Slow Transition

I'm a perfectionist. It's not debilitating in any way, but it can get in the way of my success. Perfectionists have a tendency to believe that others achieve success easily. We see a successful person and mistakenly assume that that person reached that point with a minimum of effort and with a maximum of self-confidence. Meanwhile, the perfectionist feels he toils endlessly and inadequately at whatever he wishes to succeed at. It's a pretty deranged way of looking at the world, in all honesty. It trivializes the blood, sweat and tears that others put into their successes, while dramatizing the completely normal process of hard-god-damned-work when working towards a worthwhile goal.

There are other traits of perfectionism that I see in myself on occasion, procrastination being the most common of them. I didn't realize that the myopic view of success I described above was another trait that can be shared among perfectionists. It fits my current world view to a tee. It also explains a lot about my usual pattern of goal setting and goal dropping. It goes exactly like this:

1. I see someone do something awesome! If I'm the slightest bit interested in what that person is doing, then I want to do it too! I begin to imagine how awesome my life would be if I could just do what that someone is doing.
2. I become very passionate about the subject. I pour a lot of money into these new interests, buying paraphernalia related to the awesome thing that I'll do. So awesome!
3. I experiment! Hey wait a second, this is actually pretty tough and it's nothing like what that person I watched accomplished. My work is clearly not good enough. Interest begins to wane.
4. Procrastination kicks in. Rather than put in the blood, sweat and tears required to even begin the journey towards awesome, I load up my web browser to read inspirational blogs, or try to psychoanalyze myself around the fact that I need to, you know, do actual work.
5. Now that I've procrastinated, AND think that my work is shitty (in reality it's just beginner's product) I feel like crap and want to forget about the whole thing.
6. I sit at my computer watching someone do that awesome thing over and over, surrounded by all the tools and books I'll ever need to make progress, and wish I could be that someone.

 What a friggin' self-realization! This pattern is so ingrained in me, that I didn't even realize I was doing it until right now. I'm 32 friggin' years old, and I just came around to this realization. But you know what? I'm not going to beat myself up about it. That's an old behaviour pattern, and the only way to change one's behaviour is to interrupt the old pattern and replace it with a new one. Eventually the brain finally figures out that things are changing, and seemingly out of nowhere, a new identity is formed! So I'm giving myself a big pat on the back, and a stout as a reward, for finally figuring out what the fuck I was doing to myself all these years. (The beer is chilling in the fridge right now).

I've identified the old behaviour pattern that just isn't working for me, in terms of pursuing long-term goals. Now what I need to do, if I want to change this pattern, is to interrupt the old behaviours and replace them with a new behaviour that will actually help me out. I think I can break this down at each of the steps listed above, like so:

1. I see someone do something awesome! I stop to think of the years of hard work it took them to get to the point they're at, and marvel at the sacrifices I'm sure they've made for their achievements.I think long and hard about whether what they're doing fits into my life, acknowledging that I will most likely have to give something up if I want to see any kind of success. I also stop to think that their life isn't necessarily any better than mine, and the ability to do "the awesome" like they do it won't necessarily improve the quality of my life. If, after this careful consideration, realizing my time is precious, I do decide I want to pursue this new goal, I then proceed to the next step. Otherwise, I learn to be content knowing that there are people out there that do amazing things everyday in their own way, including me, and that I don't have to do what they do to also feel good about my life.
2. I ease myself into this new passion. I don't spend a lot of money or time on it to begin with. I get the bare minimum of what a novice of this awesome doing would need, and start with that.
3. I dabble for a bit, and enjoy the process itself. I enjoy learning about something new, and slowly begin to delve deeper into this new, awesome thing I could possibly do. I put in my best effort whenever I'm working, and take pride in the process and the product. I'm learning! Wow, that's neat that I can sort of do this stuff. If I feel good about committing more of my precious time to this new passion, then I carry on. On the other hand, if I feel this isn't really adding to the quality of my life, I happily drop it and move on, knowing I've used up a minimum of my resources and time exploring that passion.
4. Since I've allowed myself those three first steps, which are very different from the perfectionist list above, I don't feel bad about the time I've spent working on this new thing. I also get a great sense of satisfaction from what I've accomplished because, hey, I did it! I realize that I am just beginning what could very well be a lifelong journey, and that love of the process is the only thing that'll keep me going. I don't procrastinate because I like what I'm doing, and I'm not afraid to make mistakes. I realize mistakes are critical to true learning.
5. At this point I've totally deviated from the previous list. I carry on with this new interest, checking out other people doing awesome work and get inspired, and work HARD. It's the only way to see real progress, and it feels good to work hard, to really earn all those little successes.

What brought this whole self-realization thing about was my post yesterday. My goal, "I am going to be an alpha," is something that I feel strongly will improve the quality of my life. One of the qualities of an alpha is that he doesn't care what other people think of him. This inspired me to put together a Druid funeral ceremony for the informal family get-together we had this evening in honour of my recently deceased uncle. My first mistake was asking permission from my brothers about whether I could use the ceremony. In my mind's eye I picture the alpha calling everyone's attention to the fact that he had prepared something to honour Jamie's memory, and would have delivered the funeral speech, just like that.

I didn't do that, and ended up giving the ceremony to myself and my family's dog. Now, my first instinct was to beat myself up about this. What a failure you are, my mind would say. I wanted to berate myself and basically beat myself up because I didn't live up to this goal of mine. I fully acknowledge that I didn't catch my old behaviour and interrupt it. I realize, however, that this was a mistake I made on the path towards achieving my goal! Mistakes are ok, so long as I learn from them, and I have. The other HUGE realization I made is that I'm not going to achieve my goal in a matter of days! It's exactly like the perfectionist trait described at the beginning of this post. I was minimizing the amount of real, difficult work it takes to achieve something awesome. It's going to take years, lost of mistakes, and lots of successes too, to achieve that goal.

 Old behaviours abound, and I must remain vigilant. It's going to take a long time to change my identity, but it can be done. I know I can do it, because I have interrupted old behaviours and replaced them with new ones already. It's just a matter of commitment and work now.