Whether learned or caught or simply occurring within, there is a tendency for many perfectionists to get caught up in unhealthy competitive behavior. Healthy competition can move us to perform at a higher level. Two horses running neck and neck will spur each other on to their maximum ability. A great definition of healthy competition is that it motivates us to perform to the best of our ability. That is the focus, not necessarily the winning. There is even a humility inherent in this approach. You could win, and yet still feel humbled knowing that you didn’t give your all. Healthy competition focuses on process.
What causes this drive to want to win? Is it fear, insecurity? Or just a lust for power and control?
In healthy competition, winning as an athletic outcome is much less important than performing to your potential. Instead, athletes should be encouraged to focus on the process of the performance and doing their best.
Consider this quote from Dr. Alan Goldberg, sports performance consultant:
“Coaches who coach the outcome and over-stress the importance of winning actually set their players up to fail. If you truly want your athletes to emerge victorious, then winning should be the last thing that you talk about with your team. This is the paradox of winning and competition. The more you focus on winning, or beating a particular opponent, the less chance you have to actually win, and the less you focus on winning, the more likely you are to be victorious!
Another aspect of healthy competition is the novel concept that the opponent is not an enemy that you need to “hate, kill, and destroy!” If you want your athletes to really excel at crunch time then you must teach them, instead to view the competition as a “partner.”
If you look up the word “compete” in the dictionary, you’ll discover that it means to “strive or seek together.” In the true sense of the word, competition is a quest that is jointly undertaken by each competitor. “Opponents seek together” in the contest, helping each other raise the level of their individual performances. The better and more challenging your opponent, the more opportunity you have to take your performance to the next level.
This is probably why you see so many world records are broken at the Olympics every four years. You have the best athletes in the world “seeking together” and pushing each other to new heights. In this sense your opponent is truly your partner.” –Competitive Advantage, (www.competitivedge.com)
The real issue with perfectionists comes back to the issue of foundations: what drove a person to perfectionism in the first place? Was it due to an overbearing authority figure or respected mentor who required an unhealthy and unholy preoccupation with performance? Or is it an inner struggle from some place deep within, or both? No matter the source, it must be decimated and a new foundation take its place.
The foundation is love. The foundation is healthy love of self! The foundation is concern for others. The person who is full of love is always ready to pour it out to others.
Oftentimes, we forget how to love ourselves properly. There are many messages in the culture that emphasize taking care of oneself, you owe it to yourself, indulge, and so on, but that is not love. “Do to others as you’d have them do to you” is the only approach that works.
I find it ironic that the Apostle Paul writes of “running the race to win” and “beating his body to make it his slave” and commentary to the effect of “so that I may win the crown of life.” Having been raised with a view to the unhealthy side of competition that focused not on bravery or what to do when one fails, or how to inspire courage, the truth is that there was likely a low view of self in operation that prevented the proper foundational breadth on which to stand and find oneself capable of sturdiness and substance in the midst of the fray. It would seem logical that if one loves oneself properly, it follows that there is an atmosphere of forgiveness and patience and tenacity and all the things required to be able to not only win, but to fail, and when failing, to be able to get up again unscathed by a momentary setback. A setback is all about perception. A setback can bring about a necessary kind of regrouping in which to expand one’s vision, recognize that the depth of learning or skillset needs to increase, or that more healthy self-worth needs to be the end result of what may well be a season away from performing one’s passion. Times set aside can bring about a new place of health and willingness to learn and to grow that may not have been possible before the setback. Like baseball players swinging their bats in the bat cage, it is a time to practice what already knows in order to refine and to actually move beyond a previously preconceived or predetermined place of growth to something exponentially beyond. And once again, what matters is the safe and healthy passage from one stage to the next naturally comes with time and the evolving of circumstances to heal awareness from past mistakes and to govern new ventures coming forth with a shrewd eye to what is next because of what was garnered by the time spent “setback.” It can be a season of growing in patience, and we know that patience produces perseverance, and character, hope and hope does not disappoint us. What if the chief disappointment we experience in a perceived loss is not actually the loss, but the revealing of the undeveloped part of our being that does not yet have enough character established in order to maintain the level of success that may well be ahead, but that is not yet able to come to rest until that proper foundation is created.
The heart of collaboration is triune wisdom at work. It sees the self, it sees the other, and it sees that what can be accomplished in consort is greater than what one can accomplish alone.
Perhaps the tendency to not want to collaborate, to be a solo artist stems from an intrinsic insecurity which prevents the individual from entering in to what could be, so far beyond any creative illusion, the actual recreation of the self into what could never exist sitting somewhere up high on a shelf out of view, away from the sights and sounds of humanity that can trick one into thinking that life is better lived away from the dust and dearth of incompleted humanity stumbling about in an attempt to find meaning from meaningless things.
Having time set aside in which to create and to be free from one’s one humanity for a time to be enveloped by the greater world, the living context of things that are outside oneself is essential in order to get a foothold in one’s own creative atmosphere and practice.
But to have the wherewithal to be able to collaborate brings in the possibility of change not one one’s own terms, but on the terms of the group, whether two or more. It is interesting that scripture says “where two or more are gathered, there He is in their midst.” There is something extremely specialized and effective when the people of God get together and co-create. It is more than just interesting and fun, it is spiritually dynamic and capable of bringing about great things.
By no means do I want to suggest that there is not a place for the individual artist to express themselves singularly. It is crucial to be able to do so in order to have an appreciation for what others go through and experience. It is a reminder of being a created being as much as it is of being a creator: from the fire of inspiration to the struggle to express the inexpressible.
The sense that what is possible is elusive when banding together with other like-minded creatives is entirely common. We do not know how things happen as they should, the way things coalesce that never could have been planned, and yet that fit together in a way impossible to have predicted, much less recreate. The only certainty is that if it happened once, it can happen again.
Forming things in the quiet place is at times essential. And while the length of gestational time is different for each of us, the essential pattern is the same. What is required is time for ideas to meld, to flow together, to knit, to form a unified whole. It is not always possible to know in advance what it will take to complete a given project, but the ongoing discovery along the way can be an impetus for forward movement.
Trust is the bedrock essential for collaboration. There has got to be a baseline of respect and some level of commonality among fellow creatives in order for the melding of times and lives to occur as it can and should. For the true collaborator, the desire for the end result to be the best it can be is what motivates the creator more than anything else.
It can be daunting setting out with the ambition to create something of worth and to stick to it when the going gets difficult. But when collaborating, the members of a given group can encourage and spur one another on as needed. But the great gift of collaboration, more than anything, is that its end goal is not to exalt one person over another, or one group, but rather, to showcase what people can do when unified. There is no room for gloating or pride or ownership, but instead, a glowing, a joy, a freedom at being able to make a difference not because of one’s own powers, but because there has been an opportunity to walk in true unity.
When we consider the trinity, it is hard to imagine that exact relationship between three and one. It is a bit of a conundrum, and as such, we only have hints and suggestions to go on. While the manifestation of each is unique, the root is common and the manifestations interchangeable.
What the solo egoist can’t abide is feeling made to feel less-than. But what the collaborator understands is the necessary kinship and solidarity between all parties, and the unspeakable joy that when together, more can be accomplished than when alone. What makes the indelible imprint is not the individual signature, but the beauty and glory released through the majestic intertwining of different parts. It is an architecture binding soul, mind and spirit and there is no replacement as an individual for it.
Certainly, people love to applaud the solo artist or individual who single-handedly produces something special and worthy. It has its place, and the intent of this is to not undermine personal expression. But unfortunately, most solo artists neglect to point out all the sources and individuals, and most of all, their Creator as all necessary elements in making their work pure and true. The solo artist who can humbly acknowledge all the different resources that made their one true expression possible is moving in a place of understanding and confidence. The artist who can only feel accomplished when taking all the credit may be insecure and feeling the need to be affirmed, going back to some childhood lack of feeling safe and confident in their creative abilities.
One reason some people balk at collaboration is perhaps due to the accountability aspect: not wanting any interruption to creative process. But there can be other issues. There is no need for ego when the strength of multiple others is part of the equation. What each person brings to the table is more than enough in consort with the others. The sum is great because of the whole of the parts.