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How Pursuing 'Excellence' Can Sabotage Your Success | Ep. #24
54 Plays4 years ago
Excellence in and of itself is a good thing, but it can do harm when you subconsciously misapply it to your life. You have to ask yourself a few important questions when it comes to excellence to prevent it from becoming the very thing holding you back from achieving the very thing you're pursuing.
Show Notes:
Ways we use excellence in unhealthy ways:
- Cover up a subconscious expectation of performing for love.
- Build a measuring stick into your life that you can never measure up to.
- Cultivate a shame-based relationship with yourself and others.
- Set an unrealistic expectation of perfectionism.
- Use it to manage your fear of rejection.
- Drives a wedge between two people in a relationship.
URL's
Host: JoshCearbaugh.com
Podcast: MultifacetedMasculinity.com
12 Week Course: Jumpstartyourlife.com
Free 15 Minute Consultation: Click Here
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Transcript
Exploring Masculinity Beyond Stereotypes
00:00:00
Speaker
Men, we are not simple, chest-thumping, rock-smashing, fire-starting barbarians. We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared, yet brave. We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving. We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
The Pursuit of Unattainable Excellence
00:00:29
Speaker
Today's topic is one that far too many men struggle with. Most of us are trapped in this pursuit of something that quite honestly we can never attain. And I am the first one to say that I am guilty as charged. And we're gonna be diving into some of the things that I have found have been really unproductive and quite frankly unhealthy
00:00:56
Speaker
connected to excellence or my perception of excellence.
00:01:03
Speaker
As always, if you have not subscribed, stop what you're doing right now and hit the subscribe button. And also, if you found any one of these episodes impactful or beneficial, do me a favor and leave a review and tell me how this has actually helped you. My heart is to really empower people to understand what healthy masculinity is.
00:01:26
Speaker
And the number one way you can help with that, spread the word, is to leave that feedback. It helps all of the podcast algorithms as well as helps fuel me and encourage me to keep moving forward with this.
Personal Impacts of Striving for Excellence
00:01:40
Speaker
So let's go ahead and dive into the ways that excellence can actually inhibit your ability to achieve success.
00:02:02
Speaker
Today's topic is one that I'm unfortunately all too familiar with. I intimately know the downsides of excellence. And why you might ask? Well, because I have struggled with using excellence as a really great sounding reason for me to either do something or not do something.
00:02:26
Speaker
when in reality it's just masquerading for my need to perform for love or my fear of not being accepted or embraced by someone or something or my excuse for not launching something. And we're going to get into all of those as well as a few other things that you can fall into when it comes to the downside of excellence.
00:02:51
Speaker
I don't have anything wrong with excellence. I think it's great to pursue and to have as a core value. The problem is a lot of us use excellence to cover up certain things. And the first one is that whole part of you that feels the need to perform for love. Now, what do I mean by performing for love?
00:03:18
Speaker
essentially not just being yourself, being afraid of being imperfect, of being yourself. And so you apply this standard of excellence, this measuring stick that you can never actually measure up to, to constantly chase and try to improve who you are in order to be accepted. If you have found acceptance from someone, you feel that you need to pursue excellence in order to maintain that relationship.
00:03:46
Speaker
Essentially, you use excellence as a means of managing your fear of rejection. Meaning, if I'm imperfect, if I don't perform for that love or that acceptance, then I will all of a sudden be all alone. I will feel pain. I won't be accepted. I'll be rejected.
00:04:08
Speaker
All of that starts to play out internally.
Authenticity vs. Performance
00:04:10
Speaker
And so you create this alter ego, this false sense of who you are for the sake of, quote, pursuing excellence. You have to be willing to accept the fact that we're all imperfect, that none of us have everything altogether all the time. The true you, the essence of you, the authentic you, that is imperfect. It's beautifully imperfect, but it's imperfect.
00:04:37
Speaker
And so if you try to apply excellence to that in a distorted way and put the standard of perfection on yourself, you are literally going to drain your energy. You're gonna drain your creative energy. You're gonna drain your overall internal bandwidth. And it's because you're not being true to who you are. You're putting on this facade.
00:05:04
Speaker
In essence, you're hiding behind excellence. And you're going to find your strength and your creativity in finding those who are willing to accept your imperfections, who are willing to, yes, champion you on, yes, challenge you, yes, call you higher, but not do that with the expectation that you're going to be perfect.
A Marine Corps Story of Self-Expectation
00:05:29
Speaker
Excellence can trap you into a shame-based relationship with yourself. Let me give you a great example from my own life. I was in the Marine Corps back in from 2000 to 2004 and part of that process I became an E4, a corporal.
00:05:46
Speaker
And they have what's called a corporals course. It's not mandatory, but it's really good to go to. You learn certain leadership skills. You are challenged in certain ways because you're trusted with more responsibility as a direct result of your rank. And so my unit sent me to corporals course. And my goal was, you know what? I'm going to get the top 10% of my class. I'm going to bring that back to my unit with pride.
00:06:14
Speaker
And I'll never forget when they were calling out everyone's overall score as in the order that they graduated in. And I got the top 12%. I was essentially out of the entire group. I landed at the 88th percentile.
00:06:32
Speaker
And I literally came back to my unit feeling ashamed and embarrassed. They didn't even tell me to get the top 10%. I told myself that. And the driver of that internally was, yes, 100%. I want to make myself proud. I want to make my unit proud. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But the deeper layer of that was,
00:06:53
Speaker
If I do good enough, if I achieve quote-unquote excellence, then I will find acceptance and affirmation and encouragement from my unit. I bled that into everything that I did throughout my life.
00:07:10
Speaker
I was married for almost 12 years and what did I do? I essentially found someone, I attracted someone that carried that same expectation of me to be excellent. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
00:07:28
Speaker
My ex-wife, she expected the best out of me. But the way that I took that was performance-based. The way that I applied that to our marriage and to our relationship was, I have to constantly do better. I have to be more. I have to give more. I have to achieve more in order to find that acceptance and find that love within our relationship.
00:07:56
Speaker
And because it was something that was deeply rooted in who I was, this whole thing of chasing excellence within my marriage, or really chasing acceptance within my marriage, masquerading as excellence, it was something I could never achieve.
00:08:16
Speaker
because it was something that was actually unresolved in me. I hadn't learned how to remove the unhealthy aspects of excellence and learn how to be okay with my own imperfections, to learn how to accept my shortcomings, and to learn how to celebrate my strengths.
Perfectionism and Its Paralyzing Effects
00:08:35
Speaker
Now, how does all of this connect to success? How can excellence actually rob you from success? Well, a lot of times when you have that standard of perfection that looks like excellence, what it does is it requires you to get it right the first time, which just so you know, it's impossible.
00:08:56
Speaker
It is impossible for you to get something right the first time you're doing it, especially if it's something new. And so one of a few things can happen within that. One, it paralyzes your ability to launch. You're trapped in this whole cycle of either researching or refining or tweaking the website or tweaking the product or you're essentially in beta mode.
00:09:20
Speaker
and you never really get out of that because you're quote-unquote pursuing excellence when really what it is is you're pursuing perfectionism which is impossible to achieve and so you sabotage your ability to launch in the first place.
00:09:37
Speaker
Now this is not a knock on my own podcast, but if I go back and I look at or listen to my first few episodes, I almost feel embarrassed about either the sound quality or what I said. If I often look back on websites at the time, I'm thinking, oh, that looks great. And then looking back on it, I'm going,
00:09:57
Speaker
Oh, gosh. And that's not in the sense of bashing myself. My point is the only way for you to actually launch something is to understand that there's a difference between excellence and perfectionism. I love one of the mottos of Facebook, which is move fast and break things.
00:10:15
Speaker
Now you can apply that in a lot of different ways in an unhealthy way but the principle of it is for them to launch things without it being perfect and essentially find areas that need improving and you can only do that when you launch in the first place.
00:10:34
Speaker
You actually arrive at excellence by launching something that is not excellent, but it is there. It is your definition of what excellence looks like in that moment, and you refine it. You improve upon it. You essentially grow what it is that you launch into something that is excellent. If you think about a baby being born,
00:11:00
Speaker
It's beautiful. It's amazing. Life in and of itself is such a miracle, but they're not excellent at anything except for sleeping and pooping and burping, right? But they grow into, an individual grows into excellence in what they do. And another way that it really sabotages you is it prevents you from celebrating your own achievements.
00:11:26
Speaker
Like I said, as far as my example with the Marine Corps, I came back to my unit feeling ashamed rather than celebrating the fact that I did really well. I got in the top 88 percentile of the entire group, which was a very large group of NCOs that were being trained.
00:11:48
Speaker
Another great example, which is just crazy to think about now, is when I launched my course, Jumpstart Your Life, a few years ago, I had set a target of $25,000 in pre-sales. So before the course ever even launched.
00:12:03
Speaker
And there were some people that were helping me that had launched successful platforms before and really had an established brand as far as public speaking and courses are concerned. And I remember setting that goal for myself and they were kind of like, I mean, I think it's great to want that, but let's be realistic, you know, at the same time. And what happened was I made $10,000.
00:12:32
Speaker
I launched the presales, the course wasn't even completed in the sense of all of the content recorded.
00:12:39
Speaker
And all of a sudden I had $10,000 in orders and I had two things happen. One was it forced me to actually follow through and complete the course and launch it because I had said that it was going to be available on a certain date. So I put that pressure on myself to launch it, whether it was perfect or not. But then at the same time, I was disappointed by only making $10,000 in pre-sales instead of 25,000.
00:13:09
Speaker
And I'll never forget the look on the couple's face that was helping me because by this time they had launched six figure income courses, et cetera. And they looked at me and basically said, Josh, when I launched my first course, I made $600.
00:13:27
Speaker
And that was success at the time, but I was so caught up in, oh, well, I need to do everything with excellence. And because that was applied to my life and this standard that I couldn't achieve was applied to my life.
00:13:44
Speaker
even something that you would want to celebrate. Instead, you're not celebrating yourself. You're not celebrating the growth along the way and it just takes the wind out of your sails. Internally, it makes it seem like everything that you do is going uphill because it's never good enough. And when it's never good enough,
00:14:07
Speaker
And what you're doing is going back to what I said earlier in the sense of sucking that creativity or that life out of who you are, the good that you can offer people. It's not available because you have learned how to crack the whip on your own back.
00:14:27
Speaker
and set that standard that's not achievable and call it excellence when really all it is, is a really good sounding word for you to emotionally abuse yourself and to chase a standard that you will never achieve.
Impact of Unrealistic Standards on Relationships
00:14:43
Speaker
I mean, let's talk about dating or relationships with women.
00:14:49
Speaker
Now, obviously all of us who go on a date the first time you're doing your hair, your makeup, well, I guess you're not doing your makeup if you're a guy, but you're doing your hair and you're getting around, you're picking out your nice clothes and you're putting that best foot forward. There's nothing wrong with that.
00:15:05
Speaker
But when you have this standard of excellence applied to everything, what it can do is it can apply this false perception of who you actually are in that relationship. So I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but you go on one date or two dates or five dates and then you've been dating for a few months and all of a sudden that relationship starts to spiral. Now there's a ton of reasons why that could happen.
00:15:33
Speaker
But on your side of things, if you're someone who says that excellence is one of your standards that you apply to yourself and to the relationship, well, then what you've done is you haven't put your honest self forward into the relationship. You've put that facade of who you should be that you've applied to yourself into that relationship.
00:15:56
Speaker
And that's not sustainable. So when the parts of you that you don't want others to see begins to show up in that relationship, then essentially you begin to shame yourself and the woman responds to that, feeds off of that, reacts to that. And so ultimately you just sabotage your way right out of a relationship.
00:16:19
Speaker
So then that way you can find another woman to pursue, to put that best foot forward, to have that standard of excellence, to have it all crumbling down all over again. And you're trapped in that cycle. I mean, in general, all of a sudden, excellence becomes more important than the relationship itself. You could apply that to dating. You could apply that to marriage.
00:16:40
Speaker
You know, most people that are married, they call it the honeymoon phase for a reason. You're in love. You're excited. It's something new. It's something fresh. And that is a beautiful thing. But when you try to apply excellence to your marriage, as in we are going to do everything right all the time.
00:17:01
Speaker
then all of a sudden you're applying a standard to your own marriage that isn't sustainable. And it creates this pressure in the relationship where she feels like she can't be herself, where she can't let her guard down, where she can't invite you into the areas of her heart that she's longing to find healthy masculinity to help. And instead she feels the obligation to not be true to herself.
00:17:31
Speaker
and to put that front up for her to be accepted. And like I said, it's not sustainable. Sooner or later, the truth begins to show up in every relationship if you're in it long enough.
Redefining True Excellence
00:17:43
Speaker
We're talking about the internal world that you have for yourself. Well, there's also an environment that you cultivate around you
00:17:55
Speaker
And so if you're someone that is known for excellence, well, more than likely, if it's unhealthy, your kids aren't allowed to be able to make messes or they feel like they have to walk on eggshells around you.
00:18:09
Speaker
Because if they say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, then you withdraw your love or they find punishment. And essentially you're cultivating an environment where they have to perform for love. They have to be excellent. I love a sign that my oldest son, he made. I framed it and put it upstairs and it says, don't mind the mess. We're just making memories.
00:18:34
Speaker
And I think that's a beautiful representation for what it looks like to let the relationship be a priority over your need for excellence in everything. If you have the perfect home that's clean all the time and there's a mess that's not allowed to be made, or if there is one, it has to be cleaned up immediately.
00:18:54
Speaker
Well, what you're doing is you're cultivating an environment that is performance for love rather than excellence in all that you do. Obviously, it's not healthy to live like a pig and you want to teach your kids standards. I'm not saying to throw that out the window, but what I am saying is don't let the word excellence be the excuse that you give to yourself as to why you don't let your children be childlike.
00:19:22
Speaker
I mean, it happened in my own relationship with my kids. I had chores and to-do lists and all these things that they needed to do. Really what it was is I was not okay with myself internally. I was always chasing this standard. I was feeling like I needed to perform. So what did I do? I essentially put that standard onto my kids. Now that's only one aspect of our relationship.
00:19:47
Speaker
We cultivate honesty and showing your emotions, etc. But I've had to apologize. I've had to let messes be present. And you know what? They're not quite as high stakes when I'm willing to accept my own imperfections, when I'm willing to give myself grace, when I'm willing to let the reality of excellence be present.
00:20:13
Speaker
rather than the distorted version of excellence, which is really nothing more than perfection and performance. Excellence in and of itself is good, but performance and perfectionism, those are not so good. So I challenge you to be willing to pursue excellence while understanding that you'll never be perfect in that pursuit.