The "P" Word

We live in a society that celebrates being perfect — from beauty to brains. We all know someone who in our minds is the ideal person: the person in school who had all the friends, the friend who can whip up a gourmet meal with ingredients found in the refrigerator. In an ideal world, we would like to be happy with ourselves, but in the real world, we don't feel we are good enough. The best solution to becoming the best version of you — with all your foibles and quirks — is to embrace your imperfections.

This doesn't give you permission to become a sloth and do nothing. But how great would it be to embrace your flaws — love the parts of you that you once thought of as your shortcomings — and see them as uniquely you?

Perfectionism keeps you from your true expression and creativity as well. It invites fear and doubt. Being flawless doesn't help fill you up. Being real and being flawed invites real connections to others. So what can you do to combat a bad case of the perfection?

You can see mistakes as information that you must have to become successful. Learn something from them that you can improve on. Don't be proud of being perfect. Don't confuse perfection with high standards. Healthy standards are better. Practice being imperfect. Take a day to do everything imperfectly. Mistakes mean progress.

Apple founder Steve Jobs probably had a few bad versions of a cell phone before he and his team invented the iPhone.

Be kind to yourself. Perfectionists are critical of themselves and others. Be perfectly imperfect with being yourself.

Problems Are a Good Thing

In his 2016 book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**K, Mark Manson's counterintuitive approach preaches that life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of another. Instead of asking, "How can I get rid of my problems?" the question should be "What are the problems that excite me? What are the problems I am willing to sacrifice for, to work for?"

Manson offers an example of wanting to get in shape:

You can solve this problem by buying a gym membership, which gives you a set of new problems: finding time in your day to go to the gym and budgeting the extra expense. Both are not bad problems to have but are problems, nonetheless. And that is the key to Manson's mantra: Find problems that you are interested in solving. Here is where perfection comes into play. If a problem arises, you have two choices: decide on a solution or distract yourself from the problem.

Distractions are a perfectionist's best friend. They can help you to pretend that the problem is not really there. What are your favorite distractions: watching television, playing video games, getting high?

Deciding on a solution seems like the much better way to go. Solutions are active decisions to move you forward. Distractions keep you right where you are: miserable. The key here is to honestly identify the problem and the distraction.

If you have a job, for example, where you work long hours with a horrible boss who ignores you, promotes everyone but you, and basically makes your life miserable, you have a few choices: find a new job, live with the fact that you are not appreciated, or confront your boss.

If you are not looking at solutions, then you are probably distracting yourself with things such as watching way too much Netflix, eating way too much junk food, and sitting on the couch for days, weeks, months, years.

What a waste.

So what can you do? Make a list of solutions to your problem. Make a list of your distractions, and be honest.

Which list looks better?

I did this myself for a similar boss problem and can tell you it works. But it's not as easy as it looks. Many of my distractions had become habits that were difficult to break, but they needed to be broken.

Not sure you're ready? Ask for help. Some people are afraid of therapy. My sister, who is a therapist, told me it's the mentally healthy people who come to therapy; the unstable ones think that everyone else is the problem. Support groups are always an option; they can be truly supportive and not just a place for everyone to complain about their families and each other. A compassionate friend can also be a great place to start. The more problems you solve, the easier it will get to work out the next problem that is just around the corner. Limiting the distractions are key, so put down that piece of cake, turn off the Netflix, and start writing those lists. Once you are on the problem/solution gravy train, the next stop is happiness. Happiness, according to Manson, occurs by solving problems. It's an activity.

Completing a marathon makes you happier than eating a chocolate cake. Raising a child makes you happier than beating a video game. Starting a small business with friends and struggling to make money makes you happier than buying a new computer.

The road to these goals can be paved with potholes, pitfalls, and perfectionistic procrastination. But once you get to the finish line, you realize that, in fact, it was the journey that brought you the most happiness of all.

Too Blessed to Be Stressed

"I'm just blessed to play this game," you often hear from professional athletes. "I'm just thankful for all the blessings in my life." In reality, what these athletes are practicing is gratitude. And gratitude is the stepping-stone to happiness. But how do you count your blessings when you feel lonely, anxious, and stressed about work, family, friends, and money?

Research shows that those who practice gratitude are happier. Gratitude helps you stay in the present moment, interrupting your negative thoughts about the past or future.

Just like everything else, you have the choice in any situation to choose gratitude. When your parents are being crazy and overbearing, you can be grateful that they are still around and care enough to smother you, in a good way. When you are single and ready to mingle but no one seems to be available, be grateful you live in a time where all you need is a cell phone and a few apps to meet and greet a wide variety of people.

Part of practicing gratitude is seeing the glass as half-full, but it's more than that. It's being thankful that there is even a glass, no matter how full or empty. Your mind naturally goes first to the negative. I'll never fill that glass, for a number of reasons. This way of thinking has kept us from dying out as a species, but it's more powerful than feeling joy. That's the reason you need to override these negative thoughts with thankful ones. But it takes practice and lots of practice.

Luckily, you can learn this at any age and change your life for the better.

So how do you learn the practice of gratitude? Simple. Wake up every day, and before you brush your teeth, think of three things you are grateful for in your life. Then think of someone you want to thank for something they helped you with. Do this for four weeks and see how you feel. My guess is you will feel a lot better about people and about your life.

You can start with something little, like thanking the person on social media. If you are having trouble thinking of three things to be grateful for, think small. Maybe you are thankful that there was enough milk for your cereal this morning. Maybe you are grateful that your new puppy finally pooped outside and not on the floor. Maybe you are just happy you woke up and got dressed.

Relaxed Confidence

Football coach Pete Carroll coined the phrase "relaxed confidence" and preached it to his players. When your mind is quiet, according to Carroll, and without fear, you perform better. Carroll implements meditation and yoga into his players' daily routine. No one is required to go, but many players say it has made all the difference in their game. Carroll's research, along with psychologist Michael Gervais, shows that happy football players make better players. Players undergo brain performance testing to better understand how they deal with stress. All of the players, coaches, and staff implement a positive mind-set. Yelling and foul language are not allowed, making for a kinder and gentler organization — and a winning one as well.

No one embraces Carroll's mantra more than his Seahawk quarterback, Russell Wilson. Wilson has meetings with Gervais, where they work on techniques like visualization, which involves seeing yourself in winning situations. They work on staying in the present and quieting the mind. Carroll also believes in simulating games in practice, so by the time the players get to the game, they are playing with relaxed confidence.

It's no wonder many other coaches have picked up on Carroll's techniques, including Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors.

Kerr has said that 80 percent of coaching is in the atmosphere you create the relationships between the players. Kerr headed up to Seattle to take in a Seahawks' practice. What he saw and then implemented for his team included playing music during practice. Both Carroll and Kerr celebrate their players' individuality, while at the same time preaching a team mentality. Being relaxed but competitive and confident. This type of mentality can be translated into anything you want to accomplish and can definitely help keep those perfectionistic tendencies from creeping up and ruining an imperfectly perfect performance. From speaking in public, to performing a play, to swimming a race, staying in the moment in relaxed confidence will not only help you do better, you will enjoy the journey more.

In his book Win Forever, Carroll talks about competition not against others, but against yourself in every area of your life. When we are confident, we become focused and almost move in slower motion, and that's the state he wants his players to be in during a game. He also wants to keep things light and fun. The Seahawks often play other sports in preseason and during the season and even have a basketball hoop at their training site for shooting competitions in the middle of meetings.

It's Not about You

Part of the perfection myth is believing that everyone is watching you and judging you, so if you appear perfect, no one can criticize you. In reality, not everyone is going to like you, not matter what you do. People come with their hidden biases about everything, including how you look. Whether it's your clothes, your hair, or the way you say the word "cheese," someone is not going to like you, and that's okay. The only people you need to worry about are those who are in the arena with you. Teddy Roosevelt's quote resonates well in almost any situation where you are being judged:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

How many people are in your arena? Aside from your family and a few close friends or colleagues, whose opinion really matters? When people are critical toward you, it really doesn't have much to do with you. It has a lot more to do with them. When you don't succeed, it doesn't mean you are an unsuccessful person; it means you tried and were unsuccessful in your attempt. And you will continue to fail at many things, over and over. The hope is that you learn from your mistakes and use them to make new and better mistakes.

It is easier said than done to not care what people think, but it will make your life much more enjoyable. This doesn't mean you walk around being rude to everyone or being indifferent about important things in your life. That's just being lazy. It's deciding what is worthy of your time and attention. When you are younger, you have more energy to do more things and care more about a lot of things. As you age, you care less about the trivial things that don't matter and instead care more about the things that are meaningful in your life and let go of those opinions of people who at one time mattered but don't seem to anymore.

-Brené Brown

It's Okay to Be Average

I am a swimmer. Put me in the water, and I can do almost anything. On land, not so much. After college swimming was over, my triathlon friends talked me into doing a relay. All I would have to do is the swim. Sounds easy enough. And it was. Then I got the crazy idea that I can bike and run as well and should try my hand at a whole triathlon: swim-bike-run. Of course, I was fantastic at the swim which allowed me to be out way ahead of everyone else. If the bike ride had no hills, I was pretty good at that leg of the race. When it came to the running portion, boy, did I suck. Everyone passed me ... even my husband, who was a crappy swimmer but raced bikes and ran track. I ended up in the middle. Dare I say average? And happily, that was okay with this reformed perfectionist.

We all are good at some things and not so good (okay, really bad) at other things. And that's okay. Not everyone who paints is a Picasso, and not everyone who shoots three-pointers is Steph Curry. And if you ask Steph how many hours he has put into his craft, he may say not enough, but he definitely has dedicated all his energy to becoming the best in the world. For every Steph Curry, there are five million basketball players not hitting a record number of threes.

Many people who become extraordinary at something are obsessed with improvement and will continue working long after many others have quit and gone home. If you want to be better than anyone else all the time, that will just set you up for failure. Mark Manson is right on the money when he writes, "There are over 7.2 billion people on this planet, and really only about a thousand of those have major worldwide influence at any given time. That leaves the other 7,199,999,000 +/- of us to come to terms with the limited scope of our lives." You can be strong in some areas and weak in others. If you excel at math or science, you are ahead of the curve in many areas of academics.

My son Connor is a truly gifted painter but has autism, and his language was delayed. I am a proven slug on land. It is those who spend hours and hours at the gym or in the pool perfecting their craft who have the best chance of being above average. It's the effort given that is the reward, not the outcome.

In the end, it comes down to appreciating the little things that you experience along the journey: the sunset you see at the end of the day with your spouse, the long talk with an old friend, or the great dinner out with your kids. Those things are pretty average in the scheme of life but will mean the most to you in the long run.

90 Percent

Swimmers have a workout set called "threshold." It means how long can you go at 80 to 90 percent, with the hope of going the distance of the race. Pacing yourself is key to this set. If you go out too hard and, say, give 95 or 100 percent, you will burn out and "blow up," as they say, and barely finish the race. This threshold theory can be applied to life and to the all-or-nothing thinking of perfectionists.

Those who are afraid of making mistakes become so paralyzed that they end up not starting projects or not finishing something they need to get done.

One way to trick your brain to not go into panic mode is to say to yourself, I'm going to give it 90 percent effort. That doesn't mean you are slacking off or not trying. Train your brain to understand that the effort of 90 percent is good enough to get the project completed. By using this thinking, you get yourself out of the all-or-nothing loop playing in your head. That is not easy to do at first, but this less-than-perfect work will actually give you more satisfaction than if you keep trying for perfection and never finish the work. With this 90 percent state of mind, you will keep higher standards and perform better work over time than you would have done in your perfectionist state.

Sometimes, the problem is getting started toward the 90 percent. As with anything, starting is the hardest part. I went through it with writing this book. One of the best solutions I found was to not think but to act. I needed to just start writing, and as I continued to just write, the right thoughts about how I wanted the book to unfold became clear.