Perfection

If you put a go pro camera on the stern of my single you would see that when I am rowing I talk to myself and sometimes shake my head. This is me coaching myself and reacting to the stroke I just took. I can get pretty frustrated with myself and have to make sure I'm paying attention to every detail to get it just right.

This is me in any situation. When working I talk to myself calling out the errors I'm making. Or even at karaoke, sometimes I blush so much if I mess up. Other times I don't want to sing out of fear of not doing it perfectly.

Of course, this is all absolutely ridiculous. A phrase I use a lot is, "You can't be perfect all the time." I remind myself of this constantly to get over my perfectionist streak.  I also use the phrase to encourage others to remove the stress that comes with being perfect. Sometimes when you try to be perfect all the time things are pretty boring. I like encouraging PLAY!

"Play" is kind of a kids term. "Dad will you play with me?" "Joy do you want to come over and play?" "Mom, can we go play in my room?" Growing up, my friends and I especially loved playing Indiana Jones and MacGyver. Did we follow the plots we had seen exactly? No way. Did we invent new situations and stories? You bet! We invented things, tried things and had fun. Some of the plots didn't make sense and some of them were brilliant - I mean really the writers should have seen us. This is what play is all about - doing things that end up with a mix of great and terrible, all in the name of fun!

In my dancing days, I used to say that awesome and terrible dance moves come from the same stuff. Some amazing moves came from trying a move but making a mistake. Other intentionally new moves sometimes worked, and sometimes failed. If you were being creative with the music or with your partner sometimes things worked beautifully and sometimes they were pretty bad and downright hilarious - but it was all fun! Dancers learn to just incorporate mistakes or turn it into a goofy move. People who watch many times can't tell there was an error, and if they do all they really walk away with was how much fun those two were having.

With karaoke, there really is no reason to try for perfection. It's truly a play activity. I don't make money, I don't need a good karaoke reputation, and it really doesn't matter to anything in life if I sing a note wrong. It is just pure fun - and you never know what you're capable of until you try it! I love hanging out with my friend Rob (ex-karaoke dj) because he is great at encouraging creativity when out. I found a new song I can sing pretty well on Friday night and I'm very excited about going out to sing it again (Weezer -Say It Ain't So). I wouldn't have discovered that unless I had the nerve to do it and not care how it turned out. I've also sung some doosies that were awful just to try something new.

With rowing there is always another stroke to take. It's one of the things I love about it. The same movement - with all the details - over and over again. So many chances to be right! And when you do something wrong you get to shake it off and move on. Any mistakes just move you closer to getting it right.

It goes back to Frank's lesson with me of making me flip creatively. If you don't push the envelope of where you're safe, or where you know you're doing things well - you won't progress. You'll get stunted. You have to get to the next level by doing something different! And different goes in both directions before you figure out which way makes you faster.

So accept that it's not healthy to be perfect all the time. Take the mistakes and move on while having an awesome time doing it. Play!