Teaching healthy self-assessment to perfectionists…
The silence was heartbreakingly long. A young student of mine had just finished playing her concerto in her lesson, and I had asked her to name one thing she loved about her playing. Silence. She looked baffled, discouraged, and on the brink of tears, even though she had just played a very beautiful first run-through of her newly learned student concerto.
More silence. I tried to gently encourage her to think of the beauty she had created and to tell me which part was her favorite. Silence. I then tried to encourage her to think about her posture and her technique and what she loved about them. Silence. Finally, she spoke, “I can’t think of one think I like about myself or my playing. I only see what I don’t like.”
My heart broke. This high-achieving student had come so far in just 1.5 years of study and practice. She connected artistically to the music and also worked so hard at home. She applied herself, was curious in and out of lessons, and truly loved the violin. Her parents and I regularly affirmed her growth and her playing. But when asked to connect that beauty and growth to the creator of the art, the source, HERSELF, there was a big disconnect. I knew then that her desire for growth and mastery was turning into perfectionism, the deadliest of poisons for a creative.
The arts can be a tricky place to balance mastery and mental health. Our art demands that we look closely at the details. We want to have integrity in every aspect of the music and technique. As teachers, we want to serve our students well by setting them up well so that they are not injured or embarrassed. These are all wonderful intentions and goals. But, if we forget to connect the student to positive voices inside their head, what they end up hearing are only the negative voices: “I am not enough. I will never be good enough. I will never sound good enough. There is always something wrong with me. I must not be as lucky as that other student. I don’t like my playing. I don’t like myself.”
I believe we can teach with integrity, ask for integrity from our students, AND help them not fall prey to the poison of perfectionism.
To help my student, we took a walk down memory lane. We reflected on the technique she had worked on to master certain portions of the concerto. We reflected on the work she had done with the tuner and the metronome to achieve confidence and ease in the fast passages. We reflected on the bow techniques that she worked on to help her bow flow across the strings with even tone production and clear precision.
She began to smile and relax. She began to connect the dots from her work to her present moment. She was then able to celebrate her process and feel joy, gratitude, and pride. With those positive feelings filling her mind and heart, she was able to answer those earlier questions with ease. She could tell me what she loved about her right-hand technique, her left-hand technique, her intonation, her expression, her confidence, etc.
In that positive and grateful energy, we then took a look at what she wanted to build on for the week ahead. She was able to tell me where she wanted to work harder and improve, but this time it was from a stronger source than perfectionism… Her plan for growth was flowing from the sources of joy and love.
As musicians, we are always growing. But HOW we grow matters.