“Knees… Hands… Square… Pull…”
“Knees… Hands… Square… Pull…”
Basketball, like many other sports, is a repetitive game. And I completed that four-word sequence hundreds of times before practice even began.
Those were the steps to my jumpshot routine—a process I used to counter fatigue’s effect on my mechanics as I traveled “around the world.”
My goal was to hit at least 30 shots from multiple spots on the hardwood before the first whistle. And even though I rarely finished, it was a challenge I grew to appreciate over time, especially since I was such a lousy shooter when I first started to play.
But once all the failed runs piled up, the competitor in me wasn’t interested in trying to meet that challenge anymore…
I had to dominate it.
And this mindset did wonders for me at first. Instead of tossing up a few shots before practice, I made an effort to bend my knees before the catch, clutch the ball within my grasp, torque my shoulders to align with the goal, and then launch the shot with perfect back-spin rotation.
All I needed was a few summer months of this focus to transform into a reliable shooter. But soon my excellent attention to detail became something a little more…obsessive.
My whole routine had to be flawless. Everything from the rebound to the ball’s release from my fingers demanded perfect rhythm and placement. My gym partners quickly noticed that a slightly lower-than-normal pass was all it took to irritate me.
My shooting percentages dictated my emotions. I was ecstatic during hot streaks but near depressive if my shot wasn’t falling.
The confidence I developed ballooned into arrogance. And while teammates loved my newfound ability to hit from deep, the anger I stirred with my trash talk soured a few relationships.
But worst of all, I became what I never intended to be—a one-dimensional player. I focused so intently on my jumper that I neglected complementary parts of my game. And in an ironic twist, I became the shooter you only had to guard from deep, instead of the slasher who was easy to defend because he lacked a shot.
That’s what the drive for perfection does:
It gives the promise of fulfillment while only creating a different type of monster.
Excellence should always be the goal, not perfection.
Excellence requires diligence. Perfection requires obsession.
And that subtle difference is what separates greatness from madness.
It’s wise to place yourself in the best position for success, but you will never have the ability to control everything. That’s a lesson I’ve learned multiple times in the hardest of ways. So now I keep it in the back of my mind no matter what I do.
Case in point, I’ve dealt with acne for over a decade and it’s still a problem every now and then.
It restricted my confidence when I was younger and I suppressed parts of my personality because of it. For a while I stopped wearing the clothes I liked because I didn’t want any attention on my face. I even skipped a few classes back then to stay hidden.
Prescription pills, facial creams, Accutane, you name it, I got on it. I did everything to prevent classmates from seeing the “tumors” on my teenaged face.
But even after all the work I did to make my skin presentable, it’s still not completely clear. And for a while that really hurt me.
I thought I deserved perfect skin after all I had been through. And my drive for perfection turned some otherwise good days pretty dark.
My face became relatively clear after all those years of treatment, yet I was infuriated to see even the smallest bumps most people wouldn’t notice.
Soon I realized that this pursuit of perfection was hurting my social interactions more than my skin ever had. So while it was very difficult for me, I eventually trained myself to stop obsessing over it.
Yeah, I still have face-care products and I run a solid acne regimen, but it’s nothing to put on YouTube.
Truth is, I’ll probably never have the complexion you see in the commercials—and I’m okay with that now.
There just comes a time when you have to do what you can and live with the results.
Effort is all anyone can ask for. Because the majority of the population doesn’t care enough to even try.
But if you were diligent in your work and you honestly gave all that you had, there’s no reason to be ashamed.
A desire for anything beyond your best effort is perfectionism. And the need for perfection is just fear in disguise. It’s a fear of failure, and it manifests in the two ways I described:
You either become so afraid of failure that you obsess over its prevention, or you allow any chance of that failure to paralyze you.
So always remember that the process is greater than the result.
If you’re not where you need to be yet, learn from your mistakes, tweak your system, and keep a good attitude—there’s no need to stress over numbers. You’re a human, not a machine, and you will never escape failure, I guarantee it.
But when you do manage to pull out a W—despite the heartache, despite the slander, and despite the mistakes—trust me, it’ll be that much sweeter.
-Drew
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