Here's the deal: being a former carbohydrate addict is not the only skeleton I have in my closet. I am also a perfectionist and I'm not recovered from that... yet. Perfectionism effects pretty much everything I do. It also "slows down" (actually, I should say, I allow it to slow down) everything I do. I discovered on Tuesday that I am allowing it to slow down my progress on the Case Study! This is how I allowed perfectionism a foothold in my work: one of the things that the girls have stressed to us thru the program is how imperative it is to maintain good form on our exercises. You know, to prevent injury, so that we work the area the exercise is supposed to work etc. In a nutshell, what we were told was that if we could no longer complete a rep with good form, we were done with that set. Guess what, folks! There is a BIG difference between PERFECT form and what the last repetition of a set should look like! The last rep is not supposed to look as good as the first! It can be slow, it can be shaky, most times you probably won't be able to complete it. I took their direction to mean that when my reps started to "look yucky" I was to stop. DUH!!! They were just trying to keep me from killing myself by telling me that if I was starting to cheat on the rep, swing the weight, use other muscle groups to help me, I was to be finished with that exercise! See how I let that perfectionism creep in there? I let myself think that because my last reps weren't as pretty as my first I should quit. Ugh! So while I was working hard and THOUGHT I was doing as much as I THOUGHT I could, I was slowing down my progress by not allowing myself to experience true, POSITIVE failure! It just wasn't clicking in this "perfect" little brain of mine. SO, Carlene one... Perfectionism zero!
Here's the second way I almost allowed perfectionism to have control over my life: in a previous post I announced that I plan to do two figure competitions this year. I also said that I was going into the first competition with the attitude that I would "just do it for the experience and to learn" but that I would "win" the second competition I did. Talk about trying to protect myself from failure again! I was so afraid that I would feel like a fool at my first show that I was just going to show up with the attitude that I was just "doing it for fun"! But that isn't what's in my heart and if I continue to have that attitude I'm going to seriously cheat myself out of some of the best and worst nuances of competition. Considering the fact that deep, deep inside I really would like to go PRO (I'm totally serious about this, its been a hidden dream of mine since high school. I used to have posters of Mia Finnegan and Monica Brant all over my walls!), that's pretty damn stupid! Why would I do that to myself? BECAUSE I'M NOT GIVING MYSELF THE RESPECT I DESERVE! I am limiting my opportunities and life experiences with my fear of failure! NOT ANYMORE! I'm all done with that now. So, look out anybody doing those two shows here in Michigan, cause I might just win 'em both!
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| I may not know what my future holds, but I'm jumping in with both feet! |
I owe Tab and Chelle a great big "thank you" for their honesty and concern for me during our Skype session Tuesday night. It was a major wake up call. Tab, your blog post today drove it home. I took everything you said to heart and am a better, stronger person because of it.
Happy Thursday, dear reader!
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