When Andrew Greene came to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, one of the 8 most prestigious in the United States, he felt a deep expectation to excel. Known for her excellence, her alumni swell the lists of high achievers in all fields.
“Ambition is something that is typically ingrained in a lot of people at those top-tier universities,” Andrew says. “Cornell is a place I absolutely love, but to say it’s not competitive would also be a half-truth.” And this expectation of excellence was not limited to academics.
Andrew felt that the pressure to be perfect also permeated many of Cornell’s clubs and societies. He longed to join one of the great musical traditions of American universities: music a capellaone that is done without instruments, using only the human voice.
In that aspect, as in many others, Cornell is so exceptional that he partly inspired the hit film “Pitch Perfect” (“Notas Perfecto” in Mexico, “Ritmo Perfecto” and “Tono Perfecto” in the rest of Latin America and “Dando La Note” in Spain). But Although he was enthusiastic about music, that did not translate into talent. “The scene a capella at Cornell it is competitive,” he says. “I knew she was never going to be part of any of these groups a capella, so I started to play with the idea of creating a different one.” And she came up with the perfect name: Mediocre Melodies or Mediocre Melodiesin Spanish.
When he mentioned it to his friends, there was great interest. He founded the club and 30 people showed up. They decided that they would convince people to support their mediocre group by telling them that they would donate all their profits to local charities, and adopted the motto “bad singers for a good cause.”
But the project met resistance. When you met someone influential in the world a capella, she scoffed at the idea, telling him that they wouldn’t make enough money to even cover expenses, much less make donations. “I came back and told the group: ‘We’re screwed‘”Andrew recalls.
However, those not-so-good singers would go on to have a great impact, not by striving for perfection, but by accepting being average. His example reminded that perfectionism has its risks, that there are potential benefits to not excelling, and that feeling comfortable being ordinary can be a source of happiness.
What’s wrong with not being so good?
“Why do we have to be exceptional to get ahead? asks Dr Thomas Curran, author of “The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough” and professor at the London School of Economics (LSE). “Why has being ‘average’ become a dirty word?” he insists.
Curran has studied a large amount of data on college students and perfectionism since 1989 and has found a 40% increase in what is called socially prescribed perfectionism. “Socially prescribed perfectionism makes us be very attentive to how we perform in relation to other people,” he explains.
Generally, we do not see perfectionism as a flaw, rather we believe that we need it to be successful. “Actually, when you look at the data,” he says, “you discover that perfectionism has absolutely no correlation with success”. In fact, it can have several disadvantages: “avoid, repress, procrastinate.”
We can be so afraid of appearing less than perfect that we don’t try. Perfectionism is not “the secret to success we often confuse it with,” Curran declares. And it doesn’t just make us inefficient. “Socially prescribed perfectionism can have profound impacts on our mental health,” says the expert. Research has shown that Perfectionism is linked to higher levels of depression, anxiety, and burnout.
That resistance to being average, which Andrew faced when he created his group a capellais also seen throughout the business world. Employers often claim that they will accept “nothing less than perfection.” of his team, or that “only the best will serve.” It sounds good on paper, but it ignores the fact that getting better at some things means making mistakes, and if we are so focused on perfection, we our mind risks losing the capacity for fun and creativity.
“If you’re obsessed with the pursuit of what you perceive to be perfection, there’s a big downside to that,” says Dr. Leonaura Rhodes, a personal mentor who originally trained in neuroscience. Perfectionists get a lot of dopamine when they perform well, but getting those dopamine spikes from one source makes it very difficult to get it from others, she explains.
Your brain will only release dopamine when you reach an exceptional level, so if you want that feel-good chemical, you need to keep improving that level. “It robs people of the ability to be present, be happy and feel at peace”, he assures. “It just becomes a constant effort.”
In contrast, when you try new things and don’t expect to be good at them, novelty can have a positive influence on brain health. “When we learn something new, our brain has this incredible ability to form neural connections and this is called neuroplasticity,” explains Rhodes.
If we just do the same things every day, we will have very little neuroplasticity, and that is not good for us, especially as we age. Spending time learning new things and doing things you won’t be the best at is a great investment in your future brain health.
Curran proposes as a strategy to address perfectionism the “radical acceptance.” “Radical acceptance is really accepting that there are limits to the things we can control,” she explains. He uses the analogy of a sailboat. On windy days, you can ride for hours. In others, you just float there. And in some, you set sail in one direction but veer off course.
As the old saying goes, it’s not the destination that matters, but the journey. “The journey means making an effort; the trip means be brave, be vulnerable, and that’s fine,” he says. Andrew Greene was brave. He did not give up his attempt to start a group a capella mediocre when met with opposition. Motivated, he organized a first concert to prove the skeptics wrong.
More than 300 people came to hear it, and when the group sang its first song, Queen’s “Fat Bottom Girls,” it was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Mediocre Melodies quickly became an institution at Cornell. Maggie Meister is the group’s first female president. For her, accepting being mediocre in her singing has been transformative: “No one tries to strive for that perfection and it is a very uplifting environment where I feel like I can be my true self.”
Focusing not on perfection but on camaraderie and fun has allowed group members to express themselves freely. They are not limited by socially prescribed perfectionism: they simply want joy. After all, the tragedy in life is not failing, the tragedy is not living..
