“I used to know a boxer who fought well until he won the championship. In his next fight he lost the championship and looked bad doing so. After losing the title, he fought well again and regained the championship. A wise manager said to him, ‘You can fight as well as champion as when you’re the contender if you’ll remember one thing. When you step into that ring you aren’t defending the championship – you’re fighting for it. You haven’t got it – you’ve laid it on the line when you crawl through the ropes.”
Maxwell Maltz, M.D. – Psycho-Cybernetics, Updated and Expanded – page 153
After winning the national title as a junior, I continued to train in earnest for my senior year in the sport of collegiate wrestling.
Just as I had done before, I worked out three times per day. I polished my skills and increased my strength and speed. But I made a gargantuan mental mistake that negatively affected my performance.
Dr. Maltz spelled it out for me in his book, Psycho-Cybernetics.
What was that mistake? The same one the champion boxer made. I went into every match thinking to myself, “I’m the defending national champion.”
Along with this thought came enormous pressure.
I didn’t just want to win.
I told myself, “I HAVE TO WIN.”
Why did I have to win?
To prove that I was a national champion, which everyone knew, I had already done.
It’s a classic and common mistake. And this type of thinking isn’t an albatross experienced only by elite athletes. It can creep into any skill, any endeavor, including the art of writing.
Someone tells you that you’re good at something, and the next thing you know, instead of doing the thing the way you did it before, you’re trying to live up to the praise that’s ringing in your ears.
Before you weren’t trying. You were merely doing. And now you’re a mess.
You were far better off when you didn’t consider whether you were good or bad, when your goal wasn’t perfection.
Now getting the job done isn’t good enough. The job has to be perfect.
As Robert Fritz once said, “Perfection is a stupid goal.”
Sure, you can strive for perfection, and sometimes it can be a positive driver. But most of the time the ideal of perfection is a terrible burden that hurts you far more than it helps.
Keep this in mind as you pursue your goals. Perfection rarely visits. When it does, it lasts for a moment. And it almost always visits when we’re not looking for it or expecting it.
I’ve yet to hear of a single big league pitcher who threw a perfect game when that was the goal. The pitcher’s goal was to win. The perfect game was a bonus, and try all he wants for the rest of his career, it will probably never happen again.
Matt Furey
