The Perfect System for Success (& Exhaustion)

I’ve had what most people would call success throughout my academic and professional career. I’m driven and ambitious. It’s a part of me that’s both nature and nurture from my Thai-Chinese tiger mom. One of my coaches, Rich Litvin, introduced me to this tool of creating The Perfect System — it’s a tongue-in-cheek, playful reminder that when I push for success at all costs, it leads to exhaustion and burnout.

I’m sharing the six aspects of my Perfect System to Success + Exhaustion. All the examples are real ones from my life. This isn’t my reality right now, yet it is all-too-familiar. And I continue to fall into the same traps. I recommend that you do not follow all these aspects.

1. Book my calendar from 8am to 8pm

I thrive by interacting with people. I work with fascinating parters to brainstorm and co-create new things into the world. I serve my clients to become better leaders and to lead more fulfilling lives. I am busy all the time, and it makes me feel important, especially when my calendar is double- or triple-booked. When I am extra-busy, I pull out the three reserve superpowers:

Wake up earlier to get more done
Go back to work late at night after my kids go to bed
Work on Sunday afternoons & nights to get a head-start to the week

When someone stops to talk to me, or ask me how I am, I’m often too busy to even reply. And when I reply, it’s quite clear that I’m wielding my badge of “I’m good, I’m soooo busy!” as a measure of my importance.

2. Say YES to everything

I am interested in so many things. I have to keep exploring all my creative and most fascinating passions. Keep diverging and brainstorming and creating more ideas. Follow the thrill of the next new shiny object.

Co-create a workshop with a long-admired hero? YES

Teach workshops for a non-profit who’s cause I passionately believe in? YES

Speak about applying the design process to leadership to many former colleagues at tech companies? YES

Take on a 4 hour drive east to try skydiving for the first time? YES

Add the beautiful Artist’s Way to my packed schedule because I need more self-reflection? YES

Raise my hand first, even though I’m not sure what I’m volunteering for? YES

Decide to work with my fourth coach, because three was not enough? YES

Go to London to help a new design client create & launch their media strategy? YES (as long as you let me bring my 6-week old baby)

Keep going. Keep saying Yes. Keep adding more things to my plate because I can handle it all.

Hat tip to one of my heros, Shonda Rhimes, with no disrespect to her Year of Yes.

3. Focus on my mistakes to FIX ME

In my last corporate job, as I sat for my performance review, I impatiently squirmed and nodded through the excruciating 5 minutes of compliments, what I did well, how I inspired the team, how I impacted the company, blah blah blah… until we get to the good juicy stuff— the opportunities for growth. Now we’re talking. I lean forward. I dig in. I engage. I listen to the feedback and eagerly ask questions to understand my peers’ perspectives and immediately put an action plan into place. I will be better. I will learn and grow. I will work on my weaknesses. I will eliminate all of them and FIX ME.

I am a broken human being. Once I eliminate all my mistakes, then I must become perfect. Right?

4. Don’t stop

Both my daughters play soccer. One of them, like many of her female teammates, is social and collaborative. Her team is great at passing the ball to each other and at defense, coming together as as team to protect the reluctant goalie. What her coach says to almost all the girls when they’re playing offense and coming up to make shots on goal is: “Don’t stop!” The watching crew of over-zealous parents yells out in a chorus of encouragement and frustration: “Don’t stop! Keep going. Keep running. You can do it. Don’t stop!” We want our girls to do more, be more, keep going, keep taking shots on goal, keep running closer to the other goal before shooting, and just to keep going no matter what. I don’t care that my daughter has a headache, or a cramp, or that it’s insanely hot out for a San Francisco native, just Don’t Stop.

I work with a personal trainer. I keep striving to break my PR (personal record) for squats or bench all the time. I hate easy days of many slow reps of a lighter weight. I hate coming back after a vacation and seeing the strength I’ve lost. I need and crave more PRs. Don’t stop.

If you keep going, you can have it all. Persevere through the pain. The hardship and pain is simply part of the process. Don’t stop.

5. I am superwoman

I can do it all. I don’t need help from anyone. And if I need help, I’ll pay for the help so it’s a transaction. I outsource my grocery shopping, my cleaning, my yard-work, my childcare so that I can focus on the things that make me super. I don’t need help in having it all. Best marriage. Best friend, always there when anyone needs support. Best leader. Best designer. Best parent. Best organizer. Best coach. I can do it all, all at the max speed, going full hell for leather. To be the best at everything. I am superwoman. I won’t ask for help.

6. Eliminate the distractions

There’s no room for distractions and frivolity in my life. Don’t read that fiction novel, what’s there to learn in a made-up story? Instead, pick up the non-fiction and learn how to be a better negotiator or learn about Elizabeth Warren’s leadership. Don’t flip through that People magazine or that teen romance my daughter’s trying to share with me. Don’t surf. How could I waste a prime two hours of creative time first thing in the morning? Don’t bake. If I have time, cook and make more practical & healthy meals, rather than wasting a day with a pretty & throw-away rainbow layer cake.

Bottom-Line

All six of these steps are mistakes and false traps of success that I’ve fallen into. Every time I follow an external definition of success, I push myself beyond measure. These drivers & feelings are oh-so-familiar to me, honed from decades of living.

This is not intended to make you feel bad, as a comparison that there’s so much more you could be doing. Naming this Perfect System and sketching it, is a tool to remind me to slow down and relax. Speeding up is in my nature. And I need to remind myself to add practices and habits that don’t feel so natural. When I do slow down is when I’m the most fulfilled, but those stories are for other articles. What’s your Perfect System for your biggest demon? It could be your relationship with money, with trusting others, with asking for help, or perhaps, like mine, it’s a flavor of success & exhaustion.

I continue to remind myself, and will likely do so for the rest of my life:

Slow down to speed up

Thank you to one of my coaches, Rich Litvin, for introducing me to this wonderful tool of The Perfect System and to the mantra of Slow Down to Speed Up

Tutti TaygerlyMay 22, 2020