectations reasonable why do you expect that right should you expect more or less of yourself in those areas right more often than not since we're talking about perfectionism and talking to perfectionist you probably expect too much of yourself you need to give yourself more grace right but you need to reflect on why is it because your father expected X Y and Z of you or your mother expected X Y and Z of you right or a coach or a boss right and are those expectations reasonable did you internalize somebody else's expectations of you that you shouldn't have or are those expectations reasonable right because I'm not saying that you shouldn't have high expectations of yourself high standards I do I have high standards for myself I have high standards for my athletes right but perfection is not one of those standards right so tip number three is you need to recognize that perfect does not exist there is no such thing as perfect there is no perfect day there is no perfect life there is no perfect anything perfect is a false creation it's a false dichotomy it doesn't actually exist it's just a standard that some people strive for with the understanding that they'll never get there but their pursuit of perfection they feel gives them gets them the highest results they can and maybe that's a healthy relationship with perfection but if you become obsessive about perfection and don't recognize that it's not actually achievable it doesn't actually exist it's going to be problematic so recognize that perfect doesn't actually exist and let it go set it aside like perfection is not achievable so I am no longer pursuing perfection I am that is no longer the standard perfection is not is not what I'm going for right number four number four reflect on the language that you use with yourself you have to be able to identify your cognitive thought distortions and reflect on how you speak to yourself right if you had a bad day and went to the cheesecake factory on the way home and crushed a thousand calories do you get into your car and be like god you're such a piece of shit I can't believe you ate all of that you fat pig right that's me talking to myself right that that was how I used to talk to myself I still fall into that sometimes to be perfectly honest but I'm much more mindful of it now I'm working on that programming right because the way you speak to yourself actually can have a big impact on the identity that you create for yourself so speak to yourself in a way that creates the identity that you want don't talk to yourself in a way that reinforces what you don't want to be speak to yourself in a way that that reinforces what you want to become or what you're aspiring to right so really reflect on the language that you use yourself and intense and trying to be intentional about how you speak to yourself which goes into the next tip give advice like you're speaking to a friend so if you can disassociate yourself from your own identity and reflect on your situation and then pretend that it would be your best friend how would you talk to them right if they told you you know I really I really went off the rails in eight like crap for the last three days drank too much slept like crap didn't work out scales up like ten pounds I don't know why they would be telling you all of that but you know maybe they would but what would you say if that was your best friend would you say God you're such a piece of shit I can't believe you did that no wouldn't say that to your best friend you would probably say that sucks why do you think that happened or how can I help or it's okay let's get back on track you got this right right there's any number of ways that you would potentially speak to your best friend but it's probably a lot kinder than how we are to ourselves right so reflect on the language you use and then try and fix it by by giving advice to yourself in the same way that you would speak to a loved one speak to yourself kindly because you should love yourself as much or more than than anybody else right so speak to yourself like you love yourself be your own best height man right as another way people talk about it right so be kind to yourself speak to yourself and in a way that that you would speak to a friend or a loved one right fail publicly this this might seem weird right that's another great way to get over perfectionism do something like I don't know start a podcast when you have no idea what you're doing and and and put it out there and be okay with failing publicly because it's exposure therapy if you're not familiar with exposure therapy that's that's how you get over phobias you give yourself small doses of of things that trigger your fear right so if like if it spiders you're deathly afraid of spiders you know exposure therapy they might start you with you know looking at a cartoon kids drawing of a spider and then you know and then maybe it's then maybe it's an artist drawing of a spider and then maybe it's a photograph of a spider and then you know you and then you work your way up to actually handling a spider like an actual real life spider right like that's exposure therapy so you can think of failing publicly as perfection's exposure therapy right because if you do something that you know you're going to fail that or that you're possibly going to fail that or it's likely you're going to fail that especially if the standard would be perfectionism like you're then you're definitely going to fail but you know if you just put yourself out there and do something right your perfectionism will diminish significantly stand up comedy I can imagine there are probably not very many perfectionist stand up comedians because they've had to fail too many times publicly in order for that perfectionism to survive so no failing publicly I think is is a great way to start dealing with some perfectionism tendencies right another tip is look outside of yourself and I mean that in the in the mental sense right because I know I said that a lot of these things are internalization of external of external expectations but what I mean is look outside of yourself by connecting with others and ask them how they view your things right like if I would have just taken the feedback from my choir teacher about how I performed in that so an ensemble in my solo I would I would not have felt like I blew it or I would not have felt like I had a bad performance right if I just listened and taken that in and like oh maybe it wasn't maybe it wasn't shit maybe it was actually decent right and then you can get other perspectives so look outside yourself connect with others reach out to other people you know ask them so where performance performance evaluations at work are great you know like you can get an external perspective right so get get external perspectives and other areas of your life right and you'll probably be surprised especially if you you feel like you're drastically underperforming you know likely not doing nearly as bad as is probably as in your head right so look outside yourself connect with other people the last it would be talk to professional I am obviously not a trained psychiatrist or psychologist so this is just me giving my opinions and perspectives on this topic having lived it and having coach people that have these tendencies and some of the things that have that I've observed in the things that work for me or have worked for me and have made improvement I am by no means a recovered perfectionist or maybe I'm in recovery I don't know I'm working on it right I'm a working progress like everything else it's something that I'm working on but if you feel like you you need to talk to a professional probably should and even if you don't feel like you need to I'm a big fan of talk therapy I think it's very useful can uncover a lot of things can help you realize where some of your triggers come from some of the things that you internalize thought pattern distortions that you didn't know that you had and maybe what some of the things that you had or the root causes of those are how to recognize and label emotions recognize and label cues and triggers cravings you know a lot of things so talk to a professional I think that's that's almost always good advice when you're talking about something psychological so those are my tips and I hope you found this useful this is a topic I'm very passionate about and just remember keep growing keep progressing but don't expect yourself to be perfect it's perfect doesn't exist just get a little bit better every day and it's all we can do be the best version of yourself on the last day that you're here I will see you guys next time peace follow us on social media at twinsidysketable club and of course if you want to step on to the platform and competing kettlebell sport please reach out to me until next time