Perfectionism is an ideology that runs rampant in our modern world.
A lot of people feel like they’re under a lot of pressure to try to be perfect.
This could mean feeling like you need to get the best grades, that you need to perform the best at work, that you need to be the best parent, that you need to be the best friend or spouse, etc.
Stack a couple of these on top of each other, and you’re set up for quite a bit of stress and anxiety.
But here’s the thing.
Nobody’s perfect.
In fact, we’re going to go a step further and tell you something that you might see as being really radical.
Being perfect isn’t even the point anyway.
Sure, we would all love to think of ourselves as being this ‘perfect picture’ of whatever it is we’re trying to be.
But that’s not how life works.
And if you spend all of your time, energy, and effort trying to be that perfect person, guess what?
You’re going to set yourself up for failure right from the start.
And quite ironically, this could actually backfire and sabotage your efforts to do the best you can.
So, What’s The Solution?
The solution is actually really simple.
Instead of focusing on perfection, strive to just be a little bit better than the person you were yesterday.
If we’re always constantly trying to improve ourselves by small achievable increments, this will add up to big positive changes over time.
It’s like the metaphor of the pottery class…
A teacher instructed the first half of his pottery class to create the perfect piece of pottery, and instructed the second half to create as much pottery as possible.
The first class took all day trying to carefully construct the perfect piece—while the second class just started making pottery as fast as they could, throwing it in a pile, and moving on to the next one to get as much work accomplished as possible.
By the end of the day, when they compared their work, the classes were shocked to discover that the second class had actually created better pottery than the first class.
Why?
Because they had spent all day practicing and getting better at their craft.
This is a lesson that we could stand to learn in our modern-day world and society.
The goal isn’t to be perfect.
The goal isn’t to even try to be perfect.
The goal is to try to do your best and apply yourself using all of the knowledge and resources at your disposal.
Then, hopefully, in the process, you’ll learn a little something new that’ll help to make you even better at it.
And then, next time around, you’ll do an even better job—and thus, we continue.
This is a very reasonable way to live out our lives and accomplish tasks as humans.
So, for health and wellness’s sake, consider leaving perfectionism to the storybooks.
Stay grounded in the real world, and just do the best you can—and don’t forget to laugh, drink water, get great sleep, and be good to yourself.
It’s really not that complicated.
