Perfectionism is Married to Acceptance

From Our Founder:

When I was 16, I perfected the kick-flip. It took thousands of tries but eventually I had it mastered. I could kick-flip anything; pyramids, stair sets, gaps.. I was a master kick-flipper.

When I started playing pool competitively I perfected my cue ball control, kicks, banks, and the diamond system.

In golf I perfected my swing, my putting, and most importantly, my routine.

In our MNML GOLF book club this month we are reading How Champions Think by Dr. Bob Rotella. He’s a legend. He’s worked with legendary athletes. But I think he got one thing wrong. He says that perfectionism is bad for players. He backs this up with all the statistics about how the best in the world fail more often than they succeed, lose nearly 50% of the time - for golfers the loss rate is even greater.

I think he’s wrong that perfectionism is bad. But I know from experience that if you want to have a perfectionist mindset, you have to have a deep level of acceptance.

And if you want to be great, you have to strive for perfect.

Here’s how that looks:

First, you aim for the absolute greatest possible outcome. In golf that’s getting the ball in the hole. For instance: on a par three, that is visualizing and aiming for a hole in one. On the green, it’s intending to make the putt, not just get it close. If you’re not intending to make it, how can you possibly expect to compete with someone who is?

But the challenge here is what happens after you miss. Because Dr. Rotella is right: we do miss a whole lot more than we make.

That answer is actually super easy: you accept that you are human, that humans are ever-changing and evolving, and that we are all subject to a million influences which will invariably effect our performance.

For a perfectionist, not having acceptance leads to blow ups on the course. It leads to anger, dissatisfaction, frustration, and emotional break downs. And even for the most accepting perfectionists, this will happen on occasion. The standards are just so high…

But if you can accept that every failure is a key part of the journey, that every failure is information that leads to the next success, you are free to strive for perfection. You are free to aim for a hole in one. You are free to intend greatness.

So if you haven’t learned to accept, don’t try for greatness. You’ll just beat yourself up constantly. But if you can learn to accept failure, by all means, go for great. Because in those few moment when you do succeed, you’ll be contributing your best self. You’ll be achieving your greatest value. And you’ll be inspiring others to strive for greatness.