Growth Mindset: Recalibrating my Mind

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-pet-imagery-tells-us-about-social-anxiety-disorder-4104157

This week I chose an article called Recalibrating the Perfectionist Mind for growth mindset. I struggle with perfectionism for as long as I can remember. I used to believe that it was simply how I functioned and that I actually required an environment of high stress as a driving force to succeed to my standards. Now that I've matured some since then and have been exposed to extreme cases of poor mental states that I realized my mindset could actually be sabotaging my efforts. 

Dr. Nair points out that perfectionism goes hand-in-hand with performance anxiety, which is interesting because it made me reflect on all the early signs of performance anxiety I had. As young as three years old I've been a dancer. I performed often in many styles including ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, and modern. Then as young as four years old, I started playing piano and performed often at recitals. I was also a tennis player starting in middle school through graduation, playing and/or placing in countless tournaments. I developed perfectionism due to performance anxiety through multiple outlets. In dance, we train all year for one annual production. The last thing a dancer wants is to freeze on stage with hundreds of people's eyes fixed on you, especially if you're doing a solo. Same thing for piano, you're flying solo on stage and just one wrong key or stall will ring loudly in the music hall. With tennis there is no exception either. I was a singles player, so every return I make is being carefully watched by coaches, families, and other players. All of the hobbies I enjoyed in life are epitomes of being in the spotlight heat. One error and I shut down as everyone is free to scrutinize and dissect as they please. 

This performance issue carries out most definitely in my school work as well, but I firmly believe this form of perfectionism has been embedded by the school system's standards instead of my own. I came to this conclusion last year after having a conversation with a chemical engineering professor that I admire to the nines. I entered his office with great fear of my future. I was in fear because all through grade school I had made exemplary grades without hardly trying at all and now I was facing my first threat of failing classes I struggled with in college. Dr. Nollert told me I could not continue pursuing engineering if I feared failing, because the geniuses of our past did not succeed by avoiding failure. He explained that I have instilled fear thanks to the school system of standardized grading. Students are conditioned to strive for being rewarded on being correct instead of learning. Being correct and learning are not equal. In response, I asked him how I could stray away from the desire of achieving the grade especially with the circumstance of being held back for 8 months if I so much as fail one class, meaning I'm losing time and money. He only responded with, "It could be worse. And if your priorities for time and money trump your love for learning, then maybe that's when you should reconsider what you're doing."

I believe I've wasted a lot of energy by having the wrong mindset of things I thought I enjoyed. I remember with each hobby that I nearly saw it as a chore I dreaded to do simply because I just wanted to be correct every time. I would be notorious in procrastinating despite being a perfectionist, just because I wanted to delay facing the task. But I also wonder if I'm afraid to make error not out of embarrassment to fail but rather missing out on the exhilarating feeling I get when I do succeed. So I ask myself, to what extent is a perfectionist mindset healthy or not?