Stop BEATING Yourself Up, Make BIG Changes, & Achieve Your Goals | Tom Bilyeu

welcome to another episode of impact theory today we're going to be talking all about how to think about imperfections [Music] let's get into it because this is an important topic that you guys are all going to want to master and by the end of this video you are going to have mastered dealing with your imperfections here we go how do you stop beating yourself up for the things you had to neglect in order to be good at something else all right here's how we do it one perfectionism isn't going to be the thing that serves you what you want to do is focus on what goal are you trying to attain and then what's it going to take to get to that goal 99 times out of 100 when you're doing something let's say at 80 perfect you get the result you get the vast majority of the accolades or the success metrics all of it can be got without having to go all the way to that last 20 and that last 20 is when you can drive yourself absolutely insane so you want to be really thoughtful about what standard you're holding yourself to because if all you're thinking is man it's all the way or it is nothing then what you have to admit is your goal is perfection your goal isn't the thing you're trying to accomplish right the goal isn't to be a better parent or a better spouse or better at your job the goal as you are behaving is perfection now if when you say yes my goal is perfection it's not the thing that i'm doing it's it is being perfect so if i'm going to brush my teeth i'm going to brush my teeth perfectly wonderful then at least you're being honest and just know that by trying to be that perfect you're going to far narrow the scope of things that you can do in a way that you wouldn't have to at least not as much if you were say i'm just after this goal by this date and i may have to win ugly but i'm going to get there now that attitude gives you a lot more freedom you can get in there you can throw punches you can get muddy but as long as you get to the end and you get across the line and you get that victory and that was what it was about then things get a lot more interesting a you're not going to be paralyzed by perfectionism b you're valuing yourself for achieving that thing going through it fighting through the mud crawling making mistakes all of that but you got there in the end and then the big thing in all of this is priority order and this is where people really struggle you have to be willing to put things in order now this is where people struggle because they feel a tremendous sense of guilt that they have to do all of those things as their number one priority let me break that for you you cannot have multiple number one priorities you can't do it so i'll give you my life how i go my marriage is my number one priority my business is number two and my family is number three that's the reality now i'm sure as my family members it's not lovely to think that you're in third place but my thing is i'm trying to spend when i spend time with them i'm spending quality time i am focused on them i am a hundred percent there not trying to be perfect but i'm completely engaged and by being completely engaged they don't feel like they're in position three because i've allocated that time to be with them and i'm not trying to work at the same time that i'm with them when i'm with them i'm with them and that's that but in terms of making sure that things are done in order they're in that order so if cleaning house is really important to you but it's your fourth priority then it's going to suffer and then the question becomes why would you beat yourself up for doing things in the right order so you know that there is a finite amount of time you know that if these are the five things you want to accomplish you only have 100 of your time you're going to allocate a certain percentage of your time to each of those then what you're saying is this will get the results that the percentage of time that i've allocated to it allows it to get and just being really comfortable so i don't beat myself up over that because i know it's physics i am up against physics i cannot slow time down so the reality is that i'm only going to be able to get so much done now of course i can work to become more efficient and all of that stuff and i do but at the end of the day i realize that either holding myself to this ridiculously high expectation of perfectionism actually reduces the number of things that i can get done because that final 20 ends up taking more time and energy than the 80 that got the result anyway so looping around that instead of saying cool i'm going to get there i might have to win ugly but i'm going to get there and then putting things in order so that i know yep the thing at the bottom belongs at the bottom for a reason and it is not going to get the time and attention that the other things are going to get because that's how ordering things works so you have to be fearless when it comes to putting things in order but oddly enough really really a lot of people get tripped up with that don't let that be you own it own what matters to you in order write it down and stick to it if you do that and then you don't need every little thing to be perfect you can make some crazy progress in the things that matter most other things will fall by the wayside it is what it is all right next any tips on how to embrace my drive to accomplish things with a high degree of quality while also being able to be content with what i actually get done all right so you you're setting your expectations too high you're triggering this sense of inadequacy in yourself so i will tell you that kicking yourself in the ass is super powerful but my rule is i never do anything that diminishes my sense of self why because it actually makes you less effective and effectiveness at moving towards my goal is the barometer by which i judge whether something was a success or not and if i have made a decision and it moves me away from my goals because it's making me feel badly about myself because i've set a standard that's too high i'm nitpicking myself to death now i'm getting worse that's moving me away from my goal and so i'm not going to do that i don't allow that in my life i don't allow it in my life i do not allow myself to do things that diminish my sense of self and move me backwards so when i feel it happening i'm like hey even if it's true even if i am the biggest loser that ever walked this earth reinforcing that in myself will make me capable of less therefore i don't do it i have a bright line in my life that says i only do and believe that which moves me towards my goals so we're just going to recognize as we set these expectations that it doesn't make sense to do anything that diminishes ourselves so we're not going to set expectations that are so high that we know that we are bound to fail or to set high expectations i love that reach for the farthest star in the world but don't value yourself for whether or not you achieve it value yourself for the sincere pursuit meaning you really showed up you really tried to get to that far star to achieve some insane goal it was not rhetoric you really showed up you got in there you bled for this thing but the whole time you're valuing yourself you're cheering yourself on because you're really trying you're the man in the arena covered in blood sweat and dirt you might be getting your ass handed to you but you're trying and if you're trying then you should be rewarding yourself and if you're rewarding yourself then you should feel better about it which makes you more likely to get back in the ring and fight and if that is the thing that leads you towards your goals which of course it is then we know that we are going to do and believe in that thing because now we're in the arena we're fighting our behaviors line up with our desire to achieve that goal so don't worry about whether or not you actually ever get there because let me tell you success cannot be guaranteed struggle can you will struggle i cannot guarantee that you will be successful but the juice is never going to be the success it's never going to be the accolades just as there is no feast so grand that you will never be hungry again there is no accomplishment so profound that it won't be fleeting no matter how big no matter how much money you make it will never be quote unquote enough because you're playing a game of neurochemistry and your neurochemistry is designed to no matter how big your meal was last time to get you back out hunting again it's just how it works all desire is like that it's cyclical it'll feel awesome for a minute for a day for a week maybe a month but let me tell you you're going to want to get back out there you're going to want to hunt you're going to want to accomplish again so don't value yourself for that this is how people end up making a billion dollars only to feel as lost and empty as ever you have a hole inside of you that can only be filled with progress meaning and purpose it can't be filled with accomplishment irony of ironies but that's the way an evolutionarily derived mind works you have to be pushed to go on the journey over and over and over and over and over and over and over satiety satisfaction contentment or anathema to nature to survival so of course you're never going to be able to sit in that you're going to keep going again and again and again and again so embrace that drive accomplish huge things if you can but only value yourself for the sincere pursuit at what point does holding yourself to a high standard crossover into an unhealthy pursuit of perfection like we were talking about in the last answer the second it diminishes your sense of self you are doing something wrong ask yourself why do i care about being perfect have you ever stopped to ask yourself that why do you care about being perfect i think a lot of times the reasons that people care about being perfect is the job that they're doing never feels right it never feels good enough there's anxiety they don't believe that they are worthy even in failure and so if you don't believe that you're worthy even in failure then you're going to keep working on something in something in something and something and something something until you're like it just can't be any better it is now perfect now i can give it to the world you're never going to feel like that because the desire for perfectionism is really fear that you're not good enough in failure and so if you're not good enough in failure you're going to be compelled to try to get it to absolute perfection so there was nothing left that you could have done and quite frankly i think that when people say perfection what they really mean is that point at which it is so good that i am worthy that it will be received well and that all of that work isn't really about perfectionism it's about the fear of being rejected and your hopes that you can make something so good that either you feel confident that if i put it out now and the world hates it i'm okay because it's that good but in reality i think that most people are doing it because they don't feel worthy they don't believe that they are worthy especially not in failure and so to actually release this thing and put it out into the world is to face what feels like an existential threat of rejection that you aren't good enough that you'll never be good enough that you're not worthy you will never be worthy and that is why people chase perfection so let go with that and instead be all about the pursuit be about working on that thing that project that piece of art that whatever see how far you can push it in a given time and then put it out see how the world reacts and if they hate it why'd they hate it learn about it do you just need to get better was that not the right audience but instead of thinking that oh my god i'm not worthy if this isn't accepted and embraced and celebrated which is paralyzing just know that when you put it out into the world you're going to get a data point about whether that audience liked that thing at that moment none of that means that you lack worth what is that my friends i am very excited to announce that impact theory's major web 3 project codenamed the avatar project is almost here as most of you know for the past year we've been focused on building the future of this company in web 3. if you've already joined us as a founder's key holder you know exactly what i'm talking about we have so many different reveals for the project coming up guys including the real name glimpses of the characters the world and more so invite you to join me in my discord channel for more information and frequent competitions and challenges when you click the link on the screen you can accept that invite and once you verify that you're not a robot with or without any knowledge of web3 you'll instantly be a part of the most empowering community i've ever put together and will make sure to keep you up to date with upcoming news about avatar get ready to level up click the link and join me in the discord until then be legendary take care peace how do i go about determining a standard how much is good enough i have optimized my sleep diet and working methods i need an answer to improve my efficiency and for peace of mind okay this isn't about efficiency i don't even think it's about peace of mind the way you go about setting a standard is what's the lowest bar that you need to hit in order to get to your goal i mean that's really the question now if your goal is i want to be proud and i want to feel like it represents the absolute pinnacle of what i'm capable of today okay i can actually get behind striving to do that as long as it stays positive my goal isn't for this to sell for a million dollars my goal isn't for this to be echoed in the annals of history my goal is to create something that represents the pinnacle of what i'm capable of right now today i can get behind that if that's your goal get after it if it is a project at work okay what do we need to do in order to get the result that we want who's our customer right who are we trying to impress what do we have to do to win people over again going back to that idea of 80 20. a lot of times 80 of the effort gets you where you need to go and going the extra 20 is really just wasted time because there's no sort of additional benefit like you got the job you sold the product you did whatever now it doesn't mean aim low but it does mean that if the job gets done at eight units of energy you're better off applying the extra two units of energy to something else instead of again going back to that fear of rejection nitpicking trying to make it perfect unless again your goal is how can i express what i'm capable of right now in this moment but even then it's got to be right now in this moment you can't beat yourself up and oh my god this isn't what i wanted it to be it represents the best you can do right now like if you've really given yourself over to it and you've really tried again rewarding yourself for the sincere pursuit so you're rewarding yourself for the sincere pursuit and the end product represents the best of what you're capable at right now now if you want to be an olympian and go on and get even better amazing but remember it's the pursuit of the championship performance that's interesting it isn't winning a championship so getting in there producing art by the pound as they call it there's a very famous um anecdote it's not quite a study but there was an art teacher who had their students do either one piece of art they worked on it the whole semester turn it in for a grade or you can get graded on the pounds of art that you produce over the semester so every piece could be trash but if you have a lot of pounds then you will get a good grade cool one piece done really well or art by the pound now what the teacher has found is that the best piece of art the best piece of art every semester semester after semester year after year comes out of the art by the pound group why because they weren't worried about being perfect and they actually got good at art they were taking things to that 80 stage learning the lessons that they needed to learn going another 20 isn't going to teach them more about that piece certainly not enough to warrant the amount of time it's what's called diminishing returns maybe they would have learned a little bit more by going the extra 20 of the way but they're not learning enough to warrant the amount of time and so by just getting in there and producing and producing and producing creating learning pushing trying new things you broaden your skill set you get a little braver you're more courageous you're taking chances because you know you can always do another one now in that you're awash with all these 80 pieces where you're learning all of this stuff and you just inevitably beat the person that spent all their time trying to perfect one piece art by the pound the medical should always be to get better so once you get to the point where you've learned the lessons that you need to do aha you had that aha moment it's on to the next one turn it in on to the next one aim to have a perfect career which is full of failure embarrassment and just rich with hard-won skill that's perfection we're chasing how do you find a boundary between constructive and deconstructive self-criticism what are mental red flags or checkpoints we can use to catch ourselves when our motives are perfection over improvement okay so we have to really anchor in on this idea of is what i'm saying to myself diminishing myself now again if you're giving a little bit of self-criticism some punishment to get yourself moving to take things more seriously that can be incredibly beneficial but if you're ever spending more than 20 percent of your time criticizing yourself then you're taking the darkness which can be very powerful very useful and you're letting it become corrosive once it becomes corrosive it's no longer useful so we have to understand there's tremendous power in the dark side but that it's a corrosive power and that if you use it too much it will destroy the only thing in life that actually matters which is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself now giving yourself a little bit of a gut check smack to the face kick in the ass however you want to think about it because you know you could have tried harder you know you are capable of more i get that like on days where i fail to get out of bed in 10 minutes or less i don't feel good about that feel bad about that i don't want to feel good about that but i also don't curl up in a ball and cry for the rest of the day it's like alright you failed that sucks that does not it's not who you are it was a failing you shouldn't feel good about this but the idea is to do better next time to put a little more effort into that day to make sure that that bad start actually puts me in a better place because now i'm hyper vigilant really coming into this paying attention and if you come into your life paying attention with that vigilance knowing i'm going to face that mistake i understand why i did it i was feeling lazy or whatever own it don't try to run from it don't hide it and say cool i'm going to do better for the rest of the day and also figure out why why am i not feeling excited what is it that's lacking that made it hard for me to do that to get out of bed whatever and as you stare nakedly at your inadequacies you own your mistakes you don't blame anybody else you just retain your power by recognizing that if you do something different you can get a different result and now by making that different decision we're able to adjust our outcomes and that at the end of the day is the goal you want to retain that control so that you can adjust the outcomes now in terms of the mental red flags to know when your motives are spilling over into an improve into perfectionism instead of improvement is are you feeling insecure because if you're feeling insecure about that piece and that's the thing that's pushing you to want to work on it more and more and more then you need to let go because what you're holding on to is the outcome you're holding on to what other people are going to think you're not trying to learn you're not trying to get better right so the idea of improvement is we've got to try we've got to get in there we've got to be fearless we've got to be bold we've got to try things we've got to really systematically set an intention and say i'm going to try this thing today now if you're trying something new odds are that it's going to suck but you've got to be looking at what is it that went wrong here now if you get hyped up not when you get it perfect not when somebody comes in the room it's like oh my god that's amazing but instead when you understand why it wasn't working before and now you can fix it there's this great video on the internet of a guy learning a skateboard trick it's insane you watch him fall over and over and over it looks so painful but you hear him keep talking to himself oh i need to i'm turning too fast or i'm doing the kick too early or whatever and then by the end he keeps refining it and keeps talking to himself and all the while you could be like yo this guy's embarrassing himself man this really looks like it hurts because it's like him falling 30 times 40 times and then he finally gets it but if he had been like you're a loser you're never going to figure this out then he really wouldn't figure it out because that belief is going to change his behaviors but instead you can just tell he knows he's going to have to suffer he knows that he's going to embarrass himself he knows that this looks ugly he knows he looks stupid but he knows on the other side of that process of focusing relentlessly on learning that he'll actually learn he will develop the skill he will improve it's what i call the only belief that matters when you believe that if i do this thing and practice it i'm actually going to get better and then i will have a new skill and that skill will have utility when you believe that then you actually take the actions that you need to make that a reality and that's what this guy was doing so that's the mental red flag can you feel yourself being insecure or can you feel yourself being obsessed over figuring out what am i doing wrong because when your obsession flips from how do i look what are other people going to think am i ever going to get this right and instead it goes to what am i missing what am i doing wrong there's something i'm doing something wrong and this is figure outable i can solve this problem when you get into that mode then you really do solve the problem and you really do come out way ahead that's how you do it that is how you deal with imperfection getting better at something not being beholden to your insecurities so guys this is about learning growing and getting better and that requires you to do a lot of embarrassing difficult painful things over and over and over but if you're not worried about what other people think you weren't worried about being a perfectionist you're just worried about learning the lesson go forth and learn the lesson speaking of things that will help you learn the lesson if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care peace