Progress Not Perfection
A Healthy Approach for Change in Counseling
A Healthy Approach for Change in Counseling
We all have goals we want to accomplish and things we would like to work toward. Change can be difficult, complex, and scary. If you struggle with creating change, you might feel frustrated and hopeless toward achieving your goal.
Change Can Be Uncomfortable
Change is uncomfortable, and it can lead to uncomfortable feelings. That feeling of discomfort often pushes people back into old habits and sabotages change. It can be complicated because you want results, but it can feel too much to tolerate, causing many people to give up.
Change can be challenging for people who experience anxiety or trauma because that uncomfortable feeling can be very triggering or alarming and cause more anxiousness and trauma responses. People with anxiety and trauma often feel like their feelings are too much to manage, so additional discomfort is too much to tolerate for long periods. That’s understandable. If this sounds like you, you might be struggling with a perfection mindset around change.
What is a Perfection Mindset?
Having a perfection mindset about change believes that lasting change in our lives needs to be perfect; we need to do things perfectly for change to be possible. For example, exercise a certain number of times per week, start a diet and not make mistakes, practice a new tool for self-care. It is expecting yourself to begin the goal, meeting 100% of it from the start to be successful.
The perfection mindset around change is a setup. It is not realistic. Change does not occur in a straight line. We cannot get from point A to point B with no setbacks or adjustments. Life isn’t perfect, and we should not require ourselves to be perfect to be successful. This all-or-nothing mindset makes people disappointed and causes many people to give up on their goals. Ever restart a diet on a first day because you ate something you weren’t supposed to? I’m sure most people have. A perfection mindset like this, increasing the chance you will put off your goal to a later date. Procrastination sabotages goals because we cannot work on goals in the future; we only have control over what we do in the present. We need to develop the mindset to help us be successful at the moment, even when we have a setback.
A Healthy Approach for Change
Change involves setbacks. When we start, our brain is rewiring itself and creating new pathways for what to do to meet our goals. This includes what to do in the case of a setback. We need to teach ourselves how to handle setbacks in a healthy way that helps us work toward our goals.
It is estimated that 95% of our daily lives are based on habits. We are on autopilot for much of the day, going about our daily activities. Setting new habits can be challenging; we need to help ourselves get comfortable with the uncomfortable feeling of creating new patterns.
What is Progress-Oriented Change?
Progress-oriented change allows for backtracking and setbacks. Progress-oriented change says setbacks are an essential part of the change process. Learning how to manage them is a needed task to meet our goal. As humans, we learn through change and setbacks. So much of society is set up as results-oriented, with grades in the education system, filled schedules, diet culture. However, it is not realistic because human change requires setbacks and trial and error.
Progress-oriented change allows you to build self-confidence and feel fulfilled through the process of change. It empowers you to start where you are and be responsive to what you need to do to help yourself reach a goal. How do you help yourself come back from setbacks? Do you stay committed and look for a solution? Or do you give up? How can you break things down into smaller chunks to help it be less of a challenge if things are too difficult?
Commitment toward goals requires being flexible and responsive to how you respond to setbacks and disappointments. It is a new habit you are creating toward committing to change and recognizing that the plan will not go perfectly. Developing self-compassion for where you are at and gaining tools and resources to help you maintain change is part of the progress mindset. Developing this mindset around change will help you be on the path of making change a process.
Counseling Can Help You Create the Change You Want in Your Life
When making a change, we all need encouragement—positive people to help us stay on track and be supportive. If you want to support making a change in your life, I am here to help through online counseling. Counseling can help you identify areas that a perfection mindset may be holding you back from lasting change. Contact me to find out more information or for scheduling.
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