FOOD FOR THOUGHT 4.04.25
“Strive for excellence, not perfection.” – Katie Ledecky
Love this quote.
And here’s why:
In Conquer the Pool, I discuss the importance of delineating between healthy perfectionism (e.g. chasing excellence) and bad perfectionism (e.g. chasing impossible standards and using overly critical self-evaluations).
There are a few key differences between the two mental approaches to swimming, but there is a big one that I think costs the “perfectionist” swimmer the most.
And that’s learning the wrong lessons when things don’t go their way.
A swimmer that is focused on excellence views workouts, races, swim meets, and main sets as a series of learning experiences.
They are constantly testing, learning, and refining along the way.
And if this sound like it would create a lot of improvement, you’d be right!
This is a type of superpower when you think about it: whether our excellence-minded swimmer has a good practice, bad practice, or the world’s best practice in the history of chlorinated swim training…
Lessons are learned. Improvement is made.
This is also true in competition.
Good race? Learned what works!
Bad race? Learned what doesn’t!
Contrast this with the perfectionist.
This swimmers sets excessively high standards and is wildly critical when they don’t meet them.
Bad practice? They are terrible, they’ll never excel, and they spiral into a series of bad practices or withdraw completely.
Good practice? Not good enough!
In both cases, the perfectionist views the grind/struggle/adversity as something personal and not as an opportunity to learn something new about how they perform well (or in this case, not well).
It’s: “I suck. I don’t deserve this. I work hard but nothing goes my way because the universe hates me.”
And not: “Bad practices happen. Next time I’ll try a different type of self-talk/warm-up/pre-practice meal and see if that affects my swimming.”
Excellence vs perfection.
We tend to view these things as outcomes…
But they are much more a means of engaging with the process of swim training and competing.
See you in the water,
Olivier Poirier-Leroy
Author of Conquer the Pool
