“It’s because they trained us to think only an A or a B was acceptable,” said Doreen, my brilliant mastermind friend (and editor).
And right she was.
How often have you heard variations of “progress not perfection” recently? Perfection is the big enemy, the distractor, the lame excuse to procrastinate, stall, and not perform. Online, you’ll hear this most often about publishing content, which makes people understandably scared.
But what about any project? Even ones that no one sees?
“20% is better than 0%”, Doreen said.
It should be logically obvious that any progress is better than none. If I want to declutter my closet, or reorganize my office, I’m better off doing just one drawer today, one shelf tomorrow, until I actually finish, than doing nothing at all. Right?
And yet, it doesn’t feel right.
- 20% or even 50% is an F. That’s difficult to appreciate if you don’t consciously choose to celebrate small wins.
Seeing results from small steps requires consistency, so they add up to real and exciting progress. - With all the progress that I’ve made, it’s hard for me not to have a knee-jerk inner critic eye-roll and “meh” response.
When I think of how much unhappiness this arbitrary standard has caused me, and how it affects almost all my friends, and worse, my kids (!) it makes me wonder how anyone ever makes any progress at all. For a second, I even considered homeschooling my kids. #not
What does help is tracking daily progress, either in any sort of calendar or table, like Seinfeld’s productivity chain, in a bullet journal, in an objectives-oriented planner (I use the Full Focus Planner**), or a habit dashboard/minimalist journal.
And the celebrations?
That’s a whole other topic…
**Let me know if you’re interested in a FFP. You can get $10 off if I refer you, and so will I!
Like with Heather, starting is often the big hurdle for me, but once I do, I tend to keep going and realize I’ve made the ‘task’ into something more than it was, which is a good thing. It’s the same with exercise, if I just start and stay consistent, even if I don’t feel like and even if some days I take it very easy, it becomes a wonderful habit. As for the cleaning of closets, for me, I’ve learned to block a chunk of time and then I take everything out and start over. The middle part is quite messy but it works really well and I’m always happy at the end…well, at least for 6 months before the clutter piles up again! 🙂
I too regularly lose track of the accomplishments. Being focused on whatever the next thing is keeps me from sticking my head up enough to turn around and see where I came from.
There’s a trail I used to climb in Colorado called The Manitou Incline. It’s an old rail line and for years it was an illegal trail. It’s basically a stairway straight up the first chunk of Pikes Peak. You’re so focused on climbing that you don’t look back. When you do, it’s almost jarring how fast the trail drops off below you. Feel like I too often end up in the same place.
What an inspiring image! Maybe one day I could climb the Manitou Incline as well…
Thank you for this Shlomit! I resonate entirely with this and just wish I knew better about progress years ago. I’ve struggled as an adult because of this false belief in perfection. It still irks me when I hear parents say to their kids “practice makes perfect.” I often wonder, “did they not suffer the way I did with this?”
I’m now thinking out loud. I often got “perfect” on things and maybe that’s the difference. For those who didn’t, “perfection” wasn’t a goal, it was a direction akin to “progress”? And perhaps that’s the biggest irony and explains why I appreciate this article so much.
You just got my thinking about grade inflation, Crystal. Both my parents were excellent students, the best in their class in some subjects, but when I saw their high school diplomas I was shocked that their grades were in the 70-80 range. My mom told me that back then, their teachers used to say 90 was for the teacher and 100 was for God… 😉
Maybe back then perfect was really progress, too, and we lost that insight along the way.
Bug steps, not even small steps are what it takes sometimes.
I had an interesting conversation with a client recently where we uncovered that striving for perfection was a triggered threat response she inherited from her mother. Recognizing that her mother strove for perfection as a means of survival during the formative years of her childhood enabled her to view the drive within herself differently.
I cannot even tell you how much I LOVE this, Shlomit. The overall point but also your honesty and the overall point. I was a good ‘student’ in the traditional ways you describe but that doesn’t necessarily translate well into being a functioning adult who wants to do things in the world. I presented something on Friday to an internal team that was well-baked but not fully baked. At another time in my life, I would not have done that and would have rescheduled the meeting. Now, thanks to people like you (I’m saving that Jerry Seinfeld link for later), Akimbo and Go Go Done, I know better. My son (19) has definitely bought into this mindset and I’m trying to coach him out of it. 🙂 My daughter (17) has never really had this mindset which presents a whole host of other challenges, especially at school.
I’m also trying to be a good role model to my kids, but it’s tough! They internalize so many messages that contradict this. You go for presenting the well-baked version!
I love this. For me, starting is HUGE and I get stuck in a place of – why start if I can’t finish it. And that attitude has obliterated a ton of 20-minute windows that could build on one another and lead to massive forward progress.
I’m also big on the big challenge of just starting anything. If you can start, the ball will keep rolling.
It’s a great point. I almost always feel a sense of accomplishment, even when only pushing a project forward 5 or 10% because it’s that much closer to completion, and I’m not being graded on it.