Perfectionism and The Bigger Picture

“By obsessing on getting it exactly right we undermine our ability to succeed”

I read this quote above recently and it really sat true with how much I see some athletes struggle to see through the big picture plan by over-fixating on the details right in front of them. It’s a tricky topic because to be a successful athlete you need to pay attention to detail, you definitely need to be driven to achieve specific goals day to day. However when does it become a point where perfectionism starts to overshadow the big picture and set an athlete backwards.

They found that people who displayed more perfectionist tendencies became overly concerned with their mistakes. Their fear of failure undermined their potential and made them do worse compared to their peers.” You’re likely leaving results on the table.

“In another experiment, researchers gave perfectionists and non perfectionists specific goals. They also rigged the test so that everyone was doomed to fail. Guess which group quickly gave up? The perfectionists felt ashamed and tapped out early, while the not-so-perfect group kept plugging away, learning and having fun.”

This paragraph above I also read in that same article and again I quickly could think of many examples in my own athletic career as well as many athletes I’ve coached when this was very true. I was taught early on in my professional career that continuing to show up and just keep going was going to be the number one most important thing to achieve my goals. Some days were tough as hell, some were extremely fun, some days were down right ones I won’t even remember because they all blur together. But the main thing was stringing together a lot of training that ultimately led to improved ability to handle the load of racing an ironman. 

I recently had a text conversation with a friend who is also a coach and a professional athlete, it went something like this:

Friend: “ I mean, the formula isn’t that complicated right? Train a lot so you can survive an Ironman. If they call that cooking themselves then they need to harden up. If they pick shortcuts, failure will likely happen at this distance.

Me: “I think they think there is an easier, softer way, But we both know there isn’t. It’s just a lot of hard work over a long time to be good at Ironman.” 

Friend: “If I find one I’ll let you know! “

Don’t get me wrong. It’s important to know your specific targets, numbers, goals and have a clear plan mapped out to make it all come together right. I am very particular about building exact plans towards a main goal. That’s not the message I’m talking about here. What I’m diving into here is when there is a specific fixation on one particular detail that is so obsessive that it’s actually deviating someone away from achieving the bigger picture goal, AND being able to tap into what they need to when it REALLY matters! 

If you trust your ability to handle hard things because you’ve shown up everyday and navigated through many different scenarios, successfully…..and unsuccessfully, you’ll trust yourself and have confidence you’ll know exactly what to do. You’ll smile when it is perfect, but you’ll also have confidence when it’s a complete shit show because you’ve been there before. 

As I get into my 24th year of endurance sport there aren’t too many scenarios that rattle me anymore. That confidence comes from almost all good and bad situations I’ve seen a few times before, AND… I survived. So instead of it scaring me or obsessing about what I can’t control I sit comfortably knowing it’s going to work out because I trust myself and how to handle it. 

I have seen a lot of young professional athletes fall just short of what they truly are capable of over fixating on small perfectionism details that don’t actually make up the factors that lead them to the success they are seeking. You know the athlete that is so set on a specific number that they never actually complete a month's training as planned and therefore are further away from their total improvement goals. Or the athlete staring at their computer as the race runs down the road on them because they weren’t willing to dig in and put themself in a position to race while they were obsessing over a specific number. 

There certainly is a balance!! Finding the right balance takes confidence and experience. My main message is MAKE MISTAKES!! Don’t be afraid of them. And if you find yourself stuck in obsessing about one specific detail, it’s likely you can take a death breath, smile, move along and that detail will sort itself out for the better of the big picture outcome overall.