When Perfection Becomes the Enemy of Good

Why aiming for progress, rather than perfection, is a winning recipe for success.

We often aim for perfection thinking obtaining it will produce the BEST result. We do this in almost every area of our life. Think about it, I’ll bet you find it to be true of you too. We think:

• 1 hour workout is better than 30-minutes.

• 2,000kcal is better than 2,500kcal if we’re trying to lose weight.

• 50 hours at work is better than 40 in terms of production.

The list is endless.

I am not saying we shouldn’t strive to push our limits and grow. We should. It prevents us from getting bored in a certain area of our lives at the very least.

The problem I’ve observed is this: if we’re always aiming for perfection (optimal), we spend our lives never really taking any action at all. You see, for many, the very idea of perfection prevents them from even getting started and it's really tough to make progress if you don't simply get started.

Below is a small example of our scoring system in Valley to Peak. We rank three areas: nutrition, rest/recovery, and activity. These are each ranked by how the member of the group scores themselves (1-5) on that category. This is an example of someone's "scorecard" from one week to another. There is literally 1 week between the two.

It’s easy to think we’re aiming for a perfect score in every category, but we’re not. We're not at all. In fact, what we're actually after is small amounts of progress that compound over time.

If we spent our time aiming for a perfect score every week, we’d feel defeated VERY quick and end up changing nothing at all. Why chase something that’s impossible to achieve; right?

The goal isn’t perfection…it’s improvement. Focus on that and it's impossible to ever feel defeated.

I’d love to hear what one thing is you think you can improve- not be perfect- on this week? Hit reply and tell me about it!

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