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In my own life, the last eight years have been a bit difficult because of that particular lie. I’m not alone in this, as there are many people who struggle with a fear of success. The more successful they get, the guiltier they get, too.
This cuckoo ends up being a double-edged sword. If I fail, it hurts because failing isn’t fun. If I win, I feel ashamed of the success and that hurts. It’s the very picture of lose-lose.
To deal with our secret rules, we have to do three things:
Identify them. Destroy them. Replace them.
To really smoke out your secret rules, I want you to ask yourself these four questions: Do I even like ____________? One of perfectionism’s favorite secret rules is “Only miserable, difficult goals count.” This is the rule that drives every
person who jogs to lose weight when they would really rather be doing Zumba,
Don’t wait to be honest with yourself if you realize you no longer like what you’re working on. Don’t let perfectionism keep you stuck.
What’s my real goal? Rob’s real goal for his luggage was to travel comfortably. As a successful fifty-year-old executive, impressing strangers with his suitcases didn’t really matter to him. But as we discussed, perfectionism loves to distract us, and what better way than confusing your real goal with some fake secret rules.
If you’re not excited about your goal right now, ask yourself, “What’s my real goal?” Make sure that what you’re chasing is actually what you want to catch.
Whether you hit potholes or whatever is the positive, opposite version of a pothole (The Dukes of Hazzard jumpable dirt pile?), don’t let your true north get away from you. What’s fun about this approach is that knowing what your real goal is
opens you up to a wide variety of methods to accomplish it.
Does the method I’m using match who I am? A very common secret rule is “What I’m naturally talented at doesn’t count.” If something comes easily or comfortably, it must not be good. Why does perfectionism offer up this rule? Because if things that come naturally are cheating, then you’re doomed to pursue difficult goals you’re sure to
quit.
If you don’t have a lot of joy in your goal right now, make sure you’re using a method that plays to your strengths. If you pursue the right goal in the wrong way, you still end up in the wrong place.
Is it time to quit? “Winners never quit!” might look good on a poster, but it’s
actually a lie and a dangerous secret rule. The truth is, there are some things you can’t...
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One of perfectionism’s favorite secret rules is “Winners never quit.” Of course they do—people quit stupid things
regularly.
As I mentioned earlier, one of perfectionism’s chief goals is to isolate you. It’s easier to get you to believe lies and follow secret rules when you don’t have a community telling you the truth and calling you out on your
rules.
We become adult toddlers when we refuse help from people and believe the lie that seeking assistance is a sign of weakness.
But in most goals it’s not about winning all the time, it’s about winning more than you lose.
We’re not aiming for perfection. All you have to do is win more today than you did yesterday and
Don’t ever accept the secret rule that you have to go it alone. Don’t let perfectionism isolate you. Find someone with an amazing diploma and then borrow it.
The first thing you should do is simply ask the question, “What does that mean?” for each secret rule you encounter.
Perfectionism persists unless we ask questions. A well-phrased question is a burst of water at a dam we need to break. It’s looking at the impossible standard we’ve been living against and picking it apart.
The second question to ask is “Who says?”
In a lot of situations, the answer is going to be “nobody.” No one says it has to be as difficult as you’re making it, but when we believe a cuckoo we act as if some authority has made it so.
The third step to getting rid of a secret rule is to write a new rule to replace it.
Mine would be “Success is good.”
Write down your secret rules. Answer the question “What does that mean?” and then write yourself a new rule, a flexible, reasonable, healthy rule based on the truth.
They don’t take into account the secret rules we’re harboring in our hearts, rules that our brains have often never consciously evaluated.
That’s an absolutely crazy rule, but welcome to the heart side of things, where we often accept damaging judgments because of our past.
That’s an absolutely crazy rule, but welcome to the heart side of things, where perfectionism tricks us into making life hard for ourselves.
Welcome to the heart side of things, where our perfectionism keeps us from blessing people we love.
Our heads are often not aware of our heart’s secret rules, rules that perfectionism has etched into us. If we don’t examine ourselves mindfully and gently, we may think that our failures to meet our goals are due to our laziness or bad strategy, when in reality they are caused by the secret rules that make our finishes impossible.
Is it a coincidence that “cuckoo” is another word for “crazy”? Probably not. These rules sound insane, and they will drive you insane if you don’t deal with them. Kill yours today. They’re doing damage to your heart. Your goal will be a whole lot easier if you’re not listening to secret rules...
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My friend didn’t need to be told those two moments were failures. He was well aware that they missed the mark. That’s the funny thing about failure. It’s loud. You might never lose a duck on your watch, but you know when you’ve blown it.
Progress, on the other hand, is quiet. It whispers. Perfectionism screams failure and hides progress.
We want our goals to have compounding interest, not diminishing returns.
We hope that with each passing
accomplishment, the progress will grow and momentum will build, but that’...
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Perfectionism uses these shrinking levels of success as proof that things aren’t going well. Remember, in the middle of a goal, perfectionism is trying to convince you that the results aren’t good enough and that you should quit. What better way to discourage you than to point out your glacial progress?
Perfectionism hates data. Why? Because emotions lie, data doesn’t. Our emotions will give us a completely false impression of a given situation.
That’s all data is. A gift from yesterday that you receive today to make tomorrow better.
Perfectionism will point that out and suggest that now might be a good time to give up.
When things aren’t going well, it’s not time to give up. It’s time to get your bearings and make adjustments.
If you don’t review the progress, you can’t make adjustments. You can’t learn from mistakes. You can’t get better, and ultimately, you can’t finish.
Perfectionism doesn’t want you to look at the progress. It might tell you that you don’t need to. Smarter people don’t need maps or measurements or data. Or it might tell you that you’ll be afraid of what you’ll find.
You might not be on a wheel, but if you ignore where you’re headed, you probably will get discouraged and not finish.
