Dear Perfectionists, what would you do if you couldn't fail?

How to make bold moves and take risks as a perfectionist: 

I'll start this with one simple question: what would you do if you couldn't fail?

What would you do if tomorrow morning, you could forget about financial stability, success and failure, external opinion, internal opinion - what would you spend your day doing?

Would it be learning to play the piano? Completing an artistic masterpiece? Starting a blog? Writing a book? Learning a language? Aiming for that promotion? 

Now, this isn't rhetorical, I want you to have at least one really concrete thing in your mind.

I mean it....don't keep reading until you have something.

Got it?

You sure?

Now - what if I told you failure is something that only exists in your brain?

I could sit here, from my makeshift desk (aka my bed) and copy and paste a bunch of 'failure' quotes from Pinterest, but the point is, the only way to learn how insignificant failure is, is to put yourself in a situation in which you believe you are going to fail. 

Once you've done it, and maybe it wasn't exactly finished with a cherry on top, but you made it out of the end of the tunnel and you can look over your shoulder back at that tunnel and be proud of the journey you've taken. Because nobody else is going to put you down as much as you put yourself down. 

This whole post was inspired by Danielle Krysa's Your Inner Critic is a Big Jerk book, which I devoured in an afternoon the minute I finished listening to her podcast session with Tiffany Han. I implore you all to read it, it's pure brilliance and easily the most inspiring book I've read this year. So before I get on to using my own brain to create actual original content.. here are 3 points from Krysa's book that I loved:

1. Giving your inner critic a name separates it from yourself and allows you to depersonalise the criticism - Krysa talks about calling hers Arlo and tells him to zip it on days when he gets a bit carried away.

2. Sharing your 'failures' with other people gives you the ability to find the humour in them - saying it out loud stops it bubbling inside of you and becoming a much bigger deal than it actually is. Take a step back and let someone else take a look at it.

3. Criticism of your work is not criticism of you - if you do work in a field where you are open to criticism, have the confidence to step away from it and say actually that doesn't represent me and my life in anyway shape or form, and if X doesn't like it, that doesn't mean X doesn't like me.

I want to leave you with a few more ideas to consider:

- being scared of something doesn't mean you aren't capable of doing it, it means it's just slightly out of reach of your comfort zone, and the only way to expand your comfort zone is to push its boundaries - feel the fear and do it anyway! (see more on that here)

- imagine if fear wasn't in the picture - think of the most fearless person you know and think about all the things they accomplish by not giving a damn.

- play the worst case scenario game - make a list, mentally or physically if you like with real pen and paper: make your scary task the title, and underneath, write every bad thing that could happen. You'll see that nothing that awful is really going to happen, and if you do manage to get a few things on the paper, come up with a solution for each of them (which doesn't involve the word 'quit') and you'll have created your very own backup plan.

- bold moves don't have to come in giant packages - bold moves can be trying out a new cafe even though it might make worse coffee than your regular; taking a more scenic route home from work even though you might get a little lost; wearing an outfit that you've been stashing away because you might not be able to walk as quickly in you cute chunky boots. Don't let the small things haunt you, and don't put yourself down if they're your biggest achievement of the day.

- stop waiting - think about your scary opportunity as the last slice of pizza at a party: maybe you're worried that if you eat that piece of pizza, you'll be so full that you won't be able to walk home; or if you take it and bite into it, it might be filled with chilli sauce and you're not really the biggest fan of chilli; or if you eat the slice, you might realise that it's been left there because it's actually been made with pepperoni that had mould growing on it. But if you leave the piece of pizza, somebody else is going to take it. And there'll be no possibility of you taking the pizza. The only way you'll find out if you can manage that extra slice, cope with the chilli sauce, or stomach the mouldy pepperoni, is if you clutch it whilst the plate is still on the table and shove it in your gob. Carpe that pizza.

Forget about being perfect and creating the best out of everything - do whatever you feel like doing and see that everything holds beauty and worth, even when it doesn't appear top dollar.

So leave a comment, put it out there on the interwebs for all the world to see: what would you do if you couldn't fail?

photo: Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid