Tom DeLong’s HBR podcast, “The Hidden Demons of High Achievers“ resonated with me today. Two things struck me: (1) high achievers are prone to evaluating their success by comparing themselves against others, and comparison can become addictive, (2) high achievers have a desire to do things perfectly the first time they try–and not doing things perfectly is completely terrifying.
I say this like these are people “out there” that have these issues. I’ll tell you right now: I’m one of them.
I. Comparison: Competition & comparison is a blessing and a curse for me. I was born loving to compete. I wrote about it as my biggest driving force a couple of years ago, and it pushed me to achieve . Identifying the gap between my performance and someone else’s, and then working to close that gap, pushed me to become a better person. But it is dangerous, too, as Tom points out. It can push us to make decisions and live our lives only to be better than someone else, and allow us to lose sight of our real purpose and values. That’s no good. I still don’t precisely understand when, and how much competition is good–and when, and how much competition is bad. But that will be for another day.
II. Perfection: Perfection is a similar demon. Years ago, I became one of the “top 10 teen web designers in the world.” It was a big deal. I was a famous online personality. I worked really hard, had some great teachers, became obsessed with competition and perfection, and became really good at design. Two days ago (and some ten years later), after not designing anything for a really long time, I decided that I wanted to get back into design, and entered a logo competition on 99designs.com. Surely, I would be just as good as I was ten years ago, and nobody had spent the last ten years cultivating their own talent. Silly, silly me. I got a 2 star rating out of 5 for a logo that I thought was very good. Basically, I got last place. It did not feel good. It felt really bad, I didn’t like it at all, and I felt like a big, silly failure. Yuck.
So, what do I make of these two hidden demons, in context of my recent experience?
I love to create. And I got pretty good at “creating” when I actually spent time doing it. I’m realizing that, in doing anything new–or, even picking up a lost hobby–I’m going to look silly at first. I’m not going to feel good. I’m not going to be perfect. I’m going to “stumble and bumble,” as Tom puts it. But, as long as I know that I’m doing the “right” thing, that’s ok. I’m going to do the right thing, poorly. And, I might just use a dose of competition to inspire my comeback.