Make the best of yourself and forget about everything else!

infinitelearning (63)in #steemit-austria • 7 years ago

We live in a very hectic time. In all areas of life, you are under constant pressure to perform. A good year ago I came across a simple but simple concept that I have been using ever since. This year before that, I had a small insight: it makes a huge difference whether you perfect your performance objectively or subjectively.

An objective perfectionist is so petrified in his thinking that he only measures himself against his environment, but completely forgets himself. He doesn't go the path of least resistance, he really wants his head through the wall, even though there is an open door by the way. He has lost his thinking in such a way that he no longer perceives other paths leading to the same goal. He takes himself completely out of the game and objectively speaking, he wants to be the best. I would describe this type of person as a pathological perfectionist. He does not measure his success by himself, but by his environment, so he only pays attention to his competitors.

The subjective perfectionist, on the other hand, reflects the exact opposite. He knows how to concentrate his power inside. He doesn't pay attention to his comrades-in-arms, his goal is not to become the best in the world. Because there is always something better or worse, not everyone has the same initial situation and not everyone can achieve the same physical achievement. His objective is in reality a completely different one: He aims to make himself the best in his field. He does not concentrate on the competition, he creates space for himself in which he can freely develop. It sets its goals not on objective criteria, but on subjective ones, on those that are subject to its influence.

In the following, I would like to add a practical example to illustrate this. For example, I have become accustomed to not setting a certain grade as my goal in an exam. If you look at the grades, it doesn't always depend on the students' performance, not only at my university. Often it also simply depends on the composition of the test, or on external conditions that affect you directly. The degree of difficulty of the examination and the external circumstances (e. g. relationship disputes, illness etc.) cannot be influenced. That's why I set myself the goal of mastering the material perfectly, because I can really influence that. As a result, the only thing that matters is the circumstances, i. e. often also whether there is any luck in the game.

A pleasant side-effect is also that you take all the energy out of the sails and thus act from a state of calm and calmness. If you persuade yourself just a few minutes before performance, you get the best out of yourself, the stress load is also reduced considerably. It would be different if you were to sit before the test and are desperate to write a "very good". You put yourself and your body under such pressure that a "very good" often doesn't succeed anymore.

Of course, this concept cannot only be applied to the student life, because it can also be applied to work or sport. You set yourself individual goals, because everyone starts where they start and success is a different subjective feeling for everyone. The one who's never been good at sprinting will probably set himself a time target of 8 seconds. The other one, who has convinced the athletics team since childhood, will probably only set himself the goal of 6 seconds. Nevertheless, for both of them it is one of the most beautiful things in the world to reach their goal.