Mastering Your Emotions, Curing Perfectionism - How To Stop Being A Perfectionist (1)

hey this is Leo for actualised org and

in this episode I'm going to be talking

about overcoming perfectionism how to

stop being so damn critical of people

and life

one of the biggest realizations one of

the biggest personal development

realizations that I've had this year

occurred for me when I was at a and

enlightenment retreat and we weren't

really working on personal development

we were working on enlightenment stuff

and meditation type stuff but just when

you do a lot of enlightenment work what

tends to happen is that a lot of

emotional baggage and interesting

revelatory insights aha moments come up

for you that are like more psychological

and therapeutic and what I discovered

there is I did I just got this very

palpable sense of how hypercritical I am

and that really this is a theme

throughout my whole life it stretches

back really far to my teenage years and

maybe even before that this

hypercritical Ness critical of

everything I notice myself being

critical of people of physical objects

of products that I buy cars on the road

of women physical appearance of both men

and women emotions critical of other

people's emotions critical of my own

emotions critical of situations standing

in line somewhere in a traffic jam stuff

like that so I just got a real palpable

sense of that and it made me see like oh

I'm a perfectionist that's of course I'm

a perfectionist and then also in

addition to that not just seeing that

but also seeing all the all the ways in

which the tentacles of this issue creep

into every facet of my life I saw this

and this made me see like oh this needs

to really be turned around because I can

go forward to where I want to be in life

if I don't turn this around and it's

hard because these are very ingrained

habits in us I noticed in myself that

first of all the problem is that it just

makes me miserable and saps happiness so

directly it saps happiness because when

you're being critical you're not happy

it's almost by definition you're angry

or you're frustrated or you're upset or

you're finding a fault with something so

you can't be happy at that point you're

always unhappy it also wastes mental

energy I noticed myself wasting a lot of

mental energy throughout the day instead

of thinking about the things I need to

be thinking about I'm thinking about all

this shallow petty crap these little

nitpicks here and there which in the end

just distract me from what I need to be

doing I also noticed that this this

hinders my self-actualization and this

for me is where I had my big aha moment

because I'm all about self-actualization

anything that hinders my

self-actualization if I ever become

conscious of that then it's like oh wait

okay I got to put the brakes on this one

here so that's what I saw is I saw just

how how much is hindering my

self-actualization because instead of

focusing on things that I need to be

doing instilling the positive habits

that I need to instill in thinking the

positive thoughts I need to be thinking

and creating the positive plans the

concrete practical plans for

implementing my life purpose instead of

doing all that I can get sidetracked

into criticism so that was a my aha and

of course you know the classic problem

with perfectionism and criticism is that

if you want everything to be perfect

especially right off the bat then you

psych yourself out of a lot of

situations in life and a lot of projects

that you could be starting on you start

to procrastinate on those you don't even

start them and definitely don't complete

them because you expect them to be

perfect before they're even begun and

I've certainly suffered from that in the

past as well and I still suffer from

that so the problem with this particular

aspect of perfectionism is that it's

really perfectionism is an anti mastery

mindset

if you follow my work then you know how

seriously I treat mastery Master is a

very important concept for me I think

it's one of the most important concepts

of all time for successful

self-actualization work you need to

learn what mastery is you need to apply

that process to your career and

basically to everything that you're

trying to master in your life mastery

process mastery process it's all too

deep to go into here but basically it

means that you focus on the process

mastering the process versus focusing on

results and of course this is exactly

the opposite of what a perfectionist

does because a perfectionist always

focuses on the results and so this

creates problems

it really hinders our success perfection

is hindered their own success but enough

of that for now that's just my own

little personal you know quibbles and

issues with the perfectionism let's get

into the meat of the topic here so what

actually is perfectionism I would define

it as a neurotic unwillingness to accept

reality so if your perfectionist I am

making the claim that you are not

willing to accept reality now you might

not agree with me on this but stick with

me because I'll give you some deeper

insights here about why this is and it

is the case this is the the root of

perfectionism is really this it's an

unwillingness to accept what actually is

true what is the case what is the fact

unwillingness to accept it and maybe

even to such a degree that you're

unwilling to accept that you're

unwilling to accept reality there's a

there's an important book called the

paradox of choice by Barry Schwartz and

in this book he makes an interesting

observation which is that in modern

society we have a lot more choice than

we ever did in Prior centuries and

millennia that humans evolved and our

brain really isn't designed to cope with

so much choice it's an overabundance of

choice and this choice seems like it's a

good thing you know have an over bun

what's wrong with that but uh but there

is a problem he talks about something

called

maximizers and satisficers these are two

types of people two ways of coping with

overabundance of choice the Maximizer is

also the perfectionist in a sense the

Maximizer is the one let's say you want

to go buy a new vacuum cleaner now if

you go to the store you want to buy a

new vacuum cleaner there's probably 15

or 20 models different colors different

cord lengths different wattages

different amounts of power different

accessories different boxes different

packages different prices different

values different warranties so you've

got all these options so how do you

choose the best one well the Maximizer

he says to himself okay I need the best

vacuum cleaner in the world what is that

well it's not just a matter of literally

the best it also has the best value so I

need to I need to find the sweet spot

between not too expensive but enough

accessories plus the best warranty plus

the best product design plus the the

best longest cord and all this stuff I

need to find the perfect sweet spot of

all this so what I'm going to do is I'm

going to compare 15 different models

going to do the research read all the

reviews and I'm going to go and I'm

going to shop different stores I'm going

to compare I'm going to do a couple

weeks of research then I'm going to buy

my vacuum cleaner and he thinks that

he's going to become happy this way when

he buys that super awesome perfect

vacuum cleaner now the satisficer what

does he do he walks in there he's like

well there's 15 models

I'll just narrow down to these three I

like this one here okay I'm going to

spend five minutes thinking about it I'm

going to grab it and let's just go I'm

going to be happy with it as long as it

vacuums the floor and it doesn't break

I'm good that's the satisficer so you

might think well leo you know we don't

wanna be satisficers we want to be

maximizers right isn't that what

self-actualization is all about it's

about getting the most it's about mid

maxing the hell out of life not quite

not quite it might seem like being the

Maximizer will get you the maximum of

everything including happiness but

actually that's not the case

the Maximizer isn't really happy he's

constantly disappointed by life because

his mind is like the perfectionist mind

it's always looking for perfect

sometimes it finds perfect but a lot of

times it doesn't find perfect and when

it doesn't find perfect it's upset it's

frustrated and it's not happy and most

of the time because you've been

developing this habit of being

hypercritical of everything all the time

you're not happy anymore you can't be

happy because you can find fault with

almost everything you might buy that

perfect vacuum cleaner you come home and

then next week you're browsing online

and you see a new ad for a new vacuum

cleaner you're like oh this is

better than the one I bought and it's

too late to return this one man right

and so you're unsatisfied you're unhappy

whereas the satisficer he sees that he's

like oh yeah well maybe it's a little

better who cares

I already got my vacuum cleaner it works

the satisficer is actually the one

that's happy because happiness is about

acceptance you need acceptance and

you're not going to get very far in your

self-actualization work if you don't

cultivate this ability of acceptance

it's a bit of an uphill battle for me to

convince you of this because I know that

a couple years back if you sort of

talking to me about acceptance I would

be like acceptance what are you talking

about Lea this is like some hippy woo

I don't want acceptance you know I'm a

hard-nosed guy on results I want real

tangible things on I'm oriented towards

making money my business and I want

results in my relationship and all this

stuff well yeah the thing you got to

realize is that you will never never

ever become happy this way life never

ever it's not going to work so I don't

know what you need to do to realize that

maybe am I talking about it here we'll

help help you to see this maybe get a

couple things to click in your mind um

you know for me it was that retreat that

I took and I was sitting there instead

of doing a lot of self self inquiry and

introspection and you know this popped

out and I saw that all I'm never going

to be happy this way I really have this

problem with being hypercritical right

it's not going to work it's like I'm

trying to stick a square peg into a

round hole it's just not going to work

so you need to start to come to that

kind of realization by the way if you're

not sure if you are or are not a

perfectionist what I'll have for you at

the at the end of this video is I'll

have a perfectionist quiz so I'm going

to point you to a link where you can go

and you can download a little

perfectionist quiz that I created just

one simple worksheet with a couple of

questions like ten questions on it and

you can see just how much of a problem

this is in your life might surprise you

because maybe you're not quite sure of