Today, a huge story shifted for me in my battles against perfectionism. One that when I really sit back and think about it, it’s going to change many different things.
I was talking with my dad on the phone about how I was having difficulty with stepping back from this mindset that was demanding everything be as close to perfection as possible.
In having worked with this in the past, I know that ultimately perfectionism is the enemy of done and I’ve done a pretty decent job in making progress on what I wanted to dig into.
But with new things I was trying to accomplish, there was this mindset that kept on coming back in that would constantly throw me off course or stall my movement forward.
He then told me this story about an old business partner of his and a slogan that was used over and over again to measure success.
“Is it good enough to win?”
Wow.
Honestly, all this time and through all these years I’ve been upholding some sort of standard with myself that doesn’t even focus on what I really want in the end.
It’s not about being perfect.
It’s not about being flawless in your execution of the task.
It’s about putting in the time, work, and energy necessary to win – whatever that ultimately looks like.
And this brings me right back to so many different moments in my life competing in sports where things either were messy or didn’t start off right, but no matter how the cards were stacked against me I still found a way to win.
Immediately I could feel the gears turning inside.
First, it made me question really what standard I had set for myself from the start. I couldn’t really even identify it. I knew it was something but it was hard to name.
And then, it really started making me think of what does it mean for me to win in this season of life?
What it would look like?
What it would feel like?
Who would I have to be?
You never know when the perspective is going to come. You can never really be sure of when something is going to click. But I think that if you continue to seek the answers and work with others on it, they arrive in the most unexpected of ways.
I keep saying it over and over to myself.
Is it good enough to win?
Of course, you’re the only one that can define that. When you’re competing in something, there are markers that define at the end of the game whether you won or lost.
But when it’s just you answering to your soul, you really have to dig in and start to answer that for yourself.
It’s not about beating someone else.
It’s not about proving something to the outside world.
At it’s core, it’s about you making you proud.
That’s what really matters. That’s what you have to answer to in the long run. Because at the end of the day, it’s going to be you sitting there reflecting upon how you lived your life.
Did you spend every moment trying to be perfect and as a result never getting anything done?
Or did you do what was necessary to take things to the next level, live in the best way you possibly could and make as much of an impact as possible.
That’s what I’m going for.
Impact.
Here we go.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project
“You never know when the perspective is going to come”. Isn’t this so true? I had one of those moments not too long ago – I was on the verge of giving up on a part of my journey that I fiercely started and I just kept feeling stuck. I couldn’t move forward and I couldn’t move back. I was just stuck. The only thing I could think of was to just stop and give up. I started to wonder if it was all worth it. Not even a week later, I finally turned that corner – I finally got the clarity I so desperately needed. I would have quit a week too soon. How dumb would that have been? Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s impossible to know how far into the journey we are. You can never tell how far you’ve gone or how far you still have to go. You just have to trust the process and carry on (even if it means temporarily just closing your eyes and just gunning for it). I loved this post 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Thank you. Your post itself is, for me, an example of “if you continue to seek the answers and work with others on it, they arrive in the most unexpected of ways.”
Haven’t seen your posts in a long while and you didn’t disappoint:). Thanks for sharing your pearls of wisdom. Your writing always speaks to me . . .
I love this concept! And it’s incredibly important to note, which you did, that “winning” should be defined by ourselves. Otherwise, we’re competing and winning in other people’s eyes, but ultimately potentially failing ourselves.
Wow! That will stick in my head. Sharing with my son. Thanks for sharing.