The 10 Dumbest Mistakes - Part Four

Chapter Six – Believing Your Critics

Most people have a problem opposite to believing their own press agent. They feel themselves surrounded by critics who sum up their performance in a single word: loser. Even the experience of success may not keep these critics away. They lurk in what is sometimes called “the impostor phenomenon.” That is, the successful person doubts that the success is justified.

Most of us learn to screen out some criticism and are able to ignore it.

Most people do not react the same to all criticism. They begin to “vibrate” only if the criticism relates to an area where they feel particularly sensitive.

Children are taught to believe that authority figures are always right.

In this effort to help children learn the ways of the world adults, usually with the best of intentions, often pass along a lot of wrong information.

Children receive the message over and over again that getting along means accepting, absorbing, and heeding criticism without questioning it.

The more heavily criticized you are as a child, the harder it is to develop the ability to evaluate criticism.

Your parents may still see you as a child they continue to have both the right and the responsibility to command.

Avoiding that beaten-down feeling means filtering and grading all criticism and all critics. And that requires conscious thought. Here, again, you must pause, reflect, and ask yourself a series of questions to give your own common sense a chance to help you.

Psychiatrist Victor Frankl, who lived in a Nazi internment camp, suggests that the people who survived were those who refuse to be humiliated, neither by their situation nor by the German soldiers.

Not all opinions are equally credible … Stephen King was routinely rejected by publishers

There is rarely a way to be sure that this single opinion is expert, or right, or unbiased.

Mothers sometimes feel like they have failed if one of their children become an addict. This subject becomes the “turning fork” which makes the mother emotionally “vibrate.”

It's hard not to accept the verdict that “everybody” has pronounced. But the truth is that “everybody” does not exist.

Some people are so wound up in their own thoughts and activities that they don't notice much of anything … Some people notice and don't care.

You can deal with specific critics rather than the imagined “everybody.”

The internal critic is the harshest of all. The belief was immortalized in Groucho Marx's famous line: “I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me for a member.”

To say that internal critics tend to judge on very little evidence is an understatement.

You may well find you are biased against yourself.

It is common for people with harsh internal critics to believe that they are alone … Discovering that others share your problem is often very helpful.

Praise is obviously always more welcome than criticism, but some criticism is helpful.

With any remark a person may make, there is no limit to the negative interpretations that are possible.

It is not always necessary to react immediately to criticism … Give yourself a chance to think about precisely what was said … Delay helps because it enables you to get your automatic responses under control.

If the critic is not worth listening to, if the content is not helpful, if accepting the criticism in no way improves you or improves your life – forget it.

Some people seem determined to go fishing for trouble. They want to catch you on a hook and play you on the line the way a sports fisherman reels in a trout. When the trout puts up a fight, it's more fun for the fisherman … Learn to keep your mouth shut when that tempting bait is dangled in front of you.

He may well think the boss is an idiot and yet still accept the practical necessity to do things the boss's way.

No law says you must act on all criticism or correct all unfair criticism. As discussed in Chapter Four, you can pick your battles. Pursue some. Ignore some.

You can reduce the impact of rough criticism by surrounding yourself with like-minded people (aka a support group)

Criticism is essential in a democracy … You may find you sometimes benefit from seeking criticism.

Listening to criticism is not a mistake. The mistake is to believe all criticism, or to reject all criticism, without pausing to think about it, without ever questioning the expertise of the critic, the motivation of the critic, the content of the criticism, or the value of the criticism.

You can ask yourself, “How likely is it that everybody will have the same opinion?” You can play defense attorney. That's only fair.

Chapter Seven – Perfectionism

From early childhood, we are taught to strive for perfection.

But whoever invented the phrase: “Nobody's perfect” really put it perfectly. Sure, some occasions seem perfect. Some specific efforts, like that spelling test in fifth grade, are judged to be perfect. But as a general rule of life, there is good, there is great, there is nearly perfect – but perfection does not exist … You can get very, very close, yet still not achieve 100 percent.

Quite often, what we call perfection is simply a matter of opinion … How many times have you read two movie reviews that made you wonder if the critics had really seen the same movie?

Perfection is sometimes simply a matter of timing.

Perfection can involve imperfection. It is often a matter of perspective. In baseball, what one team might call the perfect pitch the other team considers out of the strike zone.

Too much perfection can be a bad thing. This is a most important point. Just as you can overdo over-confidence, you can also overdo perfection.

It's true that in some professions perfection is more sought after than others (think airplane pilot) But even these professions can run into problems with perfectionism. If the pilot works too many long, hard hours, making sure everything is just perfect s/he may be exhausted during the actual flight.

Because we are taught from childhood to aspire to an ideal that is illusive, we are frequently caught in a tug of war between what we feel we should do and what we can actually do … A law of diminishing returns applies to the quest for perfection … It is dangerous because, all too often, we insist upon perfection, we end up with nothing at all. Therapists call this the all-or-nothing syndrome.

Perfectionism is not just a work-related issue, it applies to social situations too.

If you feel that unless you have the mate who meets your specifications down to the last detail, you would rather be alone, you had better get used to your own company.

If you put off contemplating a project, hosting a party, taking a trip, or making a decision until the perfect time and the perfect plan is in place, you will probably be waiting forever.

If you feel you must be perfect in every single thing you do, you may be wasting time on something very minor when your energies could be more wisely invested.

Why is a perfectionist so determined to do it right? Partly out of fear, partly our of fantasy.

Perfectionism manifests itself as a desire to avoid embarrassment.

Doing nothing makes it possible to cling to the comforting fantasy: “It would have been perfect, if I had done it.”

If sticking to your standards is causing you to fail, to delay, to miss deadlines, or to be lonely, you may want to adjust your perfection settings.

When you label what is going on, you open the way to doing something about it, just as a physician must first diagnose a condition before determining what course of treatment would do the most good.

To accept the fact that sometimes you may do work that is less than your best, because you don't have sufficient time or resources or background to do better at this time, is not the same thing as having low standards.

Other people seem to accomplish difficult things easily and effortlessly. But that's rarely true, and certainly not of everything they do.

Far from being the end of the world, many people delight in recounting their Great Moments in Humiliation History – now that they are history, of course.

What people who reach goals do best is not let setbacks get them down … Rather than viewing an imperfection as a character flaw, they see it as a learning experience.

Parents put pressure on their children to be perfect for many reasons in addition to the quite natural desire to see them succeed.

There is a line between pressure that motivates and pressure that crushes and, unfortunately, teachers and school counselors as well as parents sometimes cross it.

To counter perfectionism, you might ask yourself, “What do I have to sacrifice to do it right? Is it worth it?” … Take the time to write down the pros and cons, and make a reasoned decision … Perfectionists find to difficult to compromise.

Maybe what you deem less than your best is seen by others as fantastic … What one person rejects, another may welcome.

How can you find out how others judge you? Only by doing your best and taking a chance. Yes, that creates anxiety. Yes, that creates some discomfort. But sometimes, as they say in the Nike ads, you have to “just do it.”

It isn't easy to learn by trial and error. But learning something is better than simply wishing you knew.

The trick is to think past possible initial embarrassment to the future – to long-range goals like learning, improving, keeping the job, finding true love.

Perfectionists tend to see the glass as half empty, rather than half full.

If you never relax, never allow the less-perfect you to be seen, you never allow that other person to know you – and you never allow yourself to really get to know that other person.

Perfectionists admire the philosophy Frank Sinatra made famous: “I did it my way.”

There is no one single “right” way to experience sexual satisfaction.

If you never question whether “my way” is the only way, you may never discover better ways, much less the “best” way.

One perfectionist reporter never wanted to turn in a story until it was perfect in every aspect. But timeliness is important on a daily newspaper.

Sometimes you do yourself a favor if you do someone else a favor.

You may think that failing to be perfect is the equivalent of failing to do your best (It's not true) Sometimes the best policy is to go for the middle. Not all the time, just sometimes.

You may have to take it in steps. Start by deliberating doing some small thing imperfectly. Make the bed and don't tuck the corner in. Or wash all the dishes but one. Or wash the car but don't wipe the bumpers … Prove to yourself that imperfection is not the end of the world.

It's easier to get something small right. And then that small piece can be used to build something bigger.

We are often told that the “best” and “fastest” way to get from one place to the other is the direct route. But that is not always the case. If you were to try to run straight up a steep, icy slope, you might find yourself sliding back.

If you think in terms of improvement, of discovery, of adjusting your sights to the more important goal – which could be completion as opposed to perfection – you are more likely to make progress. Everything becomes easier if you think in terms of moving closer to your goal rather than of finally accomplishing it.