Perfectionism, Making Mistakes, and Letting Go with Michael Henri

0:00 Hey there, before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource, this podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple Podcast or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much. And let's get started with this week's episode. Hey there, and welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast.

0:32 Michael Henry here. And today we're going to be talking about something that many of us struggle with and that is perfectionism. Whether it's fear of making mistakes, needing to things to be just perfect, or feeling like nothing is ever enough, perfectionism can both be a motivator and a burden. So both the positive and the negative. But where does perfectionism actually come from? Why do mistakes feel so terrifying? And how can we shift our mindset

0:57 from perfection to progress? So in this episode, we'll explore the emotions tied to perfectionism, the science behind why we chase flawlessness, and how learning to embrace mistakes can actually help us grow. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast if you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is. For you, we talk.

1:22 All things yoga related. For teachers. In order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 hour yoga teacher training or if you've never done a training before. This. Podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way, together with Paul Teodo and Byron de Marseille. We put together this podcast to provide you with a free resource.

1:42 To learn more about yoga, whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga, this podcast is talking all things yoga related and we're trying to talk from the teachers perspective and also the students perspective to make sure we get a full 360° angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world.

1:59 Welcome to our podcast. So looking at perfectionism personally, I can definitely strongly relate to this. I would say that one of the things that I struggled with a lot in my earlier years in life, it's definitely something I've been working on. So I feel like it's not as it doesn't have such a strong hold on me anymore, But for the longest time I would avoid trying new things unless I knew that I'd actually be good at it. The idea of trying something and

2:28 failing or trying something and not being good at it was was just something that I just didn't want to get involved in. So it felt like basically I would avoid doing things like any kind of new sports, any types of new activities because I didn't want to make mistakes. I didn't want to be perceived as somebody who couldn't do something good, couldn't do something that was considered like being done well, right.

2:56 And I know now that a lot of that comes from just wanting to be perceived as worthy of whatever it is that I was trying to actually do. Like, am I good enough to do this? And if I make a mistake, then the story in my head was I'm, I'm not good enough.

3:12 I should have never tried doing this, you know, and whatever negative self talk followed from that. But over time, I realized that perfectionism wasn't actually helping me and it was actually holding me back. In fact, I had a few people reflect back to me and help me through their own healings where they noticed their perfectionism in the ways that they could actually cope with it.

3:35 Strategies that helped them to kind of work through it and that helped me work through my episodes of perfectionism. So that's why now I feel like I have a pretty good hold on it. And why not share that with, you know, the audience that is here.

3:51 And that way, hopefully some of you can kind of learn from that as well, if that's something that relates to you. So let's kind of jump into some of the standard stuff and just talk about what is perfectionism? Let's give it like a textbook definition.

4:05 So what I have here is that perfectionism is the tendency to set unrealistic high standards for yourself and to tie self worth to achievement or what we call flawlessness. Now I have two, sorry, three types of perfectionism.

4:24 Here we have this self orientated perfectionism setting basically impossible high standards for yourself or let's say outward or other orientated, which would be holding others to high standards. And then of course we have this social prescribed perfectionism, which is kind of feeling this external pressure to be perfect, which can come from so many sources. So perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best.

4:57 It is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment and shame. Now, if you've heard that before, that is a quote from Brené Brown, who is one of The Pioneers and emotions and definitely talks about perfectionism and how to cope with it.

5:19 So let's look at the emotional landscape of perfectionism. So what kind of emotions or what are the typical emotions that we kind of go through whenever we're dealing with this kind of challenge? So the first one I have written here is the fear of failure, right?

5:35 The anxiety that comes with making mistakes, shame, feeling unworthy or inadequate when not perfect, self doubt, constantly questioning of your abilities, anxiety and overwhelm. The never ending pressure to achieve more, wanting more for it to be better. And then of course frustration and burnout. Exhaustion from chasing unrealistic expectations. Just constantly trying to make things better and better and better.

6:11 Or this perceived perfect can be exhausting. So perfectionism isn't just about wanting to do well, it's about trying. Excuse me? It's about tying our self worth to being flawless. And when perfection is the goal, mistakes feel like personal failures rather than learning opportunities.

6:33 So let's look at kind of the neuroscience or some of the chemical changes, let's just say, of what actually happens in our body, our brain, while we're kind of going through this perfectionism process. So I've talked about this before, but we have this area of our body called the prefrontal cortex, which is basically what I would call your modern part of your brain. It's where we basically think and organize and analyze everything, right?

7:01 I would call it your, you know, some people call it the left part of the brain, the logical part of the brain, the rational reasoning part of the brain. So for a perfectionist, they typically have a hyperactive prefrontal cortex leading to excessive like self monitoring and overanalyzing and basically overthinking, while at the same time part of the limbic system, they call it the older part of the brain, the amygdala.

7:29 And the fear response that comes within the amygdala. Perfectionism often activates the brain Center for fear, the amygdala, which leads to heightened stress when facing possible failure or perceived failure. And then of course, another perspective is the dopamine or the reward that we get whenever we basically achieve this perfection or we think we achieve some sort of perfection, right? So achieving these perfection moments triggers some sort of dopamine reward hit in the body,

8:06 which kind of reinforces that need for external validation. So these chemical effects on the body with regards to perfectionism, basically, if we look at it from a stress response, a stress response is a cortisol spike. So it's a stress hormone that increases when perfectionism tendencies are triggered, leading to tension headaches, fatigue and other undesirable symptoms, an adrenaline overload, some sort of fight or flight response that activates

8:42 under perceived failure or judgement or making small mistakes. They kind of feel catastrophic, something that might just seem so small from the outside world. You know, because we all make, we all make mistakes, right? Nothing is really perfect. And we might know this logically, but in those moments, whenever we do make mistakes, even if it is a super tiny small mistake internally within our system, the chemical structure basically makes it feel catastrophic, makes it feel so much bigger than what it is.

9:15 So having empathy for yourself in those moments and also for others whenever that happens, if you recognize that in other people. And then the last one I have here is low serotonin levels. So basically call it the happy hormone, chronic perfectionism. So chasing that perfectionism can contribute to anxiety and depression by ultimately keeping that serotonin level low. So perfectionism doesn't just live in the mind, it affects the entire body as well.

9:47 So stress chemicals flood your system when we feel like we've messed up, like we've made mistakes, which explains why mistakes can feel physically painful sometimes. And of course, that feeling is something that we want to avoid.

10:01 So we tend to try to avoid doing things that where we feel like we might make mistakes. Like I described at the beginning of this podcast, I would try to avoid doing new things because if I was doing new things, chances are I'd be making mistakes. So I didn't want to have that feeling in my body when I was doing something, knowing that I would be making mistakes. And I've learned to embrace that a little bit more. And we'll talk about some of those practical ways in which we can do that.

10:30 So perfectionism is ultimately, it's a trap, right? It can create paralysis, a fear of getting started to doing something because of the fear of the imperfectionism of doing it. It can sometimes fuel this imposter syndrome, which is basically never feeling good enough despite achievements.

10:54 It can lead to self sabotage, which is ultimately procrastinating or avoiding challenges out of the fear of failure. That one actually I can relate a lot to because even when it comes to doing like, not necessarily like new sports, new activities, but like work related things, you know, I'm sure we're all doing different levels of work, probably yoga teaching to some degree or at least practicing yoga. But you know, we have other things that are going on in our lives.

11:21 And for me, sometimes when I'm facing a challenge, work related, whether it be something like there's a task that I need to do and I don't quite know how to do it right because there's a problem or there's a challenge. Whether it be something, let's just say technical on like the platform, for example, some sort of coding thing, or I need to create a new manual or new book or a new training or something like this.

11:46 The tendency can be to avoid or to procrastinate getting into it to start doing it because of, well, I don't actually know how to do it yet. Therefore, you know, my, my perfectionism tendency, which is very small now, thank God, would often procrastinate me taking action into actually getting started in the 1st place. Because the reality is when you're going to be doing some of these things, problem solving, trying to like create new things, you're always going to

12:14 make mistakes, right? It's very, very, I would say not even unlikely. I'd say it's almost impossible to to do something, create something for the first time and for it to be perfect straight out the gate, which is just completely unrealistic. So procrastination in a lot of the cases, I would say stems from that perfectionism, type perfectionism tendency, so common, some of the common thinking patterns and perfectionism.

12:42 Is this all or nothing? Thinking so the quote I have here is if I can't do it perfectly, it's not worth doing The catastrophizing. Catastrophizing. There we go. Catastrophizing. If I make a mistake, it's the end of the world, or it feels like the end of the world. And then over generalization, one failure means I'm always a failure, which is not true.

13:14 Mistakes come and they come. They come and they go. Excuse me. So perfectionism convinces us that mistakes define us. But when we see mistakes as part of the learning process, we free ourselves from the endless loop of self criticism. So how do we overcome perfectionism and embrace the mistakes?

13:37 Well, reframing failure as something else like growth progress, right? Mistakes are proof that you are trying. So shifting from a fixed mindset, fixed being kind of perfect structured to more of a growth mindset, learning from mistakes or an evolving process of learning, we can actually improve and minimize that hold that perfection has on us. So studies have shown that the brain grows new neural pathways when we make incorrect mistakes.

14:18 So neural pathways basically the connection from your brain to, you know, any part of your body that creates some sort of change, action or behavioral. So if we make a mistake, if we auto correct that, that actually helps to fuel and reinforce more of the progress of change versus the wanting to nail it on the first shot, right? You can think of different examples like this. You know, if you're throwing a dart at a a target or a board, right?

14:53 And you throw the dart and it doesn't hit the bull's eye every single time, right? You just keep trying until you get a little bit closer, a little bit closer and you keep refining the skill. Your hand eye coordination improves and you just, you know, you have fun with it.

15:09 Breath work is always going to be helpful in a lot of cases just to kind of help reduce some of that stress, right? So when we're experiencing or when you're aware, you're self aware of some of this perfectionism tendencies that might come through for you. Any types of breath, I shouldn't say any types, but certain types of breath work can be really helpful to stimulate more of your parasympathetic nervous system to kind of reduce that stress response.

15:33 So trying things like longer exhalation, something like a inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight breath to kind of calm that nervous system. So slowing your breathing is generally the the goal there. And that can activate, like I said, that parasympathetic nervous system, which reduces the anxiety around perfectionism.

15:56 Another thing that's really helpful, and some people can probably do this more easily than others, and that's just journaling to the challenge of perfectionistic thoughts. So what would I tell a friend who made the same mistake that I just did, right? Would I be as hard on them as I am to myself? So writing about perfectionism, writing about mistakes that you may have made or you think you might make helps to regulate the process of your prefrontal

16:26 cortex that over over analyzing, overthinking part of your brain, which allows for more, or I should say for better emotional processing, integrating the logical part of your brain and also the emotional part of your brain.

16:43 And I always think that's a, you know, that makes me think of what I learned long ago. And this is something from Tony Robbins. I think it was from Tony Robbins. Got it. Must have been over a decade ago now. But ultimately, you know, I've always been a very logical, rational thinker, right? Which is probably where a lot of the perfectionism came from in my emotional connection was, let's say it hadn't been unlocked yet.

17:08 And it's something that I've unlocked over the years. And my partner Christina, who was more, let's say, emotionally connected. And logic was not always, let's say the forefront. What we learned actually together was that you need both, right?

17:26 You can't. You can't operate with one driving the ship. You need to have both of these copilots driving the ship, which basically means we want to be logical, we want to be rational and we want to use that analytical mind, but we also want to interpret and use our intuition and our emotions to help guide as well.

17:47 When we use both of these superpowers that we have, we're ultimately going to make what we call a wise choice, wise decision, wise actions. And that's to me where wisdom comes from. It's the combination of using both your logical rational mind as well as your emotional mind.

18:05 So in these perfectionistic moments, how do we recognize that our lot of our logical, rational mind is coming through and then also acknowledge the emotions that might be coming through and then try to work with that and incorporate it at the same time so that we can kind of move forward and recognize that this isn't catastrophic.

18:23 This isn't a big deal. If I make a mistake, I might feel like it because that's the tendency that I'm experiencing, but realistically, it's not that big of a deal. So practicing self compassion, that's kind of what we just kind of stemmed into. So again, Bernie Brown has another great quote. Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love. And also another quote, which I'm going to paraphrase, but this was from one of our guests back in the day, Kat Kibera. And she said that she's never

18:55 met anyone who was too kind to themselves. So that self compassion, especially in these perfectionistic moments, can really help to nurture and heal part of that wound. So name that inner, that inner critic, that inner perfectionist, and then replace the self judgement with kindness instead.

19:18 So self compassion increases what we call that oxy oxytocin, the hormone responsible for feelings, safety, love and basically bonding ultimately with yourself. In this case, taking perfect action, or should I say taking imperfect action. So do something messy or unfinished and release the need for it to be perfect.

19:46 So do this as like an exercise, like actively choose to do something that you know is not going to be good. And, and and I shouldn't even say it that way, that, you know, is just going to be kind of not within the realms of perfectionism. And then just learn to be around that. Embrace that.

20:06 And some of those activities are things like. I'd say drawing or painting or excuse me, pottery, things that are like more, let's say art related. And there is really no defined like what is perfect, even though you might have some sort of reference point of like the art piece or the pottery piece. But like there's so many like little errors and mistakes and little flaws that are going to happen and all of those things that that's a really challenging

20:36 or those are really challenging activities to kind of evoke some of that triggered response to perfectionism and an opportunity for you to kind of work through it in those moments. So you can try that as well. So there's a few other topics related to perfectionism that I just want to address before we kind of go through the final thoughts.

20:58 And that is how perfectionism can strongly relate to control. So letting go of control, the link between perfectionism and control. So perfectionism often stems from the need to or the need for certainty, believing that if things are perfect, we can avoid pain, failure and rejection.

21:23 So this illusion of control makes it difficult to trust the natural flow of life. So from a yogic lens, call this Ishvara Pranidana, the surrender to the divine. And it teaches us that we cannot control everything and the true peace comes from trusting the process.

21:45 You've probably heard that before. Just trust the process, trust the process, right? Enjoy the ride. So Ishvara pranidana, now there's a quote from the Bhagavad Gitan, which is you are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits.

22:05 So this aligns with the idea of focusing on the effort, not the actual outcome, focusing on the process, not the actual final result. So in the brain we have this thing called the default mode network, which is basically your standard process. And this becomes over activated in perfectionistic tendencies, meaning that the mind is constantly replaying scenarios and worrying about certain outcomes. And studies have shown that when we embrace these uncertainties, like trying some of these

22:42 techniques with, you know, painting pottery and just kind of like putting ourselves in those situations that feel not so, you know, related to, let's say, work or scenarios where we might be in public where we can kind of internally work through this perfectionistic tendency, we can actually reduce the stress and enhance creativity versus being blocked because of it needing to be perceived as perfect.

23:09 So other practical techniques we can look at just trust building exercises. So engaging in an activity, activity where you have no control over the outcome, right? Free flowing writing, improvisation, intuitive movement and yoga. So just something that is just kind of, there's no right or wrong way to do it.

23:29 You just do it right and just allow things to be. Of course, you can do things like a mantra release, for example. I trust the unfolding of my life. And you can repeat this in the meditation daily. I trust the unfolding of my life and again, breath work for letting go of control can also be extremely helpful as well. Sighing, breathing, just doing in that, just doing that in itself.

24:02 If you were to do that right now, just take a big breath and side out. You get a little glimpse of that softening, that letting go, which can really help to release the tension of that overthinking. So that could be just a quick little thing that you do in those perfectionistic triggered moments.

24:22 Just take a deep sigh, right? You can also do something like bromery or the honeybee breath. You do that a few times over 30 seconds to a minute, which might seem like a long time, but it's actually not a long time, especially if it helps to reduce those symptoms and those effects of what perfectionism might do to you and your body. Now, the other thing that I wanted to chat about is the joy in the process versus the outcome. So the mindset shift from the

25:01 end result, the outcome versus the actual present moment of going through it. So us perfectionist or the people that dealing with certain perfectionistic tendencies tend to focus on the end goal rather than the experience of the journey, right? We kind of talked about that.

25:19 So if a yoga student is fixated on achieving a perfect handstand rather than appreciating the strength building process or the build up to it along the way, that would be perceived as more of a, you know, perfection, perfectionistic tendency.

25:34 So the idea would be to embody a little bit more of this Santosha contentment, which teaches that fulfillment comes from appreciating the present moment rather than chasing future success. And as yoga teachers, assuming you're a yoga teacher, you know this can also be part of the learning to teach yoga. If you are teaching yoga and you know, mistakes are made and you know, you're trying to cultivate your craft and you're trying to make a name for yourself and

26:05 grow a student list, like there's going to be a lot of moments where challenges are going to be faced. Or maybe you're just not even teaching yet because you're worried about making mistakes, you're worried about saying the wrong things and these types of things like that.

26:20 But just trusting the process that actually going through it, taking the action, embracing it and accepting it is actually going to allow you to get there. But if we're procrastinating and holding back from actually taking that action because of the fear of the mistake or the fear of failure or the fear of, you know, basically not doing it quote UN quote, correct, then we're never actually going to get there.

26:44 So when we let go of what you are, you become what you might be. There's been a lot of times in let's say, my last several years of being more of an entrepreneur and focusing more on business and just recognizing this business world, which has a lot to do with like taking risks and in doing things that ultimately result in mistakes.

27:12 And you know, there's so many business mentors or coaches and people out there. And one of the things I'd say is very common that they say is, you know, you want to collect mistakes, you want to make mistakes because the more mistakes that you make, the less you'll make later because ultimately, hopefully you'll be learning from these mistakes, right? But you can't learn from a mistake if you don't actually make it.

27:36 So doing it, taking the action and what we like to sometimes say is just falling on your face can really help for you to kind of work through that and move past it. So again, we have some practical techniques to cultivate joy in the process. So these mindful micro wins, celebrating small steps, not just the final end result or the milestone and reframing basically the practice.

28:04 So instead of asking did I succeed? Would it be more of like what did I learn in this process? Like, how did it go for me and what was my takeaways, right? The glows and grows is another way that we look at this. So the glow being the highlight, this is the thing that I like the most about it. And this is the thing what I learned that I'm going to try to improve on for next time.

28:27 So when we attach our happiness to the outcome, we miss the richness of the journey. So in yoga, Santosha reminds us that we're already, oh, sorry, that we already have everything that we need in this moment, which shifts when we stop chasing and we start appreciating, start appreciating the process. So perfectionism can be exhausting and mistakes can feel terrifying.

28:54 But when we shift our our perspective, when we release control and embrace the process, we find that mistakes aren't failures, they are teachers. So yoga teaches us that surrender, ishvara, pranidhana, and contentment santoshia are keys to peace. When we stop gripping so tightly to the outcomes, we allow life to unfold as it's meant to be.

29:21 And in that unfolding, we find freedom. So this week, if this is something that you can relate to, try embracing some sort of moment of imperfection, whether it's in your yoga practice, your work, or any kind of creative work that you might be doing. And then reflect back to where can I let go of control in this process?

29:43 So thank you so much for tuning in this week. As always, if you have any questions, thoughts, or comments, you can reach out to me on Instagram, send me a message, or you can send an e-mail at podcast@goingproyoga.com. Otherwise, have a beautiful, beautiful day and we'll speak to you next week.

30:01 Take care for now. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the going proyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for. Free for seven days where you can actually. Learn more about yoga in the ways of. Alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga anatomy. So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn, practice and grow, this platform is definitely for you.

30:24 So I definitely suggest checking it out. Going proyoga.com right now. You can try it out for. Free for seven days.