I believe that our purpose in life is to expand and grow
Humans in general are always both more motivated, happier and more excited when they are growing forwards in anything
It could be in their bodies, finances, relationships and if your like me…
Even in getting better at sodoku’s feels really good (Tel and I completed a ‘hard’ one the other day <— Pretty proud of this) hahaha
It feels good to grow, we love it and in some ways that’s deep down all we strive for…
We just want to get better…
But there is one REALLY BIG problem that you may have faced
— The perfection trap —
Consider this for a few minutes
Why is it that when we hit our targets (aka: we actually progress) we criticise ourselves for the parts we did wrong
or
we compare ourselves to someone elses progress
or
we hit the target but then put our progress down and shift the ‘goal posts’ immediately after we just hit the goal
Let me give you an example: A guy comes into the gym with a target of hitting a 5kg bench press PB, he hits it.
He then rests for 3 minutes, goes for an extra 5kg and misses it.
He is now pissed off and miserable because he missed that new PB weight…
He comes off the bench and starts talking about how it was ugly and hit elbow flared out
He then takes it even further and looks across the room and sees someone lift an extra 20kg on top of his lifts, he is now even more ashamed of his awesome progress…
^^^ I unfortunately see this all the time
I also see it in myself and others with things across all of the 5 dimensions:
Body – Mindset – Relationships – Business – Fun
What are we doing to ourselves??
What I try to remind myself is two key things:
- Progress over perfection (perfection doesn’t exist)
- My progress is my progress, it doesn’t matter what others are doing (I will use more advanced people to learn from but I wont down play my wins becasuse of anything that they are up to)
Set big targets and work your ass off to get them but my BIG challenge for you today is a simple one
Celebrate your wins…
Throw a party for it, eat some nice food, drink some chocolate milk I don’t care, do what ever you need to to feel good about your success
Then go out and start growing again knowing that you have grown before so you can do it again
Matt ‘ Growth Mindset’ Prince