#1920 Raise the Bottom Line

In our last few +1s (here, here and here), we’ve been mining some wisdom from Bill Beswick’s great book Changing Your Story.

Today we’re going to chat about one of my favorite Big Ideas from his book which happens to be right up there as one of my ALL-TIME favorite distinctions.

Let’s get straight to work.

Lesson #8 in his book is called “Raise Your Bottom Line — Aim for Mastery Not Perfection.”

Bill tells us: “I then got Emma to see the big picture of her performance by watching a film clip of her direct involvement in the game, this time focusing on her positive contributions to the team performance. Slowly, we removed the knee-jerk emotional reaction to mistakes and replaced it with a different definition of success, where Emma allowed herself to feel proud of her positive contribution to the team, forgave herself the odd mistake and developed a more reasonable perception of success. To support this, I drew three lines on a flip chart. The top line represented perfection, scored at 100 percent. I asked Emma to score her best performance and she replied ‘90 percent,’ so the middle line was scored at 90 percent. The next question to Emma was to assess the score for her worst performance. With a shake of the head, she replied ’60 percent.’“

He continues by saying: “The 60 percent performances had usually occurred when Emma made mistakes early in the game and compounded the first error with more mistakes. The variation from 90 percent down to 60 percent could really hurt the team. Emma understood and agreed to change her focus away from closing the gap from 90 percent to 100 percent (a worthwhile goal but a difficult and frustrating challenge) to closing the gap from 60 percent to 90 percent. This was a much more attainable goal that would benefit both her and the team. I stressed that changing her standards did not mean having no standards but rather having more realistic standards. Mistakes were to be seen as valuable learning opportunities and not excuses to beat herself up. This focus on ‘raising the bottom line’ led swiftly to a reduction in stress and anxiety and to a much-improved consistency of performance.”

There’s some REALLY (!) powerful wisdom in that passage.

I’m reminded of a number of 1-on-1 coaching chats I recently had with some of THE most elite athletes in the world.

Figuring out how to hold ourselves to super-high standards WHILE not diminishing our performance by slipping into toxic perfectionism is a REALLY big deal for them. And, of course, for ALL of us.

Check out Conquering Perfectionism 101 and my Notes on Tal Ben-Shahar’s GREAT book The Pursuit of Perfect for some of my favorite Big Ideas on the subject.

For now, know this: As Tal tells us, there are two forms of “perfectionism.” One is actually healthy and the other is definitely not. The PRIMARY difference between the two? Although they BOTH hold themselves to VERY (!) high standards, the healthy perfectionists (which Tal calls “optimalists”) EMBRACE the fact that they will NEVER (!) be perfect.

They know that their vision of a perfect performance and/or perfect life is a GUIDING STAR pointing them in the right direction NOT a distant shore that will someday be reached.

So...

They let go of the need to be 100% perfect and focus on doing their BEST—especially AFTER they *didn’t* do their best.

Note: That’s a REALLY big distinction.

And...

That’s why I love the 60% → 90% → 100% distinction from Bill.

If you’re expecting 100% perfection and you INEVITABLY (!) don’t hit it, you are likely to beat yourself up and then you’re likely to wind up at 60% performance and then you’re likely to REALLY beat yourself up!

(Right?)

But...

If you can remember the fact that you will NEVER (!) achieve perfection in ANY area of your life, then, when you INEVITABLY make a mistake, you can quickly alchemize it and get back to work.

THEN...

You focus on closing the gap between 60% and 90% rather than trying to do the impossible of closing the gap between 90% and 100%. THAT is how we consistently dominate.

P.S. That’s also why, in The 10 Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery, Brian Cain tells us: “Everyone talks about raising the roof. In reality, it’s about raising your basement so that you have good bad days and are better on your bad days than most people are on their good days—because you can focus better and have better habits and a more elite mindset.”

That’s ALSO why Tony Robbins says that perfection is actually the LOWEST possible standard we can set for ourselves for the simple reason that it is IMPOSSIBLE to hit.

P.P.S. Ben Bergeron—one of the world’s best CrossFit coaches—wrote an entire book on the subject. It’s one of my all-time favorites. It’s called Chasing Excellence. The title is inspired by Vince Lombardi’s quote: “Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.”