Perfectionism Hurts Your Fitness Goals
Did you know that perfectionism can hurt your fitness goals? While it may seem surprising, trying to be too perfect can actually derail your goals.
In this blog, we will discuss four reasons why perfectionism can prevent you from succeeding at your fitness and health goals.
Perfectionism ruins your self-confidence
Maybe you believe that if you don’t work-out or eat perfectly, you have failed at your attempts. If you are like most perfectionists, these feelings will spiral and you could begin to identify as a failure too.
Once you start this pattern of negative self-talk, you begin to lose confidence in yourself.
You’ve let a simple mistake or setback hold power over you.
In contrast, being more forgiving of yourself can help you develop more confidence. You see failures as temporary and know the sum of all your actions is more important than one small slip up.
Perfectionism Wastes Time
Trying to attack your fitness goals with perfection can waste a lot of time and mental energy.
When you agonize over your mistakes, you waste time and prevent yourself from moving forward. You also waste a lot of mental and physical energy.
Perfectionism is the Enemy of Action
Perfectionism makes you afraid to start anything because you fear making a mistake or facing an uncertain outcome.
So instead you put off any trying because you fear making a mistake. Weeks and months go by, and while friends and family are getting great results applying good enough effort, you get no results because you are waiting till you have the perfect plan to get started.
Keep in mind that imperfect action is often the path to success. Any action is often better than no action and it puts you ahead of 90 percent of people.
Even if you do things imperfectly or with less than outstanding enthusiasm all the time, consistent action will always beat perfect intention.
Perfectionism Encourages You to Avoid Mistakes
Perfectionism encourages you to avoid mistakes. However, making mistakes proves you are learning and operating outside of your comfort zone. You often need to make mistakes to learn and grow and eventually reach success.
Research also suggests that when you struggle to learn a skill or specific movement, you are more likely to remember that technique and commit it to muscle memory than if it came effortlessly.
In his bestseller The Talent Code, author Dan Coyle writes that while most believe that learning comes easily to the “super-talented”, you learn, grow, and ultimately succeed more when you operate on the edges of your ability, struggle, and make mistakes along the way.
You will not always do everything right on the first try. Commit to learning even if you make a few mistakes or take longer than those around you to learn specific exercises or build good habits. Eventually, it will become second nature.
Final Thoughts
Perfectionism actually hinders your results and prevents you from reaching your goals. The good news is that a more forgiving attitude towards your goals can actually help you achieve more success.
