Nobody's perfect (and that's OK)

"I’ve come across two quotes this week about being perfect.  Well actually about not being perfect.  The first was from Layne Beachley - “done is better than perfect”.  She was referring to not delegating because you believe you’re the only one who will do something properly.  Apart from this resulting in you thinking you have to do everything, you’ll probably also tell yourself a pretty good story about not having enough support.  

The other quote from Simon Sinek was “progress is more important than perfection”.  It’s very easy to let the inner critic run wild when you don’t get something quite right, especially when you're learning something new.  You might not get the desired result as soon as you'd like, but if you’re improving that’s enough.  As Mr Wonderful likes to say “an 80% improvement is a lot better than what you started with”.

Don Miguel Ruiz in his best-selling book The Four Agreements gave us another way of looking at things.  He said “always do your best" and with this he pointed out that your best will vary day to day.  One day you might be able to scale a mountain and another you might just want to curl up with a book and listen to the rain.  If you honour how you’re feeling on the day, you’ll probably do a great job of getting through that book.

So that’s my take away from the Universe dishing up two better than perfect quotes.  On those days when I have a dozen things in mind to do and it’s stinking hot and I lose all motivation, it’s alright.  There will be other days like today, when I wake refreshed and bounding with energy and run at the world and I find my best is better than it usually is and there’s really no need to strive for perfect.

Perfect isn’t about the way we do things like clean house, or write a report, or cook a meal.  Perfect is a sunrise, a magpie’s song, or a cooling breeze.  It’s nature and we’re part of that - and I can’t think of anything more perfect.

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