If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.
― Leo Tolstoy
There was a time in my life when I waited for everything to be in perfect sync — before I took up a new task, adopted a new hobby, or changed my lifestyle. Then, after multiple unfruitful results or no results, I started giving new things a shot without many thoughts. It changed my life for good.
You can only get better at a task after multiple rounds of relentless practice. Waiting for everything to be perfect, on the other hand, is like a form of mental resistance to starting any new tasks at hand.
Seeking perfection is like a double-edged sword– on one hand, it can push you to break thresholds and perform higher than your set limits, on the other hand, it can delimit you to procrastinate about even taking the first step towards change.
If you genuinely want to be a high achiever then you’ll have to stop stalling and chase a few things which will be done imperfectly. It’s a tradeoff, you ought to be less perfect in a few things, to get the important work done. Beating the hesitation of venturing onto unfamiliar territories can be quite a challenge, so let me share a few secrets which have helped me overcome these mental blocks and take up new tasks easily-
- Practice Practice Practice
Want to get better at anything, the very first step is to get started. Followed by keeping a track of your performance from the previous days. Small improvements on a regular basis bring about staggering results over a long time. Compounding works its magic even for getting better at any new piece of work. So don’t wait up till you are perfect at something. Go on to become better at it one day at a time. - Give yourself room to make mistakes
Mistakes are going to be your biggest teachers. How will you do something right till you actually go wrong at it for the first time? Many of us grew up believing, making mistakes is bad. But it’s actually not bad at all, it can be a big-time learning lesson. You can not improve at something till you actually go wrong at it. Be real rather than perfect, and you’re bound to make mistakes when you’re real. And, the good part is being real is going to create an open space for you to learn. - Mindfulness
Being mindful of your actions and complete involvement in the present gives a soft spot for perfectionism to fade away.
Adopt the 70 % formula, a perfectionist has the urge to accomplish everything to 100 %, instead give a pep talk to yourself establishing 70 % as a new threshold of perfect accomplishments and letting the remaining 30 % be a window to make mistakes and improve. This way you can actually trick your brain and come out of the myth of perfection.
Perfectionism murders the 2 most important things necessary to have a purposeful life- satisfaction and finding meaning in your life. So to lead a more worthwhile life stop chasing flawlessness and instead try to improvise consistently. At the end of the day, productivity is not about getting more done, it’s about what you get done.
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