Deciding Between Progress And Perfection

Often, we focus on getting things just perfect before taking risks or moving forward for fear of it not being “just right.”  But self-leadership is much more about continuous improvement than any unattainable ideal of perfection. In fact, if you want to choose perfection over progress, you are quashing your opportunity to lead yourself in any effective way or get results that you are seeking in your personal and professional life.

There is a difference between a healthy striving for excellence and very counterproductive perfectionism. Here are the most common signs that you may be a perfectionist:

• You have very high standards. And sometimes those standards are too high for any one person to achieve.
• You thrive on organization and structure. And there are many times when this is not possible.
• You are very ambitious about your goals, which makes you strive and work harder. It can be a good thing, but then it also increases the pressure.
• You have difficulty getting over small mistakes and this is because you expect perfection in everything you do. This is an elusive concept, and even the best performers, athletes, and professionals make mistakes. It’s what you learn from them that makes the difference.
• You are prone to procrastination, because you are so focused on the result that you cannot focus on the process you need to take to achieve the thing you want to achieve. Then you may feel guilty for delaying what is required (Cleveland Clinic 2023).

Being a perfectionist and striving for excellence can sometimes seem like one and the same, but the differences can be found by asking yourself the following questions:

• How do I react to mistakes? Do I see them as opportunities for learning and growth, or do they cause me significant stress and self-criticism?
• Do I feel satisfaction from my achievements, or do I struggle to acknowledge them, instead focusing on tiny mistakes?
• Are my standards achievable and realistic or are they unattainably high?
• How does pursuit of my goals impact my well-being, relationships, and overall happiness? Does it enrich my life or make me more anxious?

Embracing Progress

Progress is a way of moving forward, when the pluses are more than the minuses in our life. If you pause for a moment to recall our definition of self-leadership as “the journey of growing inwardly to shine outwardly. Spiraling upwards through self-awareness, resilience, and purposeful action,” you’ll see that it’s all about progress. The focus on progress inside ourselves helps us create long-lasting progress outside ourselves. Understanding this truth is critical to our personal and professional success. A huge part of this is recognizing and celebrating the small wins in our life. Truthfully, celebrating small wins can be a real sticking point for me. I often feel like I have so much to accomplish and not enough time to slow myself down to appreciate those wins. Then I think about why I’m so driven to do more and accomplish so much.

Setting Realistic and Aspirational Goals

You may have heard of the famous SMART goal concept (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). While I like the acronym, I think there might be a simpler way to set goals that could get us to our end goal faster and with more gusto and pizazz. Let’s adopt a new way of setting goals using what I call the “ARC Method.”

• A stands for Aspirational Vision. You must first start by envisioning your desired future state or outcome. Think big and dream audaciously about what you want to achieve. This is the good stuff that gets you out of bed on tough days. It lights a fire in your soul in a much more compelling way. You want to be sure to define this vision in vivid detail, capturing the emotions, the experiences, and the impact you hope to create. Then ask yourself: What does success look and feel like? What is my ultimate dream? Just writing this gets me excited!
• R stands for Realistic Pathways. Once you come up with the aspirational vision, you will need to break it down into realistic pathways or strategies for achievement. Identify the specific steps, actions you will take, and resources you will need to move closer to your goal. Be sure to evaluate the feasibility of each pathway, considering factors like time, resources, skills, and potential obstacles. Then ask yourself: What are the most viable pathways for achieving my aspirational vision? What concrete steps can I take to progress toward my goal? This is when we start to make things happen. Things start to crystallize. You can begin to see the fruits of your hard work.
• C stands for Continuous Adaptation. If you have understood anything I have written so far, you know I believe strongly in continuous improvement and iteration. In this last step of the ARC Method, you want to embrace a mindset of continuous adaptation and flexibility as you work toward your goal. Recognize that circumstances might change, and adjustments might be necessary along the way. That’s okay. Stay open to the possibilities, opportunities, feedback, and learning experiences that can inform your journey.

This method of setting goals combines the realistic with the aspirational. It can keep you both grounded and a little dreamy, which, in my opinion, adds more excitement to our personal and professional path.

Remember, too, that adaptation is a critical part of this process. Do not confuse it with failure. Embedded in that word “failure” is a sense of giving up or lowering the bar on our expectations for ourselves. Adaptation says you can be fluid depending on the circumstances. Perfect represents a state of doneness that can never be found in an adaptable person.

Focusing on progress over perfection allows us to own our efforts and how we see the results they deliver. No more waiting or blaming, because you know that you are in complete control of how you see your intentional efforts.

This is an edited excerpt from The Art of Self-Leadership: Discover the Power Within You and Learn to Lead Yourself by Heather R. Younger (published by Wiley). All rights reserved. This book is available wherever books and eBooks are sold.