Progress not Perfection

You’ve heard it before I’m sure: Go for Progress, not Perfection.

Earlier this month, as the new decade began I randomly opened an old journal. It turned out to be the one from 2009 - 2010, the last time the decade changed. I found the day where I’d written my resolutions and was completely shocked as I read them: Address the sugar habit. Eat Better. Talk more openly with my husband. Love more fully. Be myself in the world more completely.

Those aren’t shocking resolutions, I know. They’re pretty lovely actually. What was shocking to me was that 10 years later I could easily have made the EXACT SAME ONES. I have not mastered any of them.

Reading the resolutions was disheartening to say the least. I mean, don’t I have it together on ANYTHING yet? When I wrote them I thought I’d give a little attention to them that year and then I’d have them completely under control. I had a perfectionistic viewpoint that it would all be done with in a year or less. So, knowing they are still issues made me feel like spinning myself a into web of self-judgement and depression. I went there a little bit.

But I knew it was the way I was thinking about the resolutions that was bringing me down. So I pulled myself back up by looking more clearly. I had to take the stance that was was important was progress, not perfection. With that mental viewpoint, everything changed.

When I looked for progress, I found it for EVERY resolution. I could find specific examples of ways that I’ve changed in each resolution. And when I felt into those shifts, I realized how much different my life feels ten years later. I am so much more relaxed, open, and loving than I was back then. I am so much more connected and available to my people. I think honestly, I am changing in a positive way. And as long as I can still measure progress, I seem to be on the right track.

I think those resolutions hit on some of the central challenges of my life. And given that, I may never fully master any of them. But, I have made progress on ALL of them. And that is tremendous. When I recognize my progress it gives me hope, and the hope is enough to buoy my spirits and keep me going.

When you shift to a progress, not perfection mindset it opens you up and gives you permission to be incomplete, imperfect, in progress. You don't have to be finished yet. You can still be working at things, moving along at your own pace.

You are an ever-evolving being with deeply held beliefs, tendencies, and issues. Your work is not to become some perfected being - your work is to be human and to make progress. You will know if your work is helpful by the changes you see and feel in yourself.

You may never be completed, but keep making progress and feel notice how much better your life feels.

Let’s continue together.