Sleigh the Dragon

Recently I created a new WhatsApp group. I say recently for the point of the story - it was actually 18-23 months ago but I am not sure enough to be certain. I mean I could look it up, but that would involve me opening up WhatsApp and seeing when I created the group. I know that doesn't sound lot like a lot of work but my phone is on the other side of the room. I know you can get Whatsapp on your computer but sometimes it doesn't go back as far. I honestly think if I leave it as 'Recently' it will have just as much effect as if I used the exact date.

Oh now you have me second-guessing myself...

On the 11th August 2020 (you happy now?) I created a new WhatsApp group. It was with 3 other people who I admire greatly and it was designed to see if we could help each other start a new habit. I had recently read a book about it and I was keen to try it out with some friends. I was leading the group through a 12-week program that I was making up as we went along and it included a little pep talk from myself each week to help navigate the things that would try and stop us from getting our goals. One of those pep talks was about Sleighing the Perfectionist Dragon.

I would not consider myself a perfectionist, if you have read any of my blogs you would easily agree. But the perfectionist dragon still hunts me like it's prey and gets me from time to time.  It rears it's ugly head when I am stressed and tells me that I can't do it right, that it's not good enough, and then offers a sweet sweet distraction. A youtube video, a train of thought going nowhere or something more destructive where a lot of dark thinking can take place. Then if I give in to the distraction and I try to get back on course, the Dragon throws at me that it is taking too long and I should just quit. This Dragon sucks and it is time to Sleigh it.

So here is my 3 step fool-proof plan to beat this Dragon:

1. Reset quickly. Yes you are going to get distracted and that is not the problem. You can focus all your effort on becoming superhuman and not getting distracted but this is a fool's errand. Instead, accept it is going to happen and focus on getting better and resetting more quickly.

So funny, I got a text from my wife about potentially cancelling an upcoming event we had been looking forward to and that took me on a 30 min tangent. I think I have saved the event but I was then 3 mins into a youtube video before I said 'hang on, what am I doing?'

2.  Do it badly. This has been my number one revelation that has helped me achieve most things in the last 5 years. I find it very hard to start things because I am not sure there are going to turn out ok. In fact, sometimes I am completely sure there are going to be terrible. The Dragon has got me in his grip. So I made a decision, at times like these I am going to do it badly. I am going to do the worst job in the history of the world, still to the best of my ability but it is going to be simply terrible. I am going to fail spectacularly. But this is what I have found - I am not that good at truly failing. Sure I have failed countless times before but they have all been due to giving up. When I actually try, even if i'm convinced that I will do a bad job, it always turns out better than I thought. Often it's even ok, sometimes it could be considered great. It's when I tell myself that I can fail, I often don't and I allow myself to push further than I thought I could if failure wasn't an option.

3. Don't say you have 3 steps when really you only have 2.

The common theme between my 3 steps is that we need to give ourselves a break. It's ok if we fall, we can get back up again. It's ok if we fail because at least we are moving. It's even ok if the entire time we have been writing Sleigh the Dragon instead of Slay the Dragon, which is something I did for the entire time in my WhatsApp group and no one had the heart to say anything. What we need to remember is whatever we are facing, we need to believe that if we do not give up, if we keep struggling forward, we will find joy and peace in the journey and can celebrate every step.

That was a hard one to land but I struggled through it. And if it was bad, then that is ok too.

But it was a pretty good ending, hey?