The Impractical Goal of Perfection

Most of us try to do our best and be our best. There’s nothing wrong in that. Pushing ourselves to be better is a good thing. Pushing ourselves to total perfection is pointless, and sometimes counter-productive in our goals. Especially if we keep failing to achieve it.

Let me explain.

We, as humans, like to win. When we set out to accomplish something, we want to achieve it, and that’s a win. If we don’t allow ourselves to get to the finish line in our achievement, we feel like we lost.

To NOT allow ourselves to reach or arrive at the goal we set out to achieve, we feel like we’ve failed. And that often happens when we’re not satisfied with the outcome, or end result of our achievement.

I get that. We want to feel satisfied when we’ve reached a goal. And, when we don’t, we keep adding things to that goal, sometimes things that are impossible to obtain.

So we set ourselves up for failure time and again, over and over, because we’re never satisfied when we achieve a goal.

The thing is, first take a win on getting to the goal line, even if it doesn’t bring the kind of joy that warrants a big celebration and lots of party hats. You’ve accomplished something. That’s good.

Now, if you want to add to that goal to make that achievement even better, make a new goal. And one that is attainable, not impossible.

Keep taking wins whenever you accomplish something.

Remember, not reaching perfection is NOT failure. You only fail when you stop.

This relates to getting organized, which is what made me think of this topic. When you set out to get better organized, take wins along the way. Set small goals at first and, when you achieve them, you’ve prevailed – you’ve won.

Don’t go for perfection in your organizing quest. That will keep you going and going and never arriving, especially if you’ve made impossible goals, like a $2000 closet system when you can only afford $100 or less to get your closet organized.

See what I mean?

Make your goal to organize the closet and get that done. You can always add to that goal by making a new broad-range goal that’s achievable later.

And start taking more wins.