Hello, dear friend,
As the elder of the two kids in my family, I have always been the responsible one whenever my parents were away. I was responsible for protecting my brother, making sure that he ate on time and stayed safe, and, as he grew older, that he did his homework. When we traveled to see our grandparents or had school trips, I was responsible for managing the little amount of money our parents gave us, calculating for each day how much we could spend. This responsibility came with a combination of skills. The first one was discipline, very important in my family. We were always told that one first does what they have to do, then they may do what they want to do. This included house chores, homework, and preparing for school. As time passed by, the list of things I needed to do increased, leaving little to no time for the list of things I wanted to do.
The second aspect that followed in my youth was perfectionism. Doing my best and being responsible was appreciated if tasks were completed at a high standard. As I was a kid who took on many adult responsibilities, there was always room for improvement. Initially, I was curious to find out what could have been improved. For homework, it was easy. The school teacher marked clearly what was not correct and the way to find the correct answer. At home, there was a different story.
In my memory (which does not coincide with my parents’) I proudly completed a task to gain my parents’ appreciation only to receive more suggestions for improvement. It was disappointing, but I was not aware of my feelings so I focused on applying their input. I rarely remember having received a “bravo” for something I considered far above my age or abilities. I wish I could write a childhood story about playing and joy, but that was not my reality.
As a child who did not prioritize playing, I transformed into a serious and responsible adult. I concentrated on what I knew best, and that did not include the concept of having fun. Perfectionism and setting ambitious goals helped me grow, especially in business. Understanding how we could improve the ways of working and be more productive was always a priority for my team. In the supply chain business, there are infinite procedures that can be put in place and optimized for better results. Organizing the warehouse, labeling, and shipping are all activities where discipline and perfectionism help to be more cost efficient. As an adult and professional, these two abilities improved my life. But only to an extent.
I eventually realized that too much perfectionism leads to a lack of balance. On top of that, perfectionism kills joy most of the time. No matter how good the result is, the energy and the attention consistently goes to achieving a better result. Even when the result is great, the celebration of the victory is very short. With this mindset, I reached everything I set my mind to. I grew a retail business, I was accepted at INSEAD, and I built a building from scratch without previous experience.
I had to firstly master discipline and perfectionism to allow myself to make a change. The change started with an introspective question: what was I lacking in my life? The answer came fast: playfulness and joy. I wish I could say that I realized early in my adult life I needed to make room for some play, but again that was not the case. To address the emptiness I felt, I started to weave more activities into my life that brought me joy and created more opportunities to play. What helped was the fact that I was at a point in my professional life where results didn’t mean everything anymore. I valued the overall process instead of reaching an ultimate goal, such as personal meaning and quality time with dear ones
To make a change more present in my life, every year, I set some intentions that I want to focus on in order to live my life more meaningfully. Intentions are not strict goals, but more like guiding ideas. One of the reminders for my intentions this year is: it’s a game, I will play it again.
This helps me detach from the results, no matter how things turn out. Over time, I realized that with both discipline and perfectionism, sometimes I reach my targets and sometimes I don’t. These two abilities I developed for more than 30 years are not a warranty that things will work the way I want them to. I remember how sad and even guilty I felt when I faced some big failures, like an important exam and later a business I worked hard to start. I initially blamed my performance and did my best to improve it. But no matter how much improvement there was, the derailment from the wanted results still existed.
This reminder also helps me look at life from a perspective of playing as a constant source of joy. It is true that most of the games are not the games I missed during my childhood, but rather very serious ones related to business, investments, or life decisions. I also have to admit that I combine my experience with discipline and sometimes perfectionism with other abilities to make the most of this game. Discipline itself is the one that helps me change behaviors, when they are not on the right track, right?
How do you realize when some of your behaviors bring you both results and challenges?
And how do you bring more playfulness into your life?