The VICTUS Method Kills Perfectionism: Here’s How I Banish the Limiting Belief “I have to do everything right.”
It’s time to get real with you: Perfectionism is the Limiting Belief I’m fighting right now.
And the timing is terrible. Because I already had today’s post written. All I had to do was one more edit and create the picture to post with it.
But, I’ve got to confess: This past weekend was a doozy.
You see, blogging is new to me. And it’s a completely different style from writing legal briefs or an academic article for The Law Review. It also requires an entirely different style than I use in my fiction writing. (I’m polishing Books 2 and 3 of THE OBSIDIAN CHRONICLES right now. Book 1’s here on Kindle Unlimited, if you enjoy reading fast-paced fiction with covert ops and a new Homo sentient species that’s knocked us off the top of the food chain.)
So, I knew going in that there’d be a learning curve to this “blogging” thing, and I set the intention to start at the source. I read a bunch of peoples’ posts on Medium to learn the in’s and out’s and, boy, there was a LOT of information to take in!
I don’t know how many posts I read, how deep in the rabbit hole I went, but somewhere along the line, after reading so many posts, I noticed myself beginning to feel…uneasy.
I think it might’ve been the fifth or sixth “Top 10 tips to do” (or “not do”) that did it. I got the distinct impression that there were specific ways you’re “supposed to” work the algorithm to give yourself a fighting chance, to get your posts some views; and, if you failed to follow those tips and tricks, the algorithm would shun you completely. For all intents and purposes, you’d cease to exist in the Great Big Blogosphere and your posts would never see the light of day. There were just too many to-do’s, too many things to learn to “make it,” or dare I say “Go viral.”
And somehow I had to do all this, amidst everything else on my plate. With all my other personal and professional obligations?!
The more I read, the more I noticed my energy starting to shift. A growing sense of dis-ease began to settle in. I noticed my breath going shallow, my shoulders tensing up, and that damn left trapezius muscle starting to pinch, which always signals a migraine coming my way.
Ugh, I started to feel something negative stirring inside of me. Not because I expected blogging to be easy, but because I felt inundated with the message:
There’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do this.
Why, Hello There!
That’s when it happened: the good ole Perfectionist in me started to rear its ugly head. It’s no where near the incessant Inner Critic I used to have. Thank goodness, no, it’s not that! It’s not saying something extreme, like “You have to be Perfect to be loved.”
But, still, I sensed it, this subtle pricking, tiny pinch, whispering, again and again, “You’ve got to do it right.”
Will that annoying whisper ever disappear?
I don’t think so. Because I was raised to go for the A, and if extra credit was there for the taking, I’d better get it. I’d better get that A+.
Now, in many ways that go get ’em drive to do my best has served me well. It allowed me to graduate from college early, to start law school a few weeks before I turned 21, and to win cases for clients and give them the results that they deserve.
But, ultimately, the “A+ Ms./Mr. Perfect” is a hard mentality no one can maintain. It’s impossible to do non-stop, given life’s ups and downs. It’s unforgiving and simply unrealistic when so much of life is simply not up to us.
Plus, it makes you feel like crap.
The mere whisper of it — that I’ve “got to do it right” — whips the wind right out of my sails, because I know where that wind will take me, if I relinquish control over the steering wheel on my ship. It’ll grow from a whisper to a Wraith and it will take me to the graveyard of shipwrecked dreams. I won’t let it take me there.
So, what did I do when I started to feel bad? I took some time to pause and reflect on what I truly wanted.
What do you truly want?
Trying to be perfect is not what I want for myself, not anymore.
What do you want your blog posts to be?
I want my blogging posts to be a safe space where I can create and share, a haven for me to write to you. To expose how I’m truly feeling. To let myself be seen, for real, sun spots and all. And to get to know you, for who you truly are, as well.
I don’t want to be perfect. Because I’m not perfect. And, I realize I don’t have to be, to make this blogging thing work. To be a part of this community.
Plus, perfect’s boring. It’s stagnant. Do I enjoy stories that only go up and up, with just one trajectory? What about the downs that make all stories interesting?
What do I want for the Blogging Chapter of my life?
I want the time I spend here to be all about learning and making mistakes. To not be perfect, on purpose. To just be me.
Which brought me back to where I started: to the post I had originally penned. It was just waiting there, for me to finalize and hit “Publish.”
My finger paused over the button. There was an opportunity here, to post this instead. To describe what I was really going through, behind the scenes. To be open and vulnerable. Real and raw.
So, here it is. Here’s how I work the THINK-DO-BE part of my VICTUS Method routine.
1) THINK: “Flip the Script” with Better Words.
Don’t wait until later to address your feelings. Don’t avoid them. You can’t ignore your way out of a Limiting Belief. Because it’s going to affect you subconsciously. Or it’s going to get louder and really get in your way.
If you want to be free of it, to give yourself the chance to banish it once and for all, you need to give yourself the time to feel your feelings. In your body. Notice them. See them. Label them. But be careful to do this with compassion, with love and respect for yourself.
Because you can’t feel or do better by shaming yourself, at least not easily or efficiently. Eventually, hating yourself will bite you in the ass.
So, instead of making my thoughts the Enemy or something I had to fight hard to overcome, I reminded myself to relax into the bad feeling, feel it in my body, and watch it pass.
How? By changing my thoughts with Better Words. Not later. Now.
I mean, think about it. If you’re in the middle of a Battle, fighting for your very life, are you going to keep the sword sheathed on your side? Or are you going to start swinging it immediately?
If you want to live, you’re going to do it right away.
And, like I said in my last post (above), WORDS are our greatest weapon against Limiting Beliefs.
So, I “Flip the Script” with Better Words:
1. A Limiting Belief is just a thought.
2. I can stop each Limiting Belief from turning into more.
3. When I feel better, I do better.
4. My mind is just driven by fear right now. It’s trying to protect me with this thought. It’s trying to keep me safe.
5. My mind’s not wrong, it’s just misguided. It’s following a past pattern (a neural pathway of thoughts) that’s just not helpful. It’s a pattern of thinking I just have to break.
6. My mind loves me. I just need to give it better directions and better instructions by using Better Words.
7. You’ve overcome other Limiting Beliefs. You can overcome this one, too.
8. I do NOT need to be perfect.
9. I’m a Beginner who’s learning and that’s okay.
10. can get better at this.
11. When I grow, I can help others, too.
I wrote these Better Words and read them a few times, then went to bed.
What do you think? Do any of them resonate with you?
2) DO.
Pay particular attention to the word here. It’s DO.
It’s NOT “think.”
It’s just “do.”
There’s no more Thinking now. When we DO, we stop Thinking.
And that’s precisely what I did the next morning. I woke up at 5, like I usually do, to write. But I felt totally different. And because I’ve made THINK-DO-BE a daily part of the VICTUS Method I use to manage my life, I was able to stop Thinking and just DO it: writing. The Limiting Belief wasn’t whispering anymore, and I just relaxed into my routine.
To write.
I wrote a sentence. Then a paragraph. One after another, and I found myself feeling more and more inspired.
I started to write with so much energy, I barely noticed I hadn’t had my morning coffee and, if you knew anything about me, you’d know that’s an insane thing to say!
My energy soared through the roof. What once felt constricting, now felt expansive. The tightness in my shoulders was gone. And I felt jitters in my stomach, but it wasn’t fear or anxiety. It was excitement. It was the thrill of leaving that Limiting Belief behind.
And, most importantly, it was real.
3) BE.
Proof is in the experience. Not mine. YOURS. Because YOU are the Expert when it comes to what works for you.
So it’s critical to see precisely what’s happening inside of you. That requires mindfulness and the willingness to ask yourself what happened.
How did I banish my Limiting Belief?
Not by accepting the Limiting Belief. I didn’t think I was going to be perfect. In fact, I rejected that option outright.
I also didn’t trick my mind into thinking fake, positive thoughts, either. I used Better Words that were realistic, and those Better Words prompted me to DO, to take Better Action.
But, most importantly, it reinforced the neural circuitry for the Empowering Belief I’ve entrained in my brain and body to not only believe, but experience, time and time again:
All thoughts can pass and fade, even Limiting Beliefs!
Bad emotions will pass! And I can steer my mind in the direction I want. I just have to apply the same methodology to every Limiting Belief. It’s how I tell it, “Shush! Take a seat in the corner, ’cause I’m not letting you gain any momentum. I refuse to let you morph into a nasty Wraith.”
So, what’s next?
Repetition.
To truly BE, to truly become the person I want to BE, I have to repeat, repeat, and repeat. Because this won’t be the last time I hear that whisper, trying to grow louder, in my ear.
That’s why, moving forward, each and every time I post, I’m going to press that “Publish” button and see it as a rep, a step in the right direction.
And, I hope, by sharing what I’ve been going through, that you can see: You can do it, too. No matter what your Limiting Beliefs are. You just have to THINK. DO. BE.
Join me.
Together, we can train our eyes upward.
We can summit the Mountain of our Dreams.
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