Today we have reached the third and final mindset for competitive success: perfectionism. Before go into perfectionism, I wanted to do a short recap of the other two mindsets. First, we went over mastery. This was the mindset of simply wanting to have exceptional skills or knowledge in an area. It was not necessarily wanting to be the best, but wanting to be in the elite levels. We also introduced task vs ego drives behind the mindsets. Last week, we talked about bestism. This took mastery a step further and was driven to be the best. More than a master yet understanding and accepting the inability to be perfect.
These brought us to today’s mindset of perfectionism. Being perfect means that you cannot have any defects. For an athlete, this means that they are not only the best on the field but also do not make mistakes. Shots, defense, passing, everything. Every game without mistakes. Now answer me this, have you ever seen one of those? Baseball has “perfect” games. But they are not necessarily perfect. Nobody reaches first base, but that does not mean that there are no bad pitches thrown or a batter does not make contact with the ball.
Perfection is an unattainable goal that drives a person into negative spirals. This is also the most ego driven mindset. To a person with a perfectionist mindset, if anything is not done right, it eats away at them. Even after that event is long past, they will often stay pinpointed on that event. They are also likely to be able to tell you every single mistake that they have made. Someone with a perfectionism mindset is often high strung and constantly on edge. This is because they are afraid to make any mistakes.
So, what happens when an athlete has a perfectionist mindset? One thing is that they will likely force themselves into being controlling of every aspect of a situation and even of others. Since they expect perfection, they have to become the “control freak”. This does not mean that every controlling person is a perfectionist. However, everyone with a perfectionist mindset will be controlling and overbearing. Strict schedules, intense training, always about the tiniest details. They jump on everything thing that is wrong. All of this correction comes whether you want it or not.
Another thing that happens is they are often very emotional in an over the top way. A small minor mistake is taken as the end of the world. As we said, they are often high strung. People with the perfectionist mindset struggle with higher rates of stress related health issues, burnout, and anxiety. Sometimes, these emotions are not seen in extravagant or externally. While it is most common to visibly see a reaction, these people can also beat themselves up in their own minds as well. They may appear to be calm on the outside, but in their minds there is a relentless storm of derogatory remarks being hurled at themselves.
For a perfectionist mind, there is no “good enough”. Whereas someone with a mastery or even a bestism mindset might find moments where things are good enough even though those things could be better, someone with this perfection mindset would never be able to let those things go. This is largely the reason that they experience stress related health issues, burnout, and anxiety more than most people. They are constantly trying to stretch themselves into everything all of the time. Perfectionists never have an off button.
The reason that this mindset is so dangerous is because there is no such thing as a perfect person or athlete. Perfection simply does not exist for us. Therefore, someone with a perfectionism mindset is doomed to a lifetime of stress and struggle. Now, this does not mean that we should not strive to eliminate mistakes. We simply need to understand that we will not fix everything. Balancing these two conflicting trains of thought is difficult for everyone. For a perfectionist, balancing them is impossible.
It is because of this that someone with a perfectionist mindset needs an extremely strong, patient, and persistent support system. They need someone, often a group of people, who are not only able to help keep their drive for perfection in check, but also keep tabs on their mental well-being. Those with this mindset can easily slip into depression, have anger issues, an inability to let go of an issue, and even fail to look after their own health because of their focus on something else.
However, having a perfectionist mindset is not all bad. In fact, many of these same qualities that can end up being negative are also filled with positives. Take the fact that a perfectionist will not drop something until its complete. For an athlete, this means that they will be the hardest working and most studious player that a coach will have. They will always have questions, try a technique until they get it right consistently. Even your most passionate and devoted player will not likely have the same drive as someone with a perfectionism mindset.
This means that they will also be the drive behind the rest of the team. A person with a perfectionist mindset who has developed strong leadership skills as well can be the reason that a team is able to take their play to the next level during a game or make their team give that last strong push. Having someone with perfectionist tendencies on your team can help it run like a well-oiled machine. This means that your team is going to have a more complete game with less errors. For any sports team, that is a critical component for success.
For an athlete, having a perfectionist mindset allows more time for learning new techniques and preparing for games, but it can also lead to overuse injuries, burnout of passion for the sport, and increased stress over performance issues. Having a purely perfectionism mindset can offer many benefits that are unique to an athlete’s career but is also a dangerous one that needs the closest attention and strongest support system.
If you are an athlete who has this mindset, please strongly consider who is in your support system. Make sure that they are people who can get through your stubbornness and incredible drive. You want to have people who are willing to speak truth into you and help you avoid the negative aspects of your mindset. They should also be able to praise the positive aspects as well. It takes a special person to deal with being a perfectionist. It takes an even more special athlete to have a healthy perfectionism mindset in a world that often heaps onto their stress points.
With that, we wrap up our series on mindsets for competitive success. We’ve covered mastery, bestism, and perfectionism mindsets. Each have benefits for athletes and each present their own challenges. The biggest differences between them are their goals and the relationship between the task and ego orientations of the mindsets. Which mindset do you see yourself having? Are you prepared with a plan for reinforcing the positive aspects of your mindset and diminishing the negatives aspects? If there is more that you would like to know or if you need some tips for a plan, please feel free to reach out via any of the sources on the info page.
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