High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 91: How to Strive for Excellence Not Perfection

Episode Date: March 7, 2017

“Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.” Mia Hamm High performers have a burning desire to be at their best. They have high standards for themselves and others around them. They are driven to succeed and get satisfaction from pursuing their goals. They take their mistakes in stride, however, remembering that not everyone is perfect. My High Performance Affirmation: I have a burning desire to be at my best. I am driven to succeed. I focus on why I love to do what I do.

Well here we go on a Monday morning with Dr. Sindra Kampoff High Performance Mindset in the house Good morning Sindra Good morning, it's great to be here Good to have you back, how was vacay? It was amazing Good to get away You bet

You got some sun? A little bit, can you tell? Yeah, you did Thanks for bringing the nice weather back with you then too It's been amazing around here lately. It's been so beautiful to be outside this weekend. It's been really nice. It has been excellent, let's say.

Not perfect, but excellent. Perfect. Today's topic is strive for excellence, not perfection. And we start with a quote today. So the quote is by Mia Hamm. She said, failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.

Nice. That's a good quote. So do you have an example to start with today on striving for excellence, not perfection? So the example I'm going to provide is actually of Mia Hamm. So Mia Hamm is considered to be one of the world's greatest female soccer players to ever play the game. She has won two Olympic gold medals, was the world Player of the Year twice, to give you an example. And she's also a great example of how some of the world's best have to keep her perfectionism in check. And so just prior to the World Cup, she actually failed to score eight consecutive matches.

And the team lost to their rival, China, twice. So she was really struggling. And this is what her coach, Tony DiCicco, said. Mia, because she's so hypercritical has always had to deal with at times less confidence than she wants she puts so much demand on herself and that's why she's the greatest scorer in history but those high standards are hard to reach on a consistent basis and so she ended up kind of turning it around played lights out in the world cup later on and later when she was asked, like, you know, what was her mindset

and how her perfectionism really got in her way, she said, you know, I want to do things as perfectly as I can. But obviously that's not going to happen. But it's a good source of motivation. But sometimes it can work against me. And I was so worried about what other people were thinking, you know, outside of my support system. But I needed to go out and play for the reason that I've always played.

Because I love it. Because I love what I do. And I lost sight of that. I wasn't having any fun and I was critiquing every single thing that I did. Alright, so I am not the world's greatest soccer player. Me either. No, I don't think anyone in the room is. But we would all love to be able to know how this applies to us. Absolutely. So there's a few questions I want you to reflect on as you were listening to that.

Do you tend to beat yourself up for mistakes? You know, do you just tend to beat yourself up in general? Because I think we all have those tendencies. Maybe you've lost focus of what you love. And, you know, as you're driving to work or going to school, maybe you've lost focus of that. And maybe you've even lost focus of, you know, just being your excellent, your standard of excellence, you know. So the question I'd ask is, are you striving for excellence right now?

Or maybe have you lowered your standards? All right. Why is approaching excellence important then? Obviously, it seems kind of self-explanatory. You want to be the best you can, but instead of perfection, we're talking excellence. Yeah, and that's one of the characteristics of the best. So, you know, I'm referring to the greatest athletes, entrepreneurs and leaders. They have this burning desire to be at their best and they desire for more. But, you know, as we're talking about Mia, this can result in negative tendencies that can

undermine our happiness or our grit or our performance. And we can easily kind of beat ourselves up when we don't necessarily need to. So I'm thinking to myself here then when I'm looking at this excellence and perfection, you have to kind of decide which is which. Am I trying to be too perfect or am I just striving for excellence along the way? What do we need to know about perfectionism that is getting in our way? There's really two types, and I'm going to keep it super simple. The more positive type is called adaptive. And that just means when people are highly motivated to be at their best

and they get pleasure from really pursuing their goals, they're driven to succeed, but they realize like no one is perfect. And this good type actually leads to us having a higher self-esteem and confidence. There's a bad type or a negative type called maladaptive. And that just means like we procrastinate. We kind of play small. We don't go after kind of our big goals because, you know, what if we fail? And this type can lead to burnout.

And I think Mia is a great example of how sometimes her perfectionism got in the way. So, you know, just think about do you fit in either of these categories or maybe there are times that you do. So how is what we're talking about today common to all of us? You know, we all tend to beat ourselves up from time to time. And, you know, I think about every client that I've worked with, we all, all of them have some kind of perfectionism tendencies. And that can be really good when we have really high standards. And when we're giving our best and are driven to succeed, but sometimes it can get in our way. So it just really today, the message is about, you know, striving for excellence, knowing, realizing that we're not perfect and nobody is. So how do we keep ourselves on track striving for excellence and not perfection?

Because that's such an easy thing to fall into. I think like, I don't want to do this if I don't do it right. Exactly. Yeah. And I find myself doing that sometimes, just having that mindset. Make the decision. I think the key is to make a personal commitment to yourself, to refuse to beat yourself up for mistakes.

You know, just realize that everybody's human. You're human. We're human. And remind yourself that, you know, being perfect isn't possible. So strive for excellence instead. That's believable within your reach. And so today, you know, I'd have you think about, like, what does excellence mean to you?

How do you define it? And for me, it means, you know, giving my best at everything that I do and really working to give my best effort every single day. Any other suggestions on that? I liked Mia's example of she just went back to focusing on what she loved, right? Why you do it, right? Exactly. Why do you do it?

Why are you here in the first place? So focusing on why you do what you do, what do you love about it? Could you make that a daily practice? Maybe as you're driving to school today or work today or you know later on when you're going to practice could you think about like why do you love it and there has to be something that you love about or you wouldn't continue to do it you know looking for the things that are right instead of the things that are that are constantly wrong i don't want to say that this is easier for some people than others striving for excellence and not perfection, but I think about the people, your Mia Hams, your

Tiger Woods, your LeBron Jameses, when you turn on SportsCenter, and they're talking about how, you know, oh, he only scored 32 points in this game. We expected him to score 40, you know, or something, you know? Or he only came in 15th out of 30 golfers, and, you know,

we expect him to win every single time. The pressure is so on for these people to be perfect all the time when in reality i mean just the excellence that they're they're displaying is quite impressive so and for them to be able to stay on that excellent side instead of perfection that's got that's got to take work that that needs a sports psychologist or yeah there we go in line how are we summarizing today? Okay, we're summarizing it this way. So high performers, those people who are working to reach their greater potential,

which I know you are, you wouldn't be listening, have a burning desire to be at their best. They have high standards for themselves and others around them, and they're driven to succeed, but they realize that nobody's perfect, so they keep their mistakes in stride. All right. If you follow along with Sindra, whether it's on Twitter or Facebook or just through the website and podcasts, there's an affirmation that goes along with this, and we start the

week with that. What is the affirmation for this week? I have a burning desire to be at my best. I am driven to succeed, and I focus on today why I love to do what I do. That'd be a perfect post-it note on your bathroom mirror when you get up to see every day this week. I know you can't see it from where you're sitting, but my text line's going nuts today. People want to know, can I get that quote?

I will send that Mia Hamm quote off to said person that sent me the text. Yes. The other question is, where do I find Cindra's podcast? Yes. You can search on iTunes iTunes High Performance Mindset and you can find all of these interviews on there

as well as interviews I do with other people who are kind of focused on mindset and helping people with their mindset and you can also find it

on my website drcindra.com There you go d-r-c-i-n-d-r-a dot com for CINDRA Campoff's podcast. And to follow along with all the things that she is up to. Got that book coming soon.

I know. I actually have a date, and it's to the editor. So it's really, really exciting. All right. Can't wait. Yes, I look forward to hearing more. Cinder Campoff with us today. High Performance Mindset on the Country Club.

Thank you very much. It's great to be here. Thank you. We'll see you next Monday on Minnesota 93.