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July 2 - July 2, 2020
Confident poses are marked by taking up more space: a wide stance, open chest, and upright posture.
Create a confident persona in your mind, pretend you’re that person, and then act it out.
Confidence does not actually exist as a standalone attribute. Even general confidence is a function of how competent you believe you generally are compared to whatever standard you have in your mind.
Imperfectionists are the most confident people in the world, and it’s not because they’re intrinsically superior. Imperfectionists are masters of customizing their benchmark to fit them. They actively decide what they’re going to be confident about.
If you’re not confident in an area or in general, ask yourself, “Where is my benchmark set?”
This is huge? This is what Becky means by “run your own race.” You can’t race Usain Bolt or even Jason and Sarah.
benchmarks exist in every area: attractiveness, intelligence, social skills, strength, humor, and confidence itself (how confident you are in your confidence level). We’re continually calculating our competency in different areas against our fluctuating benchmarks.
People will still derive their confidence from silly benchmarks: what they think is normal, what the people in their life are like, or what they see on TV. Every confidence benchmark is arbitrary, so we may as well create our own.
One of the keys to my transformation into an imperfectionist has been customizing my confidence. The only stable confidence is what you define and customize for yourself. Otherwise, it will fluctuate dramatically based on the information you receive from others (which adjusts your floating benchmark). We’ve got to take control of our benchmarks.
If you aren’t confident that you can deliver a killer speech, no amount of psyching up is going to change that. Only practice can gradually change that. So what can you do in the meantime? Be confident that you can deliver a lousy or average speech.
When people aren’t confident in themselves about something, they tend to fight it emotionally instead of strategically.
the theme of this book is strategy over emotional manipulation.
When you set a benchmark you can confidently reach every time, you can’t care what happens after you meet it.
The benchmark isn’t so that you can automatically appear confident—that will come in time, possibly sooner rather than later—it’s to ensure you get your practice in.
Practice with anything - I want to get coaching practice. I know I can do it okay. That’s enough
Needing approval creates a wall between you and your ideas.
So true!
Like all forms of perfectionism, needing permission threatens our freedom. You might begin to see decisions made without external validation as being too risky, simply because validation adds that extra layer of comfort and security
All behaviors have consequences, but very few of them carry significant consequences. The harmless results people worry about are embarrassment or rejection. Sending four emails in a row, for example, could be embarrassing or cause the other person to reject your proposal. But if you’re that persistent, perhaps it will make you stand out. It’s best not to worry about it; if you want to do it and have a good reason to do it, do it.
Embarrassment, though, has very little downside other than the discomfort itself of feeling embarrassed.
It’s very desirable to have a desensitized embarrassment reflex, because it brings you freedom. The
A perfectionist can only overcome perfectionism by practicing imperfect action.
The logical way to overcome the need for approval is to do things that others don’t approve of. No,
Those who have a strong need for approval are not rebels. They struggle to live in their own way because they try to attach everything they do to a standard practice. Or they try to live in the way that will draw the least amount of criticism from others.
You will never please everyone, and to even try to please a specific group doesn’t make sense, because being yourself will naturally please some and alienate others.
Needing approval is a violation of your identity.
This truth points to another truth: those who need approval don’...
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There’s a pressure to conform. Always. This makes us all more susceptible to perfectionist tendencies.
play-it-safe living.
Practice rebellion to detach yourself from the approval of the world, and in time, you’ll be able live more freely.
Too often, we assume that making a mistake means that we automatically lose, but usually it’s just that they discourage us into a mindset that makes us lose.
Unlike shooting a free throw, where the game is at its slowest, battling for a rebound doesn’t give a player time to worry about making mistakes.
It’s only when you embrace your flaws as friends that you truly conquer their stranglehold on your confidence and perspective.
Little to no fear of making mistakes is a trait of “doers,” which Einstein was.
Typically binary example turned analog: Imagine your task is to flip a switch, but you have to do it in a certain way to consider it successful. You decide your finger must be perfectly parallel with the switch, and the precise moment that you flip the switch, you must be airborne doing a split while saying the word “pasta” in the 7th octave (please send me the video). Now you’ve made this typically binary task into an analog task. Even a successful flick of the switch can be marred—slightly or majorly—by performance mistakes. And think about this: in trying to meet all of these fancy
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what if you decided that getting up on the stage and talking qualified as success? That’s it. If you get on stage and say words, you succeed. Now, the only way to fail is to not say anything. Even if your speech is full of mistakes, you achieved the one and not the zero. A perfect success!
To become an imperfectionist in the area of not worrying about mistakes, create binary tasks for yourself, because they can easily be done “perfectly.”
the best way to make it work in this case is to redefine what perfection means to you.
Making my website public = perfect
Making a video to post = perfect
Writing a blog post and posting it = perfect
Sending out messages about what I’m up to = perfect
Doing it, regardless of the outcome, is a significant accomplishment.
“perfectionist writer,” it’s still too vague. Are they aiming for perfect grammar? Perfect sentence structure? Perfect storytelling? Perfect everything?
This kind of vaguely “perfect” aiming is the common, oxymoronic, and ironic misfire of the perfectionist. Binary simplifies the aim for perfection into something concrete and possible.
meeting an objective that’s enti...
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Often the reason we get flustered is because of the innumerable variables to consider and what may go wrong (analog thinking).
Let’s stop making assumptions and take action to figure things out in real time by using the binary mindset.
It’s not the concept of making a mistake that bothers us (dropping a sock, your finger missing the switch, etc.). Our fear is that certain mistakes will define who we are.
it’s not our mistakes that define who we are and shape our future, it’s our response to them.
While not all mistakes feel the same, our response to them should be the same—learn and keep moving.
Excuses rarely mean something is impossible, they mean it’s not ideal.
Binary focuses on facts—did it happen or not? The analog, subjective component focuses on quality, impact, reception, mistakes, and overall, how close to perfect it was. Always choose binary, and through learning and practice, you’ll get the desired results without worrying about them.
those who simplify and make success easier than failure are those who get into “success cycles.”
The secret to consistent success that compounds over time is to combine small goals with the binary mindset: one push-up a day = (binary) 1 = success. The binary mindset reframes what success and perfection are to you, and the small goal makes the target so easy it’s nearly impossible to resist.
Imperfectionists are perfectionists in a unique way. Instead of expecting perfect results, the imperfectionist expects perfect progress and consistency.
an appreciation for all forward progress is life-changing.
