Habitual Perfection Hurts: When "Good Enough" is Better Than "Perfect"

Humans weren’t designed for perfection. We are analog, not digital. Perfection is a concept that humans simply made up. Perfection consists of nothing more than the thoughts that create and sustain it. For millennia, even the Gods weren’t perfect! Monotheism cleared up that confusion. If there was to be only one, that one demanded perfection.

Perfection comes up often in my coaching of lawyers. The conceptual framework of law lends itself to perfection, particularly as it relates to other high value concepts such as truth and justice, both of which always will remain beyond perfection’s grasp.

Unfortunately, pursuing perfection is anything but “perfect.” Its pursuit can rob you of creativity, impede collaboration, lead to “tunnel thinking,” create stress, impair health, burden relationships, and deprive you of awe and wonder. Why? Perfection generally is fear driven. Fear closes down multiple intelligences. Cognitively, it feels safer to narrow the field of play - that’s where creativity is lost. Collaboration is sacrificed to maximize control - to avoid error. Somatically, fear is a stressor.

Habitual perfectionism keeps stress continuously present, compromising your immune system and making you vulnerable to heart attack or stroke. Emotionally, if you are constantly stressed, you shut down. You lose your emotional awareness, your ability to self regulate. Socially, you must have spent time with a “perfectionist,” right? Do you recall it as an engaging or enriching interaction? Why do you think it would be different for you?

But most importantly, it denies you your present existence. The quest for perfection gives rise to constant distraction - replaying past “failures” or worrying about future ones. Seeking perfection confirms the 80/20 rule. Your best work arises in the first 20 percent of effort; the remaining 80 percent is just diminishing returns.

Why is perfection sought? Somewhere, sometime, you came to the conclusion that you were not really good enough. Probably, you didn’t reach this conclusion on your own. Someone told you - a family member, a teacher, one of your peers, an employee. And you believed it. And you allowed this critic - this fear - a permanent voice in your narrative (the story you tell yourself about yourself).

And like most others, you tried to disguise your insecurity and shame - your acceptance of the erroneous judgment of others - by becoming judgmental yourself. You judge others, you judge yourself. Perfection is about judging. If you pause to listen while judging, who do you hear? Do you recognize the voice, the tone, the feeling? Can you track it to its source? As you consider your judging, consider what need does this judging serve? Who you are pleasing? Why is this pleasing important? And while you are judging yourself or others, examine what value this judging is creating. Is it conferring a benefit? Is it creating, enriching or sustaining a relationship?

Perfection is an externality. It is really not about growing you, your work, your health, your emotional well-being or your relationships. It is about meeting someone else’s measure - that “other” in you, who now may be lost to time and memory. Mozart created extraordinary music, first for his father, then perhaps later for himself. He gave us a gift, but at what personal price? Was Mozart’s music perfect? How about Pablo Picasso’s art? Or Tiger Woods’ golf? Art is a great antidote to perfection. For the artist, art resides in the creation and execution. It is not for anybody or anything but itself. Perfection is rigid, taut, hunkered down, and bodily absent. Art is spacious, open, creative and aware.

Find the art in your life and work. Let go of perfection. In fact, I will suggest a new standard - good enough. Good enough will wean you from perfection’s hold and create a platform for you to find your art. What does good enough include? It builds on a foundation of common sense ethics - no misrepresentation, no misappropriation, no intentional or negligent act of harm.

You need to understand your level of development relative to your engagement. Be realistic in your assessment. Being good enough is relative. You can express your art, irrespective of your developmental level. But your art continually evolves as a consequence of your accumulation of knowledge and experience. You must have a clear purpose for what you do and know your intended outcome. You need to prepare adequately for the undertaking by knowing what it entails, breaking it down into manageable tasks, understanding your limitations, and practicing the necessary skills to get “in shape.” Give yourself a spacious environment in which to work - let silence and awareness become a gift to your work. Create, where possible, when well and rested. Take some chances. It is possible to begin taking action, even as you continue research. Action can be your teacher. Work, engage, act until you have reached a satisfactory outcome, then ask someone of greater competency to review your work. Even the “greats” have coaches. Create and collaborate to your mutual satisfaction. That’s good enough! That’s how you begin to find your art.

A recent New Yorker article (“Personal Best: Top Athletes and Singers Have Coaches - Should You?” Oct. 3, 2011), written by a veteran surgeon who sought out a former professor as his surgical coach, discussed moving through four developmental levels - unconscious incompetency, conscious incompetency, conscious competency, unconscious competency. Not a word about perfection. Perfection resides only in unconscious incompetency. Once your limitations become conscious, you build your competencies and work toward your art, which blossoms in unconscious competency. Good enough awakens you to your potential and sustains your progress.