The “Break it Down” Blog

I’m a perfectionist, I get it from my dad. He hates failing and therefore I hate failing. I didn’t notice until the end of college that I was actively avoiding things I wasn’t fantastic at just so I wouldn’t need to fail. It wasn’t under a year or two out of college that I realize just how limited my life was because of this personality quirk.

My problem is that I’ve always done what I’ve been good at, and excelled at those things. So then you get use to praise and having people watching you. Now before you think I’m getting all high on my horse, think of something you are good at (say skiing?) and then imagine that it was the only thing you did, and you purposefully avoided doing other things you weren’t good at (like basketball, tennis, hockey, etc). So since most of your friends and family are only ever seeing you do something you are great at (ski) you can get an idea of how much praise you are going to get for that… and it feels good. So in an effort to keep that praise flowing, you get better and better at avoiding things you aren’t good at. From the biggest things like sports, to the smallest things like eating at restaurants you aren’t familiar with.

Well that is where I was and where I was going.

Luckily I married one of the smartest and supportive people I know. We’ve been working together to break this pattern and habit of mine to do what is comfortable, what is easy, and get more involved with things that are fun.

For example, I just remembered recently that I loved playing basketball and tennis… but I’m not good at either. I’m sluggish on the court, don’t place my shots well and overall have about 10 years of rust on my hinges; but I still want to play.

So what I’ve been focusing on as of lately is to start doing a lot of little things that I suck at. Start small and go from there. Get used to failing and mentally realizing that I’m having more fun trying that I am not having fun failing. Break the connection between success and “I’m a good person”. To clarify, I don’t mean I’m going to be heading over to the Y getting into pickup games anytime soon, that may never happen. All I know is that I want to get a basketball and puts around on the neighborhood courts when only a few other people are there. Just do easy things. Maybe go shoot some hoops with a friend.

I’m also doing things around the house that I’ve put off for years, like landscaping the yard. When that project first started I didn’t like it because I wasn’t going to make it perfect, and have our yard look like a professionally-planted masterpiece. Well forget that. I grabbed my shovel, and planted some plants; be damned what it looks like:

Anyway my point and my suggestion to all the perfectionists out there that like to get things right the first time is this: Fail small and fail often. Don’t go signing yourself up for the debate team or joining a league, go even smaller than that. Just try and learn how to do a layup well in your front yard; maybe start doing some laps at the pool and seeing if you can get faster; start cooking things from a cook book on Friday nights for 1 month and see if you get better; try doing lunges and push-ups at home in your living room during the commercials of Heroes and see if it gets easier after 3 weeks; try calling your friends or family 1 more time a week and see if you feel like a better friend, and so on.

There are 101 little tiny things you can do that you will probably stink at and hopefully fail… that is almost the goal here, to fail. If you keep succeeding that is great… you get a huge confidence booster, but the real purpose is to fail and see how insignificant the failure is and how disconnected it is from you as a person or your quality of life.

My goal today is to start doing pull-ups and dips at the gym again… I haven’t done them in about 8 years and am certain I cannot do one or the other using my full body weight. I’ve been putting off trying them for fear for failure for over a year, but you know, I’m never going to get better by NOT doing them and I’m certainly not leading a better life by not trying.

To clarify, the point isn’t that failure is good. The point is that the ability to recover from failure is good. And the only way to get good at that is to fail a lot and practice. So instead of failing catastrophically, I think we should all fail at little things… a lot and see how good we get are recovering from it.

I think 2007 is going to be a fantastic year, and my New Years Resolution is to Fail More Often! (Digg this)

Update #1: I’ve been keeping my resolution! I’ve been failing at lots of little things and I’m still alive. Honestly though, the change of mindset I have when my wife says “Let’s so Salsa Dancing!” went from “Oh Christ, why can’t we just watch a movie” to “Cool… I’m gonna suck at that, but that’s the point!” and it makes me want to actually go. I feel liberated from some invisible mental hand-cuff or something.