I have an admission to make. I used to have an issue with perfectionism. I am a recovering Perfectionist. I wanted everything to be a certain way and if it wasn’t, I managed to find a way to make myself (or others) feel bad about it. It was an awful feeling. Draining. Exhausting.
Then one day I just decided that I couldn’t do it anymore. Enough was enough. And things just had to be “good enough”. Not perfect. But good enough.
That was hard to get used to at first. I felt like I was lowering my standards. But then I realized that those were my own standards and by holding them so high (with certain things), I was only creating more suffering for myself. Once I was able to embrace the imperfection in what I was seeking to make “perfect”, it created so much more space in my day. And my body. I felt much lighter and more free. I felt I could breathe more deeply and didn’t have a ton of bricks weighing me down.
The floors are a mess and I don’t have time to do a deep clean. Quick vacuum. It’s sanitary. It looks clean. It’s good enough.
I only have 20 minutes to fit in a workout because my toddler just woke up from his nap. Let me just go all out for 10 mins with some HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). I’m still getting it in. It’s good enough.
I am not in the mood to write a blog post but made a commitment to myself to write at least once a week (my current situation…LOL!). Just sit down and write. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s good enough.
I’m practicing this piece of music for a choir rehearsal and still can’t seem to get this one passage down. Drop the tricky part and just play the bass line. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s good enough.
“Perfect is the enemy of good.”
~Voltaire
Perfect is also the enemy of getting things done.
I can’t even begin to count the number of times I didn’t do something or complete a project because it wasn’t “just so”. I struggled with embracing the imperfection and just letting it be good enough. 80% there. Embrace all the little imperfections. When you allow yourself to take a step back, is it really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things?
What can you do today to let go of some perfectionist qualities you may be holding on to?