I hated getting school reports. I had to ensure that they stayed at the bottom of my bag until dad was in a good enough mood. I felt like I did a lot of things well. I attended the classes that I could, did the homework that I could and answered the test questions as well as I could. I felt like I was unfairly punished for all the mistakes I made and got no credit for the good work that I actually did. I have no idea why they felt a need to comb through my semester’s work just to tell my parents where I messed up. OK, not everything was perfect but there was more to my work than just the times I lapsed in concentration.

I got good at developing a thick skin. Tried to not let the criticism scathe my pride. I developed a cold indifference to other people’s opinion of me but with all the focus on other people’s opinions I neglected the one opinion the probably mattered the most — My own. I didn’t even realise the own inner-critic that was growing unchecked. In all my attempts to escape the critical teachers and overbearing parents I had become them.

Sometimes I’m lazy, negative or obnoxious. Everyone has those moments. Sometimes I make mistakes and I fail. So does everyone else. It doesn’t mean I’m a lazy, negative or obnoxious person. It doesn’t mean that I’m a failure. None the less, my mind was made up and for a while I was lazy, negative and obnoxious. It was very hard to celebrate and look at what I was doing well when I was so focused on how much work I still had to do.

I was in serious danger of letting my life become a series of check lists. Graduated from highschool. Check. Graduated from Uni. Check. Started my own blog. Check. Started my own business. Check. There was no feeling of accomplishment or even improvement. Why? Mostly because the actions that it took to achieve these things are so minute that they were barely worth celebrating. Who celebrates showing up to an exam on time? Who even celebrates catching the right bus to get to uni? I didn’t.

If everything went perfectly today but I forgot to buy milk on the way home I would be admonishing myself. I ruined the perfect day. How could I be so forgetful and dumb that I forgot to buy milk? It completely outweighs the hundred things I did well today to even put myself in that position. If I keep looking for the things that went wrong I was going to find it and I got really good at it.

I want to change that for myself. I want to be able to feel good about all the small but important steps that I took towards my goals. I’m trying to reframe things so that my days are a matter of practice. When I practice something, I want to deliberately repeat and replicate the process with the intention of reaching a specific goal. When I am practicing I care less about the mistakes I make and focus more on moving towards that ideal. For example, this blog post might have 100 grammatical and syntax errors but I’m putting it out as practice. I’m not ignoring the fact that it might have flaws but I remove all the pressure of perfectionism. At the end, after I press the “publish” button, I get to celebrate the end of a practice session. It’s not the perfect end product but it will put me in good stead for the next blog post. That’s the point of it. It builds on top of each other. Looking at each one individually makes them look silly but over time I will see improvements in certain areas. Over time they will become a body of work. Not that I have to wait that long to be proud of the individual pieces. I can celebrate each one as they come.

Thomas Sterner, in his book, The Practicing Mind, tells us that

“When we learn to focus on and embrace the process of experiencing life, whether we’re working toward a personal aspiration or working through a difficult time, we begin to free ourselves from the stress and anxiety that are born out of our attachment to our goals, our sense that ‘I can’t feel happiness until I reach my goal’.”

When I look at things through that lens it makes de-magnifies the criticism and the pressure of perfectionism ten-fold. The teachers are still learning and practicing to become better teachers. My parents are doing all they can to become better parents. I’m doing all I can to become a better person. Each day is a practice session for bigger and better things. Yes, there are areas for improvement but that shouldn’t make me ignore the work that I have already put in.