This article was inspired by and will elaborate on the following message that I wrote recently:
Whether or not it is perfect is subjective
The people, places, and things that I describe as perfect, most likely differ to the people, places, and things you would describe as perfect.
Our interpretations differ, so to does our assessment and description – it is conceivable that two people can witness the same thing and yet describe it in vastly different ways.
So, the question I ask is; whose interpretation of perfection are you trying to satisfy? yours or everyone else’s?
If you answered yours then I commend you.
However, I would also challenge you to reflect on your interpretation of perfection, is it completely authentic? or is it contrived from your environment and those who encompass it?
I would also ask you to consider that at some stage (whatever the field you are in) someone else is going to have to describe you or what you do as “perfect” for you to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
1 + 1 
2
2The phrases; “strive for perfection” or “practice makes perfect” are what inspired me to write the message above.
Both make a push for you to do more and both insinuate that if you do more then you will achieve blank, which I don’t believe to be true for a couple of reasons:
- Doing something more, does not guarantee that it will become perfect, in actuality continually doing more and more and more, may actually push you further away from where you want to be.
- Unfortunately, nothing is guaranteed. In your pursuit to do something perfectly, there are so many uncontrollable factors that are going to influence your performance, there is also many uncontrollable variables that may influence whether or not you even get the opportunity to be in an environment where you can be perfect.
These two reasons go against some of the fairytale beliefs we can sometimes fall into, but unfortunately they are reality.
You will always (perceive that you) fall short
Perhaps part of the reason I am biased to think perfection is unattainable is because I, in the past, have strived to attain perfection and guess what… I always fell short.
Why did I always fall short? even to my own standards?
I don’t believe it was due to a lack of commitment or work ethic, in fact both of those things, in combination with not doing something perfect, led to me being burnt out and emotionally overwhelmed.
What I do believe is I was missing awareness and understanding of a couple of things:
- Awareness of execution rather than outcome. There was no critical thinking on how to do things, rather just hyper focus on the outcome I was chasing.
- A lack of understanding of perception, specifically that everyone’s is different. You may have the intent of coming off one way, but it can very easily come across as something vastly different to those around you. You cannot satisfy what you cannot control.
Unfortunately, our brains tend to have this negativity bias, we are always going to see fault with self. Author David Foster Wallace said that you will fall victim to what you worship – if you worship perfection you are always going to see yourself as lesser, not enough.
What do we chase instead?
Does the chase for perfection ever end? In my opinion, no. From my experience, the people who are driven enough to desire perfection in some way are also too self critical to ever give themselves the recognition that they may have achieved it.
So, what do we chase instead?
Fulfillment.
To me fulfillment is being content, whilst not being complacent. You still have the desire and commitment to be the best version of you or perform something to the best of your abilities, but you also have a peacefulness about you.
This peacefulness is the understanding and awareness that there are things out of your control that may become setbacks for you. It is also the ability to still be happy knowing you gave the best version of yourself and it still (for whatever reason) wasn’t enough.
It’s an incredibly challenging skill, but it is one we all need to practice. The ability to look at oneself honestly and acknowledge that you are not perfect, you have flaws, and you’ve fallen short, but you are still happy.
