Breaking Free with Lindsay

Episode 52 - The Performing Monkey and What It takes to Achieve Success

• Lindsay Ford • Episode 52

This idea of the performing monkey stemmed from a conversation with my daughter after her glowing report card. 

What it takes to be "successful" at school, work, in relationships, or even in life isn't always aligned with who we are. When we measure by other people's standards, we need to become the performing monkey to succeed.

This concept has resulted in a lot of inward reflection for me, and I hope it does the same for you.

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I want to share a concept with you that is shifting my viewpoint on how much I “should be” doing vs. what’s really aligned with me.

I was chatting with my daughter (she’s 10) after our parent-teacher interview about this idea of the performing monkey.

She had a glowing report card and rave reviews from her teacher. She’s the perfect little student, a delight to have in the classroom.

Now, this is what every parent typically wants to hear, but for her dad and I, we see the flip side of this. We see the stressed out child coming home from school, angry, uncooperative, not wanting to listen… because she’s held it in ALL day long at school, performing.

This is what school does, in large part. It’s obedience training. It teaches us to be a performing monkey. And my daughter has mastered the game of school.

She’s figured out how to play by the rules and win (without checking back in with herself to see if what’s being asked of her actually aligns with what she wants to do and how she wants to show up in the world.)

Now, she’s 10 and I don’t expect her to have this level of self-awareness yet.

But what I’m noticing more and more is that I’m really good at seeing patterns and trends in other people, and when I do, it’s really a mirror for what’s going on inside of me.

It’s an opportunity for me to reflect and in this case, ask myself “Where am I still acting like the performing monkey?”

When I was younger, I was exactly like my daughter. The perfect student, a delight, followed the rules, never acted out. At school :)

On top of that, I did 4 hours of gymnastics each day after school by her age (which seems absolutely insane to me now and perhaps a topic for another podcast!!). So I was really good at performing. That’s pretty much all I did.

How do I be good?
How do I win at this game? Whether it was school or gymnastics or something else… it was this idea of “figure out what to do to be perfect and do that.”

And being the performing monkey comes at a cost – it costs you yourself.

I’ll come back to this idea in a few minute but first, I want to fast forward to other areas where I’ve seen this idea of the performing monkey come up in the hopes that it’ll give you some points to reflect on.

Work was the obvious area for me – this idea of what it took to achieve success, first in my career as an employee working my way up the corporate ladder, and then later when I started my own business.

The performing monkey idea has become especially prevalent over the few years as I’ve been working on my business (something I’ve never done before) – and it’s constant balance of how much do I follow others and the “proven path” vs. how much do I lean on my own intuition and do it my way?

When I was an employee, it was easier to see. I knew I was the performing monkey. Work was like a continuation of school. Figure out how success is measured and do that.

But when I got into my own business, it was all up to me to determine what success was and how to achieve it.

But it was also done in the headspace of “I don’t know anything and must learn from others how to do this properly so I don’t re-invent the wheel.”

So it’s been this internal “battle” of what’s mine and what am I doing only because I feel like I should be doing it. Where am I still the performing monkey?

But after my conversation with my daughter, and through a beautiful embodiment dance class (which is a beautiful way to tap into yourself and Natasha explains more about it in Episode 39).

I was in a deep state of reflecting on this idea of the performing monkey and this question I heard (I think from Tony Robbins) about a decade ago: Who do I need to be to receive love from ______? (my mother, father, husband, etc.)

And I realized that I’m a performing monkey in every single relationship I’m in… and I don’t necessarily mean this in a derogatory way or degrading way.

I’m using the performing monkey term to illustrate that we show up in relationships in different ways based on our need to be loved by the other person.

And sometimes we can do this in absolutely alignment to who we are, and other times we censor ourself, play small, or even bend over backwards for the other person in order to receive love.

Now, I don’t think we can ever fully rid ourself of this performing monkey syndrome because we’re learning how to be, how to show up, and part of that is trying on different hats to see what fits.

We’re growing as individuals. Our preferences are changing. Our level of awareness is increasing.

So even though I don’t believe we can be fully rid of it, that is the goal, isn’t it? --- to show up exactly as we are. Our true selves. In all areas of our lives.

And this requires a constant check in with ourselves to see what truly aligns.

And THIS requires blank space.

If we’re busy busy busy go go go all of the time, there’s never an opportunity to block out all of the noise that’s required to tap into the inner essence of who we really are.

Instead, if we’re busy busy busy go go go and always hustling as the perming monkey then we’re going to end up like my daughter in those after school hours. Anxious, stressed out, lacking patience, feeling overwhelmed.

Because we can’t be the performing monkey ALL the time. We’re not designed for this.

Even though this is really how society seems to condition us and want us to be.

Without the blank space, the downtime, the quiet, we can’t truly connect with ourselves.

We might have glimmers of self-awareness, but the performing monkey syndrome is so nuanced that it requires a deep dive. It requires time for all of the details to come to the surface.

It’s so nuanced that when you really pause, you’ll see things like the people pleasing performing monkey, constantly bending over backwards to help others WHILE at the same time the TRUE YOU gets joy out of helping others.

So the SAME behaviour can be BOTH a pattern of sabotage and performance to be loved AND in alignment with who you truly are.

The difference however, will be in where that act originates, the feeling you experience before, during and after.

And it’s these types of nuances that are very difficult (if not impossible) to uncover if you’re rushing through your days without any large blocks of time to reflect.

Or even a vehicle in which to reflect like mediation, journalling, a women’s circle, or something like the embodiment dance class I was telling you about.

So what I’m inviting you to do at this point is to ask yourself: Where are you still the performing monkey in your life? What aspects of your life, or areas of your life, are you still the performing monkey?

And who do you need to be to receive love from ______ (fill in the blank with each person in your life)?

Go easy on yourself as you reflect on this.

This is absolutely NOT meant to be a criticism or a way to put yourself down.

It’s mean to shed light on the shadow areas of yourself that have been holding you back from being your true self, of letting yourself shine bright.

And it is always always always a work in progress.