– Do Your Best & Forget The Rest: Stop Trying to be Perfect –
“If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.”
— Anna Karenina
Years ago, my wife talked me into P90X. It’s a 90-day workout program on video. It’s intense – especially at first. There are times during each one-hour workout where you’ll want to rest, stop, or quit – particularly if you’re going as hard as they are in the video. The spokesperson/athlete in charge is Tony Horton. He’s a mix of workout coach and entertainer. At first it’s hard to listen to him and do the workout. After a while, you’re able to do both and sort of laugh at his jokes. After doing P90X for a long time, however, you’re able to glean some deeper meaning from his words. I’ve learned that Tony Horton is an exercise guru and somewhat of a philosopher.
One of the more profound things he repeats almost every workout is, “Do your best and forget the rest.” The idea is to try as hard as your mind and body will allow you. At first, I was sort of like, “Well duh, brother!” But then I thought about his point on a deeper, life level. He’s right on the physical fitness stuff. If you try and keep up with these professional exercisers for an hour – especially as a rookie P90Xer, you will give up. If you try and do as many push ups or lift as much weight as they do for an hour, the videos will collect dust; you won’t push play. The bottom line is: If you try and do P90X perfectly, you’ll quit and it won’t work. Just push play and do 5 pushups when they do 20. Do sit ups for 10 seconds instead of 60. After time, you’ll start to catch up.
The key is that this is not only sage advice for exercise but also for life. When we seek perfection in any aspect of our life . . . we invariably fail. Humans are NOT made to be perfect. In fact, even the best make mistakes all the time. Tom Brady throws interceptions, Beyonce messes up her lyrics once in a while. The average person farts 14 times a day. These are all facts. When perfectionists mess up, we get stressed and demoralized. Eventually we settle or just give up. There is no doubt that people aren’t perfect. And . , , it’s silly to keep seeking perfection. Instead, we need to take Tony Horton’s advice and just start to do our best and then move on to the next challenge.
Application: How To Do Your Best
Here is some advice for achieving your goals . . . just not perfectly.
- Be tight with your work, not perfect – do the best you can after factoring in your time, resources, energy, priorities, budget, etc. This means that you will turn things in on time even if they aren’t perfect. It does not mean that they are riddled with errors and mistakes, though. They can and should still exceed expectations. The little stuff still matters of course. The key is to take your task at hand and then ask:
- How much time do I have to do this?
- How much energy do I have now and how much am I likely to have over this period?
- Where does this project rank on my priorities list?
- What must I sacrifice to get this done?
With all this factored in, you do the best you can. Then, you forget that it could’ve been better. You move on to the next project and use the same test. You can always try and increase your efficiency to give yourself more time. You can always take some stuff off your plate so you have more time and energy. There are ways to improve without being perfect.
- You cannot demand that the people in your life be perfect, but you better demand that they be good – this could be a great bumper sticker, but it’s just too long – it would reach taillight to taillight. The idea here is that we aren’t and can’t be perfect. A perfect person would not fart 14 times a day. This means that we can give ourselves a break. It also means that it is unfair for us to demand perfection from anyone else in our lives. That is a ticket to Frustration Station, a set up for let down after let down. The better approach is to demand that the people you let into your life be good people. This means that they care about their character and are trying to live a moral life. They will screw up just like you do. And that’s okay. Just expect them to be the best they can be at the time and you do the same. Author Donald Miller expressed this idea well: “When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
- This does not mean you must settle – just because you aren’t perfect doesn’t mean you’re not amazing. Read that sentence again. Ignoring the perfectionist urge says nothing about you other than that you are rational and realistic. This philosophy does not mean that you cannot produce great work or be at the top of your game. Here is an absolute fact . . . the top people in any field aren’t perfect. Read that sentence again too. They got to that level not by being perfect but doing their best more often than others. That – along with some luck – was enough to vault them to the top. You can be there too.
- Perfectionism is Exhausting – so is learning to fly with your arms, predicting the future, or anything else that is literally impossible. Think of all the self-inflicted stress caused by the desire to be perfect. Think of how many things that have sat on your desk, on your to-do list, or in your mind because you couldn’t make them perfect. That is a shame. The advice holds here too – do your best and turn it in, get it done, put it out there. That’s the motivation behind this blog in all honesty. These posts aren’t perfect – they are nowhere close. But, they are good and the best I can do considering my time, resources, and energy. I do my best and hit “Publish.” You can too.
The Bottom Line
The world tells us to seek perfection and that’s nonsense. The better advice is to do your best and forget the rest. Keep trying to improve and learn better ways to do things. Be awesome in what you do and in who you are. You’ll never be perfect and the sooner you accept that the better. Make it a new year’s resolution – instead – to strive for greatness and not perfection. This is a resolution you can actually keep. Best of success in this venture!
More soon,
Corey
- Check out COREYSPEAKS.COM for more on popular keynote speaker Corey Ciocchetti. Corey has keynotes on happiness, integrity, ethical leadership, ethical decision-making, morale, stress reduction, and professionalism. Corey has spoken in 44 states and over 250 cities since 2007.
- Check out Corey’s other cool ethics blog posts on LEADERSHIP and HAPPINESS – you won’t regret it.
- Corey’s new book, INSPIRE INTEGRITY: CHASE AN AUTHENTIC LIFE is available now!
