Archive for September, 2015
Perfectionism – fear in high heels
Friday, September 25th, 2015
“I’m not going to show anyone this piece of work until it’s absolutely ready!”
It’s a phrase I hear a lot from my creative clients. You may relate to this!
It sounds reasonable enough. You want your work to be a high standard.
But why?
Well, perhaps because you want to GUARANTEE that people will like what you do.
So there’s the catch. If you are honest, you realise that this has the whiff of the biggest enemy to creativity – PERFECTIONISM!
In h
er latest book “Big Magic”, Elizabeth Gilbert explains how women are especially prone to this phenomenon. She describes it as ‘fear in a mink coat and high heels’. I would also include ambitious men, who can hide their fear of failure or judgement underneath a veneer of striving for excellence.
It prevents us from promoting our ideas, applying for jobs or simply finishing projects. Unconsciously, we know that if we finish, then we won’t have any excuse not to share it.
I know one client who even described how he would book a deadline to finish a book, and at the same time he would plan to get the flu.
It is a huge barrier to step over perfectionism, but here are some ways that I have found can help:
- Learn to be compassionate with yourself and focus on your positives. Perfectionist thinking is focusing on what isn’t working. If you retrain your brain to scan for positive traits, you will boost your confidence and courage to share.
- Focus on ‘good enough’ rather than perfect. Perfection is impossible to achieve and will always create a barrier. Research shows that people who focus on ‘good’ tend to progress faster because they are able to share, gather feedback and move on.
- Take one small risk every day. Big risks can be foolhardy, but small risks can build up your resilience muscle. Contact the company you really want to work for make a phone call, offer to do a speech.
- Inject fun into the mix. Perfection seeking creates tension and restricts creativity. Fun allows us to relax , take more risks and access our creativity.
5. Come to my “Playful Presence’ Workshop on Friday 2nd October in London
If you fancy the ‘perfect’ 😉 arena for unleashing creativity, self expression and risk taking – I have four places left on my ‘Playful Presence’ workshop aimed at ambitious creatives who want to be bolder. I’m only running it once, so don’t miss out!
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/playful-presence-public-speaking-workshop-tickets-18345765679
It will help you to embrace your shyness, let go of perfectionism and learn to have fun talking in public.
Finally – Leave a comment!
I would love to hear your experiences of handling perfectionism and what works for you.
Please leave a comment below.
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015
Get rid of the straitjacket, embrace your shyness and learn to have fun in your public speaking!
Workshop on 2 October 2015, Conway Hall London
So – I’m launching a workshop aimed at helping people to bring more freshness and creativity into their public speaking. Here is the lowdown – click on the link at the bottom if you’d like to attend.
Workshop overview
You’d love to be more expressive, humorous and able to improvise – but when a room full of eyes are on you, you tend to revert to the restricted, less inspiring version of yourself.
Playful Presence offers a friendly space to go beyond any self-imposed limitations that make you less dynamic or creative. It will help to free up your voice and your body language so you can be spontaneous and take risks.
Through exploring the psychological role of the ‘clown’, it will challenge you to let go of perfectionism and express the full colours of your personality on stage. You will become more charismatic through your confidence to improvise and you will find fresh ways of talking about your topic.
You will learn to accept and laugh at your own idiosyncrasies. Instead of over-planning and becoming obsessed with details, learn to be present and respond to what’s happening in the room.
In allowing yourself to relax, you will become more responsive and create a deeper connection with your audience.
The workshop will be light-hearted and serious, nonsensical and insightful, comfortable and challenging and above all open new possibilities of being.
Warning – This workshop is not for the faint-hearted, it will demand a heavy dose of silliness and an equal amount of daring.
Learning outcomes:
- Transform your nerves into creative energy
- Use your physicality playfully
- Find the fun in failure and ingenious ways to recover
- Generate a buzz in the room
- Become comfortable in your awkwardness
- Be in control out of control
- Bring out your inner clown
- Fall in love with any audience
Renewed energetically, the material you are presenting will become more alive, more accessible, the transformation more magical.
Public speaking will never be quite the same again. Not for you and not for your audiences.
The hardest thing in life, but the most rewarding, is to be fully ourselves
To book a place: Click here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/playful-presence-tickets-18345765679
And do leave a comment below! I always love to hear from you.
Nicky x
