when I first learned that the theme for
a whole TEDx endeavor was footprints my
mind skipped straight over the whole
metaphorical meaning of that I went
straight to the literal one and what I
mean by that is when you run you quite
literally make footprints in the ground
whether it’s your spikes digging holes
in the mud in a cross-country race or
you’re simply running on the pavement
and you step into the puddle and your
remaining steps are marked in the ground
you make footprints but I’ll get back to
that later
first I did just want to address that
although most TED Talks utilize some
sort of study or research or
quantitative information I don’t have
any of that for you guys today but what
I do have is a story and that’s okay
because as brené Brown has said a story
is just data with a soul so today I have
a little bit of data with a lot of soul
so my story gets started back when I was
a freshman these summer before my first
year of high school I was a tiny little
thing
I was 411 on like five foot like I am
right now so just absolutely small and I
was just obsessed or infatuated with
this goal that I had that I was going to
run at the Nike cross Nationals cross
country championship in Portland Oregon
which only 200 girls a year qualify for
easy goal right and so this is a picture
of me at Nationals that year that’s
right it’s just the course because I
wasn’t there and now that you know the
end to my stellar freshman cross-country
season we’re gonna go back to the
beginning so little freshmen me believed
that a goal without a plan was a dream
that’s a sham and so the way I was going
to approach my extremely attainable goal
was to run myself right into the ground
and run myself into the ground I did
every morning that summer I would wake
up and I would picture myself at Nike
cross Nationals and I would go to
practice and run as hard as I could and
maybe even go home and run some more in
fact there was this two point five six
mile loop that we would run every Friday
and every Friday I would go home and run
the remaining point four four miles by
myself on the treadmill because no one
that ends up at Nike cross Nationals
leaves their runs at such unrounded
numbers that is just absurd and I was
conditioned to think this way and act
this way through posts I saw on
Instagram or draping the walls of
running stores or in the podcast that I
would listen to for two hours on Sundays
while biking even though I was not
supposed to be doing things like that
things such as perfect practice makes
perfect
hard work beats talent when Talent fails
to work hard pain is temporary but
victory is forever wishes don’t win
races you’re not going to get the but
you want by sitting on it and to top it
all off if you’re not going to be the
best at something then don’t do it at
all
hashtag Monday motivation we all know
people who post things like this on
Facebook and my very first cross-country
race I learned that although wishes
indeed do not win races um neither does
wasting all of your energy on the start
line crying because you’re so nervous
needless to say I had an awful day I was
tired nervous anxious overtrained
like really overtrained and I still felt
this insane possibility that I would run
at Nationals that year and um every week
before my race I would tell myself that
this was going to be the day and after
every race I would learn that it was in
fact not my day and every Saturday at
about 10 a.m. I would look a little
something like that definitely tears
they’re Yanks and at the end of that
first cross-country season my goals of
running at nationals were unfeasible
I could barely do our workouts anymore
and even that easy 2.5 6 mile loop in
which I would still go home and run the
extra point for 4 miles by myself was
treacherous to even think about jogging
a terrible season by any explanation all
caused by this extraneous internal
pressure I put on myself to be the best
at something to be perfect at something
and so the next season I was a sophomore
I was 5 feet tall at this time um I had
stopped caring if I was a good runner I
figured I had hit the bottom the year
before and there would be no chance at
Nationals ever which is still kind of
true but with that season I didn’t go
home and run the extra point for 4 miles
after running the loop I didn’t absorb
the running store posters that afflicted
my good judgment and to put it quite
simply I stopped caring if I was a good
runner because why should I care if I
wasn’t going to be the best at something
but without all of the pressure or
pursuit of perfection I had an amazing
season not Nationals caliber but I
placed at some races and I didn’t cry
before races and I didn’t start to dread
Fridays unlike every other high schooler
in the country because I was so nervous
to race the next day and most
importantly I had a lot of fun my
Saturday’s at 10:00 a.m. went from
looking like this to looking like this
smiling sometimes at the medal and I had
fun after like a normal person like you
can see here with our event manager
Kirsten though I don’t really know what
we were doing um my exploration from
being on the pursuit of perfection to
completely turning around my mentality
to being kind of decent at something
that I loved can all be summed up and
this one quote that I found one night
from John Steinbeck and now that you
don’t have to be perfect you can be good
and in hindsight I wonder what if that
quote now that you don’t have to be
perfect you can be good was Jay
the walls of running stores are on
Instagram would I have gone to Nationals
my freshman year or at least not cried
before every race running in high school
didn’t lead me to where I thought it
would I ran away from self-inflicted
stress and pressure and toward learning
to love myself and celebrate myself so
everyone in this audience knows a
self-proclaimed perfectionist or is a
self-proclaimed perfectionist but what I
don’t think most people realize is that
perfectionism is just a euphemism for a
mental trap it is evident in so many
mental disorders anxiety OCD eating
disorders and it is also evident in so
many normal aspects of life the adult
who will work 14-hour days just to
satisfy their boss but will sacrifice
family dinners at the table or the
student who will get into MIT but not
Stanford will feel dumb or the author
who has written 17 books but hasn’t even
tried to publish one due to fear of
rejection or the artist who keeps
painting the same painting over and over
but just gets tired and stops making art
or the playwright whose play will never
come to fruition onstage because their
play is never right ok so now you may be
wondering how do I just stop being a
perfectionist do I just throw in the
towel or give up or aim for something
lower than I know that I can do and the
answer is no you don’t do any of that
breaking free from perfectionism isn’t
about being perfect at not being perfect
breaking free from perfectionism isn’t
about mediocrity or ceasing to work hard
I still work really hard to be a great
runner but the difference is I’m not
scared that I won’t be good enough there
is this really thick gray area between
being perfect and
giving up and while the gray area is a
kind of awkward place to navigate
through it’s really rewarding the gray
area is about recognizing little
successes here and there and using that
as motivation to keep going it’s about
recognizing that once you recognize your
little successes it all kind of
culminates and someone really big
success it’s about maybe failing at
reaching a big goal but still having the
courage to resolve it’s about realizing
that even if you’re not the brightest
super star in the sky you’re still a
light it’s about not bringing out not
giving up it’s about finding new paths
and it’s about having a little bit of
fun along the way and in the end we
don’t look up to perfectionist
we don’t look up to people who will
degrade themselves or spend all of their
time complaining us someone that we want
to be because most of the time we don’t
even know that perfectionism is the
cause of their anxious behavior instead
we look up to people who embrace
themselves and their imperfections we
look up to people who are a little bit
quirky or weird because that’s what
makes us human and we weren’t born to be
perfect we were born to be ourselves and
if you recognize yourself in my story
today I hope you can use this talk as
your sign hanging up in the running
store replacing whatever own mantras are
idealizations that you may have with the
idea that being perfect is what’s
stopping you from being good and instead
of finding the perfect symbolic metaphor
or ending or pun to end my talk today I
figured that just stopping here was good
enough thank you [Applause]