Most athletes strive for perfection, but as Steven Mann explains, it can have a light and a dark side
Most studies have found that a high level of perfectionist strivings like motivation, effective goalsetting and resilience can lead to a higher level of performance. However, if an athlete is faced with perfectionist concerns in the form of anxiety or depression, this may have a detrimental effect.
Perfectionistic concerns: The dark side
If these concerns start to interrupt the process of perfectionist striving then this can have negative consequence. These are concerns that you need to be wary of and you need to understand how to overcome them. Depression with failure instead of accepting failure and learning from it to perfect a technique can lead to a vicious circle that the athlete may be fixed within and find it difficult to take the next step towards the goal of perfection.
Perception of other people and disapproval is something that may play on the mind of the athlete. Athletes who are motivated by external motives such as the approval of coaches, family or the media can be knocked aside by the disapproval of others.
Unrealistic expectations and setting unlikely goals that will lead to failure can have a drastic effect on the athlete when they’re unable to obtain these goals. This is a perfectionist concern that can be easily overcome by goal-setting.
Perfectionistic strivings: The light side
This involves striving to the highest levels of performance and would involve becoming aware of your progress through such processes as goal-setting and being able to balance process goals.
Having motivation towards a focused goal is important for perfection. There is a saying that no one is perfect, but it is an opportunity to strive towards the next level of performance and to do this it is ideal to have a specific goal to focus upon – that extra centimetre improvement in the high jump or a half a second quicker over 100m. Motivation towards this goal would include setting short-term goals, leading to the main goal for perfecting a technique.
Enjoying striving for perfection is also important for motivation. There are two types of motivation towards a goal. One is ego – being concerned about the outcome of an event and having external motivation. The other is task – mastering a skill within a sport and enjoying the process. This second type of motivation is the most healthy and useful for striving towards perfection.
Bouncing back from failure at tasks and learning from failure is also critical to perfection. An athlete needs to be resilient to failure by understanding that failure is an occurrence that does happen. But it is how an individual deals with failure that counts – accepting the setback, getting back up and learning from the experience. The fear of failure can lead to people being anxious and avoiding the task, but realising that failure is a chance to learn will help enhance you push to perfection.
Managing perfectionism
Goal-setting
As discussed, goal-setting helps you to overcome perfectionist concerns such as setting effective. Set specific, measurable, short-term goals leading to a long-term goal. This avoids setting unrealistic goals and grounding the athlete in a concrete path to perfectionist striving.
Cognitive restructuring
There are also issues of fear of failure, avoiding it and becoming depressed by the failure when it arrives. The athlete needs to understand that failure is an occurrence to learn from and they need to learn to accept failure and move on from it, feeling that they have learnt something from a baptism of fire.
Taking on a task motivation type is important. As an athlete you may need to go back to when you started the sport, understand what you enjoyed and just simply do it for the enjoyment for a while. With the right guidance and support any athlete can strive effectively.
» Steven Roy Mann, BSc (Hons), MSc, PGCert, MBPsS is a performance psychologist and martial arts coach
