Say No To The Hustle

“Healthy striving is self focused: How can I improve? Perfectionism is other focused: What will they think? Perfectionism is the hustle.”

– Brene Brown

I love what Elizabeth Gilbert writes about perfectionism : “Perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear…just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it’s just terrified.”

Let that soak in.

Perfectionism – we dress it up, we glamorize it, we parade it like a badge of righteousness, and we admire it in others. But what’s behind perfectionism? Fear? Insecurity? A sense of inferiority? Maybe all of the above and then some.

A talented and experienced sports performance trainer that I recently had the privilege of meeting, Chris Gorres, said this to me recently: “I tell my kids all the time – go out there and get your ass kicked. And then get back up and get your ass kicked again.” A different way of saying this is when Amy Poehler said: “Great people do things before they’re ready. They do things before they know they can do it. Doing what you’re afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that – that is what life is. You might be really good. You might find out something about yourself that’s really special and if you’re not good, who cares? You tried something. You know something about yourself.”

So, taking risks – is it correlated to the presence or absence of perfectionism? I think so. I think we have to grant ourselves permission to do the things that we do, in a way that’s less than perfect. In fact, sometimes we just don’t do it well at all. But, the more experience I gain, the more I realize, we have to be willing to be bad before we can be good.

When we choose perfectionism, we release our power. We say, what I think, feel and want is secondary to what you think of me. In a sense, it’s self-betrayal. When we choose perfectionism, we relinquish our identity. We say, I am what I do – all of my successes and failures define who I am and what I have to offer.

Perfectionism prevents us from taking risks, leads us to procrastinate, and causes us to quit.

This looks like the athlete who’s locked up in performance afraid to make a mistake. They play safe. Why? They haven’t yet accepted that the mistake isn’t indicative of their worth.

This looks like the player who over trains because nothing is ever good enough. I understand this one well. I’m here to tell you that never being satisfied may get you to a high level, but eventually it may come to bite you. There are plenty of times where you absolutely need to say, “that was good enough for today.”

If we choose healthy striving, we will have to say no to fear. Fear of what other people think, fear of failure, fear of not measuring up – fear of whatever it is that we’re fearing. I try to practice treating fear as a living, breathing entity. “Fear, you’re here – I knew you would show up, but I give you no power. I will continue on even if you’re present.” We can’t escape it, we might as well accept it and keep moving.

If we choose healthy striving we will have to balance the opinions of others. We can gain insight, advice, experience and expertise from the people around us. There’s no doubt that coaches, trainers, players, friends and family can see things that we can’t always see, and help us to improve areas of our lives that we don’t yet have the experience or expertise to improve in on our own. But, there’s also an element of filtering, that I think is important. What I mean is, my view of self is not contingent on your opinion. I am neither overly excited by your praise, or overly destroyed by your criticism. And this goes back to identity – knowing who you are and what you have to offer.

I tell players all the time when they’ve taken something negative on that a coach has said to them “that’s one person’s opinion.” That was told to me years ago, but it took me years to accept. I think sometimes we can hear 500 positive things, and hang on to the one negative thing. Almost as if we’ve said “there it is – the thing I’ve been waiting for someone to say.” I suppose that relieves our anxiety. Kind of like when we fear someone will make fun of us, so we make fun ourselves first. We’ve all been or seen that person. Regardless, it doesn’t serve us well. I can look back at my time as a young player and think: “you know what, I don’t receive or accept that.” It’s ok, to know who you are and to choose not to take on everything that everyone says to you, even the people you respect sometimes. It’s actually more than ok – I think it’s necessary.

In life and in sport, there will always be critics, but I want to end with three quotes that have been meaningful to me regarding this topic. The first is from Theodore Roosevelt:

“It’s not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, but who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasms, and great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid should who neither know victory nor defeat.”

The second is Brene Brown: “If you aren’t in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

And the third, is a quote that hung on my mirror in grad school and has recently reemerged :

“When you get what you want in your struggle for self,
And the world makes you king for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what the man has to say.
For it isn’t a man’s father, mother or wife,
Whose judgment upon him must pass,
The fellow whose verdict counts most in life,
Is the man staring back from the glass.
He’s the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear to the end.
And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test,
If the man in the glass if your friend.
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But the final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

This reminds me that this life is mine alone. This journey is mine alone. And the most important thing, is what I think and how I feel about myself. I cannot be the person I want to be in relationship with others – I can’t be the coach, trainer, mentor, friend, daughter, sister, aunt or lover I want to be, unless I’m first ok with myself. When my time comes to leave this earth, will I say in confidence “I have been true to myself.”

On a smaller scale, this is the question I want players to ask – was my experience mine? Did I own it? Did I strive in a healthy way – standing firm in who I am and owning that truth, or did I hustle for worthiness through perfectionism? Because, I believe the same truth applies – we can’t become the best version of ourselves on the field, if we don’t own who we are and what our experience is.

When we talk about sports performance it’s easy to yes to the hustle. Detrimental to spirit and soul, but easy because it’s common.

Healthy striving? Or perfectionism? …We always have a choice. Say no to the hustle.