Understanding Mistakes and Perfectionism

Heeyyyyy gaels, this is Emily.

Today is about mistakes. The way we respond to them. And the line between caring about the game and using mistakes to beat ourselves up.

A lot of players are praised for being “perfectionists”. It gets framed as a virtue. As proof that you care, that you’re committed. The research tells a different story.

Two kinds of perfectionism

The work of Flett and Hewitt (2005) and later research has shown there are two flavours of perfectionism, and they have very different effects.

Adaptive perfectionism is high standards. You want to do well, you care about the detail, you put the work in. This is generally helpful for performance.

Maladaptive perfectionism is high standards plus harsh self-criticism. You want to do well AND you punish yourself when you don’t. This is the version that destroys performance.

The standards aren’t the problem. The self-criticism is.

[TO FILL IN — A MISTAKE THAT STAYED WITH YOU]

A specific mistake from a game or training that you couldn’t let go of. Maybe one you still think about. What did you tell yourself? How long did it linger?

Why mistakes feel personal

When you make a mistake, your brain does two things at once.

1. It registers the error (which is useful, you can learn from it).
2. It generates a story about what the error MEANS about you.

Story 1: “I dropped that ball because the pass was too high.”

Story 2: “I dropped that ball because I’m not good enough to be on this team.”

Story 1 is information. You can use it.

Story 2 is self-attack. You can’t use it. It just sits there, doing damage.

The mistake itself is over in 2 seconds. The story can last days.

The perfectionism cycle

Here’s the loop that catches a lot of athletes:

1. Fear of failure. You walk into training already worried about making a mistake.
2. Overcontrol. You try to play perfectly to avoid the feared mistake.
3. Stress increases. Overcontrol creates tension in body and mind.
4. Performance dips. Tension causes the very mistake you were trying to avoid.
5. Self-criticism. You blame yourself harder than before.
6. Fear increases. Now you’re more afraid going into the next session.

The cycle gets tighter. You play worse, not because you’ve gotten worse, but because the system is overloaded.

What error management research says

Error management research (Frese & Keith, 2015) found something useful. Teams that explicitly TRAIN with mistakes (creating drills where errors are expected, then reset and try again) develop better resilience than teams that punish errors.

This is because the brain learns from error in two ways:

• Avoidance: “Never do that again.” Narrow, anxious, brittle.
• Mastery: “I know what doesn’t work. Now I know what to try next.” Open, exploratory, robust.

The same mistake can produce either response, depending on how it’s framed.

[TO FILL IN — A MISTAKE THAT MADE YOU BETTER]

A mistake that, in hindsight, helped you grow. Maybe one you got over quickly. What was different about how you processed it?

How this shows up in your body

Perfectionism is not just a mental thing. It shows up physically.

Muscle tension. Holding your breath in the lead-up to a free. The tight jaw before a match. The unsettled stomach driving to training. These are signs your nervous system is in a defensive posture, expecting failure.

Athletes in this state burn more energy than necessary just maintaining the tension. By the time the game arrives, part of your tank is already gone.

What you can do

The goal isn’t to lower your standards. It’s to separate the standard from the punishment.

1. Catch the verdict. When you make a mistake, notice the story your brain tries to make. “I dropped that pass” (fact) vs “I’m not good enough” (verdict).
2. Replace the verdict with a process question. “What can I do on the next ball?”
3. Notice your body. If you’re tight, your nervous system is in defence mode. One slow breath out lets you take it down a notch.
4. Reframe mistake-friendly drills. If a coach sets up a drill with high error rate, that’s not “you doing badly”. That’s the drill working.

The most important takeaway

Mistakes are not the problem. The story you tell about them is.

Players who play freely aren’t the ones who never miss. They’re the ones who stopped using missing as evidence against themselves.

If your standards stay high but your self-talk softens, performance goes up, not down. That’s the research.

Quick tools in the Mistake Reset Toolkit.

References

• Flett, G. L., & Hewitt, P. L. (2005). The perils of perfectionism in sports and exercise. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(1), 14-18.
• Frese, M., & Keith, N. (2015). Action errors, error management, and learning in organizations. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 661-687.
• Stoeber, J., & Otto, K. (2006). Positive conceptions of perfectionism: Approaches, evidence, challenges. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 295-319.
• Mosewich, A. D., Crocker, P. R. E., Kowalski, K. C., & DeLongis, A. (2013). Applying self-compassion in sport: An intervention with women athletes. Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 35(5), 514-524.

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