When your goal is perfection, you set yourself up to lose. As a recovering perfectionist, it took me decades to realize that “perfection” is a moving goal, as soon as you get close to it, it moves just a little bit further away. It’s like a carrot on a stick being dangled in front of you and someone just keeps pulling it forward. So in one way it motivates you to continually keep moving towards it, but if you expect to catch that carrot, you are destined to feel like a failure.
So how do you learn to keep that motivation to keep improving, but not set yourself up to fail? Step one, realize that perfection is impossible. Nothing in nature is perfect. If it was, there would be no evolution. Nature is continually changing and making improvements. Step two, realize that the judge of perfection may not be perfect. The “perfect” body to one person is very different from another person’s definition of a perfect body. Your “perfect” performance at work might not be what your boss could appreciate due to their limited thinking. Step three, understand that attaining one aspect of perfection may lead to suffering in other areas. When you define the perfect life as having lots of money, it may come with a feeling of isolation or fear of loss. Step four, understanding that perfection attempts to set an end goal versus defining a journey. Life only has one finish line, and hopefully no one is trying to race to that as fast as they can! Enjoy the journey of your life; stop and meet people and take time to enjoy all the sights and smells and sounds along the way. Worry less about when you will arrive, and enjoy the pit stops along the way.
Nothing can be perfect in all ways. So as you fail to be perfect, you set up a spiral of failure where you then begin to feel like a failure and may lose focus on improving, or worse, may give up even trying. Failure can trigger worry, shame, upset, and other negative vibrations. Think of the person who starts a new restrictive diet or intense workout plan and then as soon as they cheat or fail to meet their goal one day, they just give up all together and sometimes even go as far as binge eating. They defined themselves as a failure instead of setting a goal of continual improvement which would have seen the setback as a brief stumble along a much longer journey. Take some time to stop and see where you might be judging yourself or feeling less than perfect, and see if you can shift that focus to one of loving what is now and moving towards constant improvement. Positive change always comes from a place of higher vibration.
Along the journey of life, you might stumble and fall a few times, but if you can keep getting up and moving towards that brighter future, you’re far more likely to enjoy the ride.
Now that you have seen the pursuit of perfection is flawed, you can pursue continual improvement! If you never stop trying to improve, you will always be pushing yourself to get better and be better. Love what is. Don’t settle for good when you can be great. Your best isn’t perfection, it’s simply an ever-improving version of yourself.
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