Resilience

I was inspired by a talk this year given by Alan Percy of Oxford University on the topic of uncertainty during periods of research and the resulting human struggle to create order from chaos, a test of human perseverance and resilience. This is a topic I know well through my work on the creative mindset and iterative process shared by the arts and modern business world. What took me by surprise was the the response so many of us embrace as result: Persecutory Perfectionism-

The concept was broken down into three parts-

1. Self Perfectionism, impossible standards for self

2. Other Perfectionism, impossible standards for others

3. Socially Prescribed Perfectionism, feeling under scrutiny to be perfect in order to be accepted in a certain environment.

I saw a blueprint emerge - at last I comprehended the human capacity for hyper resiliency, a common response to adversity as driver for Alan's concept of persecutory perfection and sadly, an onramp to the burnout which has become commonplace in today's business landscape encouraged by shortened tenure of work positions and the runaway train of the attention economy.

It is natural that we experience these three at points throughout life, but the consequent to Alan's antecedent came in another talk I heard the same week by the charismatic Ronan Harrington who shares the dangers of not jumping from the train to embrace health before reaching points of no return. (See Video link below of Ronan's speech in London).

Training in the performing arts gave me the enduring gift of iterative process, failing often- failing fast, embracing mistakes as part of the learning process, practicing 99% for a 1% onetime delivery, lessons I now facilitate in the business environment. I learned agility and adapting as strategies for success and regularly take myself back to this mindset to recenter when I feel the shackles of perfectionism reaching for me. Mindfulness was baked into my training, not a separate capability.

Reflect for yourself as the year speeds into its finale of the fourth quarter- is perfectionism an unwelcome guest in your life- in your thoughts and processes? Are others impacted by it, could perfection be a driving motivation in your ambition? "Allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person." David Burns, Stanford University School of Medicine