Hearing the saying : “Practice makes perfect” has been bugging me for a little while now; I started wondering if whether or not It made sense to me. I came across a podcast that was talking about perfection and they were basically saying that you could not deliver a perfect product, you could only produce something in the first place, then, perfect it.
This definition of the word perfect, has made me realize I have been cultivating the belief that there was such a thing in life as perfection. After reflection, this seemed to be a very elusive way of attempting to achieve one’s day-to-day goals in life. What is perfection? What lies underneath the need for it? That’s what I hope to be unraveling as I am writing.
I found myself feeling very anxious about a skills’ demonstration I had to perform in front of my online course cohort. As the time between now and that past performance of mine was shrinking, I found myself becoming very nervous. The thought of it overwhelmed me and all I could think about was not feeling ready. I decided I was going to get to the bottom of this feeling instead of letting it getting me to the 'bottom’!
This feeling of ‘non-readiness’ was clearly not meeting my need for competency as I feel an immense lack of practice; picture yourself about to bungee jump. Bungee jump, without the cord; as the imagery takes place in your mind, you might find yourself on the edge of getting into the energy I was sitting in before I had to jump into that presentation! It seems this blog turned out to me my attempt at finding the cord!
I was thinking all sorts of things and the loudest thought I had, was telling me: “what if I can’t perform and deliver something good?”. It seems I was trying to find all the reasons in the world that could have explained why I couldn’t do this, and why I was not ready. I realized that according to my general self-expectations I had the tendency to wait until I had enough practice and felt confident before acting anything out in public.
The reasonable side of me thought: “just do it, dive into”, and perfect your ‘product’ with the guidance of the feedback you will receive from your teachers. The emotional side of me was completely freaked out and scared of failure. Does failing at doing something for the first time even a thing? Writing this down brought me some clarity: I needed to write a few paragraphs to realize that this self-doubt paralysis was my inability to recognize the need I have for belonging with my peers and to push back any possible rejection…
If you ever find/found yourself in my shoes, let me spell out a cool quote I love by Lisa Nichols:
“Just step! Don’t get paralysis of the analysis trying to make sure the step is right. I’d rather you take ten steps wrong than analyze trying to make one step right while someone is waiting to be inspired by you”.
With love and courage,
Ashley xx