“Progress and not perfection” Lara Casey’s famous words have helped me many times calm the perfectionist voice that would rise to sabotage me.
One of the things I have learnt is that goals should be flexible to change and adjustment. It is interesting how we let the limitations that we have put on ourselves constrain us from moving forward. For example, if the goal was to finish a book in two weeks but your days were interrupted either by unexpected life situations, or you overslept or a string of other minor distractions resulted in finishing the book a week later, all of a sudden you fall into the trap of disappointment, frustration and discouragement.
These feelings become an invitation to the voice of perfectionism that when given a chance highlights all the shortcomings, the weaknesses and the failures causing you to feel completely useless.
Here are a couple of TIPS that helped me set and achieve my goals:
– Goal setting should be fun. One of the secrets of setting and achieving your goals is enjoying the journey. Make the process fun by first making sure that what I want is really what I want and not what my kids, partner, friends and other influencers in my life want for me.
– Goal achieving should be flexible. If I did not reach my goal for the day or month, then be willing to change it and move it further along rather than opening the door for perfectionism to scold you and tell you how useless you are. Stop and be kind and respectful to yourself by taking a moment and finding out why you did not meet the goal, what could have worked better and what do you need to help you do a better job. Would you want to be insulted and ridiculed at customer service if you could not quite comprehend the instructions of how a device worked? Nope! In fact, you would sue them for disrespecting you!! So, why do that to your beautiful, smart self ?
– Take 10 minutes everyday to ask yourself as you go through the tasks of the day – how willing am I to tackle this task? This is an attitude check. What do I need to tackle this task? This is a tool check?
Doing this will keep your mind clear and your attitude in check so that you can give the attention the task deserves. Not only that, but you protect yourself from the condemning voice of perfectionism.
In the words of Lara Casey “Progress not Perfectionism” is what will help you and me achieve our goals with vitality and energy. No matter the percentage of progress, it is STILL PROGRESS. You ARE moving forward.