Tag: perfectionism

Healing Through Theatre: How I Gathered the Courage to Audition for a Play After a 20-Year Hiatus

EricaLeave a comment

A few years ago, I decided that I wanted to try to do more performing. I know this may seem strange coming from an introverted librarian, but I do have a bit of a theatrical side (and definitely a dramatic side – just ask my husband!)

I naturally gravitated towards the arts as a kid.

I had always loved dressing up as a child – I would wear costumes out in public on a regular basis. My favorites were a bat costume and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

I grew up singing a cappella in church, learning how to read music and sing the alto part at a young age. And I loved to sing, whether it was church hymns or Disney princess songs, I just loved singing!

And speaking of Disney, I really wanted to be an animator for Disney when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade. I would practice drawing scenes from The Lion King when I had free time in school.

I took piano lessons for a few years and played the clarinet in junior high band.

I never took dance lessons as a kid, but I loved dancing (I mean, who doesn’t?) When I was a young teen, the popular artists of the time were Britney Spears, N’SYNC, and Backstreet Boys (shoutout to all my fellow Millennials!) I had this VHS tape called Darrin’s Dance Grooves, and I spent hours learning the You Drive Me Crazy Britney Spears dance (and had to manually rewind the tape every time I wanted to restart the dance!)

In high school, I tried out for a few plays and was part of the ensemble in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Rebecca Nurse in The Crucible.

Fast forward to my senior year of high school. I tried out for another play (I can’t remember which one) but I do remember the feelings of surprise and shame when I realized I didn’t see my name on the cast list.

Fast forward again to my freshman year of college. I was really excited about the chance to get involved in theatre and choir. I tried out for the Homecoming musical, Beauty and the Beast. For some reason all they had available were ensemble roles by the time I tried out. I remember there were a bunch of us trying out as a group, and we all had numbers pinned to our shirts. The casting directors watched us a few times and then called out the numbers they wanted to have continue on to the next round. Unfortunately, my number did not get called.

Okay, so theatre hadn’t worked out, but I still had a chance for choir. There were two main choirs, sort of like A-team and B-team choir. During my audition, the choir directors were very encouraging, and they told me I was actually very good at sight reading music. I was so confident that I would get a spot in at least one of the choirs that I almost couldn’t comprehend it when I didn’t see my name on either of the lists – I remember just staring and staring, trying to find my name, and again the terrible feeling of shame overwhelming me.

I was devastated. I don’t think I ever let on to my friends or parents how crushed I was. At that time in my life, I very much avoided outwardly showing my feelings. I was pretty good at pushing those feelings down and pretending everything was okay.

After that it felt like a switch flipped in my brain – I decided I was obviously not cut out for pursuing anything in art, theatre, or music – and so I just stopped trying. I convinced myself it was time to move on towards becoming an adult and getting a “practical” career (which at the time I decided was being a teacher – ironically that did not last very long!)

I really didn’t imagine that theatre would ever be a part of my life again… but life continues to surprise me.

Fast forward many years later, and I have a son, Calvin, who decides he wants to try dance – and it turns out, he’s actually really good at it! He does ballet and gets to perform at Abilene’s iconic Paramount Theatre. It’s a gorgeous theatre located downtown and it just celebrated it’s 95th birthday!

He’s also an amazing artist.

And when he starts taking piano lessons, it’s clear he’s pretty gifted at that too.

I was ecstatic – I could live vicariously through my kid and watch him get to live out my dreams! (A mom’s gotta dream big, right?)

I convinced Calvin to try doing musical theatre last summer (2024) with APAC. You had to be at least 8 years old to participate, and he turned 8 the DAY BEFORE the camp started – so I’m pretty sure he was the youngest participant there! The musical they performed was Shrek Jr. Every kid who signed up for the summer musical camp is guaranteed a part, but they still have auditions to see who gets what role. Calvin had auditioned for a speaking role, but didn’t get it – he ended up in the ensemble (AND as little Shrek, which wasn’t a speaking part, but was still really cool!)

I remember the day Calvin learned what role he got, he was disappointed. Despite this being his first musical theatre experience ever, and him being the youngest kid there, he felt like he had failed. I tried to explain to him that this was all part of the theatre process, and it didn’t mean he wasn’t talented, but that as he gained experience he might get more roles.

I didn’t want him to give up on something when he had so much potential. I didn’t want him to be afraid of failure or taking risks.

And then it hit me – that’s exactly what I had been doing for years. As an Enneagram 1 (aka. Perfectionist) I had avoided or quit anything whenever it was apparent I wasn’t immediately perfect at it. I had given up on theatre and singing and a pursuing a career in anything I didn’t think I would be guaranteed to succeed at (like being an animator for Disney) – because of the fear of failure.

There’s a good reason to fear failure – it hurts. A lot. Especially if you’re the type of person that sometimes ties their self-worth to their achievements.

However, I knew that modeling risk-taking, especially a willingness to fail, would be extremely important for my kid. But it meant that I had to finally face some of my own fears and hurts that I had been avoiding for so long.

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Imposter Syndrome X 3

EricaLeave a comment

I just had a live community call of librarians – it is a once a month thing for new librarians to get together and talk about their successes and struggles, and to support each other in their new careers. After hearing people share some of their failures, I spoke up on the call and told everyone that I actually felt really encouraged to hear that people were brave enough to try something they might fail at.

I personally find myself avoiding being put into situations where I feel I might fail, as if failure would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. Anyone else out there like that?

Another librarian responded to my comment, sharing a failure she had experienced during a presentation, and she mentioned the idea of Imposter syndrome. There are a lot of definitions of imposter syndrome that you can find online, but the general idea is that you believe most of your achievements are a fluke, despite evidence that you are skilled and competent. You feel you don’t deserve recognition for the things you achieve, and you continually feel pressure to prove yourself to others.

It’s like a lightbulb went off in my head – I feel like I’ve been experiencing this in my job. And the more I thought about it, the more it makes absolute sense. I got hired for my job without having the required degree listed in the job posting, or even any library experience. I’m working on my degree now, and have about 8 months of experience at this point –  but I’m kind of doing it “backwards” so to speak. There are many times I don’t know exactly how to do something, and I start to worry that maybe someone made a mistake somewhere…

At the end of the call, it was mentioned that another upcoming call is happening later this month, specifically on the topic of Imposter Syndrome. (What a coincidence!) To me, this caused more lightbulbs to go off in my head – okay, I feel like someone’s trying to get my attention.

After the call, I went downstairs for my noon shift at the research desk. There are typically many college students milling around on this floor, and as two students were walking by, I overheard one of them say to another, “Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome?” (I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING, THIS REALLY HAPPENED!) At this point, I was like, “I have got to research Imposter Syndrome!”

Is it too bold to say that God wants me to think about this today? I’m gonna say that He does – I had it mentioned to me three different times today in the span of about 30 minutes.

I found an article online that recommended a book called, “The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women: Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and how to Thrive in Spite of It.” The book identifies five types of people who may commonly suffer from Imposter Syndrome, and two of the types I immediately identified with:

  • The Perfectionist
  • The Natural Genius

It’s easy to understand why a perfectionist would have Imposter Syndrome – they set excessively high goals for themselves and if they don’t meet those goals 100%, they can feel like a failure. No matter how good they are at something, they always think about how they could be better.

The natural genius is the type of person who if they have to work hard at something, may feel like they are automatically bad at it. This is a person for whom many things have come easy, for example, maybe they always got straight A’s in school. So the minute they realize something doesn’t come naturally, they assume they should avoid it because they aren’t already good at it, and probably never will be.

I know I may get some flack for saying I connect with the natural genius one, but I really do. I never struggled in school until I got to 8th grade math, and things did not come as easily to me – I wasn’t the “best” in the class anymore. I distinctly remember just deciding that I didn’t like math because I wasn’t good at it. This happened for me later in high school Chemistry, and I even decided I shouldn’t pursue becoming a veterinarian because I wasn’t good at science. (I had always thought I might be a vet, or an artist for Disney, I loved to draw!)

So I’ve definitely got some things to think about today – the main takeaways for me are:

  1. It’s okay to not be the best at something – and it doesn’t mean that you aren’t still very good at it.
  2. It’s okay to be a work in progress and still be learning.
  3. I don’t have to avoid something just because it is a challenge – there are a lot of things I’m naturally good at, but if I avoid the things that take a bit more work, I’ll never know how good I could have been at them if I’d only tried.
  4. It’s okay to try and fail. It doesn’t make me a failure.

 

Even though it puts me out of my comfort zone, I’m going to keep trying to do things I’m not always good at. This can be something as simple as playing a board game I know I’m going to lose, because I’m not good at it. (I’ll admit, I’m the type of person who only wants to play games I can win!) Or, it can look like coming to my job every day and being brave enough to try new things, and even fail at some.

P.S. I’m also a Ravenclaw, so I obviously take a lot of pride in being “smart” and feeling like I know what I’m doing… I assume Gryffindors are more comfortable with taking chances and failure…

 

 

“Bravery, Not Perfection”

Erica1 Comment

I’ve got a lot going on in my head – so I’m going to write and see where this blog post goes. I’m leaving the title blank until I finish, because I’m really not sure what’s going to appear on the screen. Do you ever write like that?

Yesterday I went to the doctor because my eye is infected – it’s been red and puffy and gunky the last few days. Calvin has been to the doctor 4 times in the last 3-4 weeks, and has been referred to an ENT doctor, which we see next week. ‘Tis the life of a toddler, I suppose!

One of the things on my mind this past week has been the theme of bravery. For one of my online graduate classes, we watch quite a few TedTalks. One I watched has really stuck with me, called “Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection” by Reshma Saujani.

She makes some good points, and hypothesizes that our society is teaching our girls to be perfect and our boys to be brave. While I don’t always buy into gender stereotypes, I can understand this distinction. She talks about how boys grow up to be men who aren’t afraid to take risks and fail – which many times leads them to be successful, typically in the workplace environment. On the other side, girls grow up to women who were taught to value perfectionism so much, that they are afraid to try at something that might fail. They tend to play it safe, and make their choices based on what they feel certain they will succeed at.

Being a woman, and a recovering perfectionist, I can relate. And I have had conversations with other women that lead me to believe that a lot of what Saujani says is true. Many women I talk to have a lot of anxiety that they aren’t good enough, that they need to do more, that their value comes from the appearance of having it all together.

I really have felt inspired by this talk – and I’m challenging myself to be more brave in my day to day life and in the goals I set for myself. Sometimes this looks small, like for example, introducing myself to a person I don’t know (which can be a brave thing for us introverts!) Sometimes this looks more obvious, like deciding to make a career change or go back to school. People have told me that I’m brave for sharing my personal stories on this blog – funny enough, it didn’t feel “BRAVE” to share them – I think bravery looks different for each person, and what’s scary for one person might not be for another.

Who inspires you to be brave? This may sound silly, but when I have to do a task that requires a significant amount of bravery, I try to emulate Hermione. (She’s from Harry Potter for those who don’t know…) She doesn’t let the fact that she’s the only girl in her trio discourage her, but rather, she is many times the key to the missions that she, Harry and Ron embark on. She is intelligent, clever and not afraid to stand up for what she believes is right.

Emma Watson, the actress that played Hermione, is also someone that I feel is brave in real life. (You know you are getting old when you begin to look up to people who are younger than you!) I appreciate her willingness to have an opinion on issues and (just like Hermione) stand up for what she believes in. She is not afraid to try new things, and not afraid to be criticized for them. I mean, she was the lead in the live action version of Beauty and the Beast, which means she put her singing voice out there to be criticized by millions of people – talk about bravery! She seems brave enough to be herself, which is something I feel like I’m finally starting to be able to do now that I’m in my 30’s.

What does bravery look like for you? Who encourages you to be brave?