Perfection: A Land of Unicorns
“Practice makes… perfect.”
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Chances are you’ve heard this line shared with you more times than you can count over your lifetime. While this quote is intended to serve a positive message, I find myself cringing at its concluding word - perfect.
Ask anyone who knows me, and they have heard my mantra, “Perfection lives in a world full of unicorns.” I wholeheartedly stand by this statement. As a society, we are pushed towards having things reach the state of perfection when in reality, the bar keeps being raised, and thus perfection is always unattainable. We are reaching for something that doesn’t exist.
Why do we reach for perfection if it isn’t attainable?
As humans, we tend to veer toward the idea of perfection because we don’t want to be judged. If everything seems perfect, then we must be doing a great job at whatever it is that we are portraying. The fear of what people will think if we show the “mess” behind the journey prohibits us from exposing the genuine picture. Take five minutes to scroll through social media and it’s easy to believe that people are living perfect lives, in a perfect house, with a perfect work-life balance. This scene is not the true picture of their journey; it is however what they are hoping to portray to those watching.
How can we avoid reaching for perfection?
Start off by reminding yourself that perfection doesn’t exist. Even Marie Kondo, world-renowned tidying expert, recently admitted that keeping everything perfectly tidy wasn’t a reality or a priority for her life anymore. You may not see the mound of toys shoved into a closet as you view a magazine-worthy house on Instagram, but it’s there. People that are working towards their goals stumble, and sometimes are their own worst critic. Rather than being so harsh on yourself, try talking to yourself as if you were speaking to a friend in this situation. Follow that mental pep talk up with a healthy dose of reality - there are no unicorns…there is no perfection. Shifting your mindset won’t happen overnight, so continue to reinforce these ideals into the goals you’re tackling.
How do you know when things are “good enough”?
This can be a difficult concept to grapple with, but it’s important to recognize when things qualify as “good enough” status. For example, if you begin your day by making a plan to deep clean the kitchen, but find that other credible things popped up and you didn’t fully complete the task, take a moment to reflect on what you did accomplish. The dishes are clean so you can make dinner that night and the table has been cleaned off. While you may not have emptied out the fridge of old food or reorganized the disaster of a spice drawer, were those things necessary at this moment or are the wins good enough?
At The Goalden System, we work with people on developing goals and then crushing them. Is the journey a perfectly straight line? Far from it! To reach a goal, you have to be willing to fail…to watch things get messy…to shift outside your comfort zone. There is no magical finish line that serves as a marker for perfection when you reach your goal. Your motivation, willingness to grow, and support system greatly impact your success - be sure to fill your journey with the appropriate elements.
Be intentional when it comes to naming the “small wins” that occur on your journey. Focusing on the “small wins” can help break down the idea of perfection, as they give you the opportunity to celebrate progress.
How can you begin to practice focusing on the small wins that happen every day?
Write down your wins somewhere that you’ll see them.
Change your perspective: I wish this was closer to what I had hoped, but for now I’ll find joy in…
Say a phrase such as, “Perfection doesn’t exist. I will not put that pressure on myself for a made up concept.”
When you begin to shift your perspective toward the day-to-day wins rather than the illustrious and nonexistent perfection, you’ll begin to see the beauty in the journey - even if the journey is full of twists and turns…but no unicorns.
